Sexual Misconduct in the Police

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I applaud the sentiments behind my right hon. Friend’s work in this area. NDAs are profoundly to be avoided. I cannot, I have to say, envisage the circumstances in which they would be used in policing, not least because, as I said earlier, following changes in the law, offences of this type have to be referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct. Decisions are therefore taken independently in terms of the investigation and the proposed sanction. The disciplinary structure around police constables, which then follows those allegations or charges, is an independent one, run by an independent panel and with an independent qualified chair who makes decisions about disclosure or otherwise regarding the case. I cannot see that an NDA would necessarily be applicable in those circumstances, but she is right to point out that they are deeply undesirable.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

Forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I add my voice to the tributes we heard earlier to James Brokenshire. I worked with him, and always found him to be charming, committed and thoughtful.

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) for tabling this urgent question. The killings of Sarah Everard, Sabina Nessa, Bibaa Henry, Nicole Smallman and others have shone a light on the epidemic of violence against women and girls. Zoë Billingham, from Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, defined this epidemic in her recent report. She said:

“The problem is known, consistent and deep-rooted in its presence, and growing in the forms it takes.”

We cannot hope to tackle violence against women and girls unless we can be sure that those who are here to protect us will not turn on us. Every police officer I have spoken to since Sarah’s murder has said the same: they, more than anyone, want to root out any opportunity for perpetrators to join our police service, and they want to ensure that the culture and climate in every force enables victims to have the confidence to come forward.

To rebuild the trust and confidence of women and girls in police, there must be a comprehensive, independent inquiry on a statutory footing. The Minister said that the public are in urgent need of reassurance, and that is absolutely correct, but a non-statutory inquiry cannot act in the same way as a statutory one. It cannot compel witnesses to testify, it cannot demand documents and the evidence it hears will not be under oath, and we do not believe that is good enough. It is clear that we need to look at the whole system: the vetting process, the misconduct process, working cultures, misogyny and sexism within the police force and training processes. This could be a watershed moment, and it must not be left to women and girls to make this happen.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) asked this week, when will the Home Secretary implement the recommendations of Zoë Billingham’s report? When will the Government reform and invest in our police force, our criminal justice system and wider public services so that we are ready to start tackling this epidemic? For women and girls everywhere, and for our police officers who are devastated at the betrayal of everything they stand for, things cannot remain as they are. We would work with the Government, and thank them for it, if they took this moment to bring profound change.

[Kit Malthouse]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. On her substantive point about the inquiry, she will know that a statutory inquiry is a very long-winded affair to set up, and a non-statutory inquiry can be much quicker. She will also be aware that it is contrary to regulations, since a change in the law recently, for a police officer not to co-operate with such an inquiry, whether statutory or otherwise, and they would be subject to disciplinary proceedings if they did not co-operate. Having said that, if the chair of the inquiry feels that he or she is not getting the co-operation or the information they need, we have reserved the right to convert the inquiry into a statutory one.

The hon. Lady is right that the inquiry forms part of a suite of tools that we need to restore and enhance the confidence particularly of women and girls in our police forces. One of those processes is what we are seeing with the uplift programme, which is essentially a greater feminisation of UK policing. We have moved over the past 10 years from 25% of the force being female to just over a third, and we have a number of forces where more than half of new recruits are female. I am hopeful that that progress will mean that women and girls feel that the police force better reflects them and may result in better contemplation of these issues.