Metropolitan Police Service

Tom Brake Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. In calling the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), I congratulate him on his elevation to the Privy Council.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I, too, pay tribute to the officer shot in Croydon and to all officers who put their lives on the line to keep us safe.

Will the Home Secretary join me in urging the Metropolitan police to move urgently to rebuild their senior team to focus on next year’s Olympics and security concerns surrounding the games? Will she strengthen the proposed checks and balances that will apply to elected police and crime commissioners to ensure that neither elected police and crime commissioners nor chief constables can get embroiled in any scandals of any nature once those commissioners are elected?

[Mrs May]

My right hon. Friend talks about checks and balances. As he will know, we have strengthened the checks and balances that will be provided by the police and crime panels to the police and crime commissioners as the Bill has progressed through the House of Commons and House of Lords. We have made important improvements to those checks and balances.

As regards the senior leadership of the Met, it is entirely right that we move quickly to reinforce it. The additional resilience of bringing in somebody from outside in Bernard Hogan-Howe is important and the immediate step was to ensure that the counter-terrorism post is filled. I can assure the House that the work on the security and safety of the Olympics carries on under Assistant Commissioner Chris Allison, in particular, and he has been doing an extremely good job.