Wendy Chamberlain
Main Page: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)Department Debates - View all Wendy Chamberlain's debates with the Home Office
Daniel Morgan Independent Panel Report
Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Kit Malthouse
The hon. Lady is right that the rapid recruitment has put strains on the system, but we have been monitoring it very closely to ensure that the system is able to cope, and I believe that it is. I know she is not suggesting that the vast majority of recruits are not right-thinking and correct in their values, and I hope and believe that is the case. One of the improvements that the inspectorate did note that the Metropolitan police has achieved over the past couple of years is an elimination almost of the vetting backlog, which just three or four years ago stood at something like 37,000, astonishingly. That has now been almost eliminated. That is a silver lining to the cloud of this report. As far as vetting is concerned, we have debated that just recently in the House. There are improvements that need to be made, not least on the monitoring of social media, which has just started in the Metropolitan police. It is an area to which we need to pay constant attention if we are to build that trust with London’s communities.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
This review today is rightly about what the Metropolitan police is doing now, but it has resulted from the Daniel Morgan report, and there are still outstanding issues arising from that report, as referred to by the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), who is no longer in her place. Indeed, my constituent, a former serving police officer, approached me for support because he had a complaint in relation to his treatment by the Metropolitan police while he was involved in the Morgan inquiry, and he has had no satisfactory outcome. He has now approached the IOPC. Will the Minister meet me to discuss how we can get some degree of finding for my constituent?
Kit Malthouse
I am hesitant to intervene in an independent process. Given the hon. Lady’s experience in policing, she will know that. If she thinks a meeting with me and her constituent would be useful once the IOPC has concluded, I would be more than happy to do so.