Before I call the Home Secretary to make her statement, I remind Members of the sub judice rule. [Interruption.] Please, this is very important for all of us. In deciding how to apply the sub judice rule, I have to balance the public interest of the House considering matters of policy and public concern as soon as possible and the public interest in respecting the respective roles of Parliament and the courts. One of the purposes of the rule is to prevent the House even appearing to exert pressure on judicial decisions. This is why the rule applies until sentencing. Even though there has been a guilty plea, the sub judice rule applies in the case of David Carrick, except to the extent I have permitted reference to the case to give context to the statement. In particular, Members should concentrate on policy issues and avoid speculation about sentencing. I now call the Home Secretary.
With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on misconduct and vetting in the Metropolitan Police Service following the horrific David Carrick case, and I thank you for your statement.
Yesterday was a dark day for British policing and the Metropolitan police, as an officer admitted being responsible for a monstrous campaign of abuse. I am sure the whole House will want to join me in expressing sympathy to the victims and in thanking them for their courage in coming forward. It is intolerable for them to have suffered as they have. They were manipulated and isolated, and subjected to horrific abuse. For anyone to have gone through such torment is harrowing, but for it to have happened at the hands of someone they entrusted to keep people safe is almost beyond comprehension. The victims have shown extraordinary strength and courage. Their testimonies were essential in ensuring that Carrick faces justice for his crimes. It is thanks to them that this vile predator has been taken off our streets, and the public are safer as a result.
The police perform a unique and critical function in our society. Every day, thousands of decent, hard-working police officers perform their duties with the utmost professionalism. They feel pride in putting on their uniform and want only the best for the communities they serve. I know that they will share our collective disgust that a fellow officer could be responsible for such a despicable betrayal of everything that they stand for. It is imperative that this cannot happen again, so I am grateful for Lady Elish Angiolini’s assurance that she will look at this heinous case as part of her inquiry.
From the moment I became Home Secretary, I have made it clear that things have to change. Public trust is precious. Our model of policing by consent cannot work effectively without it. I discussed this case yesterday with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, and I am encouraged by the action he has taken so far with his team to root out officers who are not fit to wear the badge. This effort is being spearheaded by a new anti-corruption and abuse command, but there is still some way to go to ensure that the force can command the trust of the people that it serves.
This is a truly shocking and appalling case, and I welcome the statement today. A serving police officer has admitted to some of the most serious and devastating crimes. I join the Home Secretary in paying tribute to the bravery of the victims who have come forward, but we must face up to the further evidence that this case has brought up of appalling failures in the police’s vetting and misconduct processes, which are still not being addressed by the Government and are not addressed in this statement. Given the scale of the problems not just in this case but in previous cases, the Home Secretary’s statement is very weak and shows a serious lack of leadership on something that is so grave and that affects confidence in policing as well as serious crimes.
We have seen repeated failures by serving police officers to respond to or take seriously allegations of violence against women by a serving police officer. Allegations of domestic abuse have not been taken seriously in the vetting processes. In this case, there was a failure to suspend David Carrick when rape allegations were made in July 2021, even though the Met police knew there had been domestic abuse allegations two years previously. A misconduct process concluded that there was no case to answer, despite the repeated alarms raised. A full vetting check was not triggered, and David Carrick’s permission to carry firearms was restored.
Most shocking of all is that this happened at the height of the alarm about Wayne Couzens and the deeply disturbing murder of Sarah Everard. This undermines confidence for women and for victims but also for police officers who are working so hard—especially women police officers, who may themselves have reported misogynistic abuse, and officers who are doing excellent work every day to tackle violence against women and girls and know that confidence in that work is being undermined.
It is disappointing that the shadow Home Secretary has resorted to cheap political lines; I do not think that today is a day for political attacks. There is a human tragedy at the heart of this case, and ultimately, politics should be set aside. I am willing to work with anybody—the inspectorate; the politician with overriding responsibility for the Met police, who is a Labour politician, Sadiq Khan; all the chief constables; and everybody in the Chamber—to bring about change and safety, and to improve standards in our police forces around the country.
That is why I support the Met Commissioner’s statement yesterday, in which he accepted that there were failings. There is no question about that: there were failings in the system when it came to vetting and checking, and there were failures by the Met police. It is clear that culture and standards in the police need to change, which is why I will not shy away from challenging chief constables around the country on the standards that they uphold and instil in their individual forces.
Police constables and police leaders have all accepted the recommendations set out in the inspectorate’s comprehensive report, which was commissioned by the Government in response to Sarah Everard’s murder to look more closely at the procedures that have been put in place and how well they have been working when it comes to vetting, checking, monitoring and disciplinary processes related to policing. That report clearly identified several concerns and failings in policing, and made recommendations, the bulk of which were aimed at police constables, the College of Policing, and the National Policing Board.
All those recommendations have been accepted and we are closely monitoring the delivery of those improvements in rigour and standards when it comes to the entry processes, vetting and checking for new recruits to policing. We have also ensured that Lady Angiolini will look more closely into the culture of policing so that we can better implement and deliver systems that will root out misogyny, predatory behaviour, sexual assault or any other offensive behaviour that might lead to criminal activity within policing.
There is no doubt that it is a sorry, and in fact tragic, state of affairs that the House has convened to discuss this issue again today. The Home Secretary will fully recognise that reviews have been commissioned since 2021, which led to the Angiolini inquiry, and obviously this will feature in part 2. It would be welcome if the Home Secretary would explain how that will work and when it will report. Since then, we have had not only the Angiolini work, but the Louise Casey review, which was damning, and the inspectorate’s report, which, I am afraid, was also damning on a raft of issues, such as security, vetting, misogyny, practices and the whole culture of policing, as mentioned by the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper).
The recommendations are already there. In fact, if I may say so to the Home Secretary, previous Policing Ministers and I put forward proper recommendations for the strategic policing requirement. There are issues that could be resolved so that people could be held to account sooner rather than later through that requirement. I urge her to consider, particularly after the tragic cases that we have heard about in relation to the Carrick incident and his victims, putting much of that on to a statutory footing. If we do not, we will be here again and again to pay tribute to victims while, frankly, parts of the law enforcement system continue to fail the British public and fail victims.
I reiterate my thanks and tribute to my right hon. Friend for her leadership when she was in this role. She led from the front in the fight to protect women and girls and to uphold their safety. Lady Elish Angiolini has confirmed that she will consider the Carrick case in her inquiry and, as I mentioned, part 2 will be brought forward. We expect it to provide an examination of the wider issues in policing, such as culture, vetting and the safety of women, which are relevant to the appalling case that we have heard about this week. I confirm that violence against women and girls will be included in the strategic policing requirement.
I thank the Home Secretary for her statement and I put on record the SNP’s tribute to the victims in this case for their bravery in the face of ongoing trauma.
The charges that have been brought against David Carrick are incredibly disturbing—49 charges, including 24 counts of rape against 12 women over two decades, with accounts of domestic violence and coercive control. Through that, the Met has sought to protect its own, which is also incredibly disturbing and has led the former Victims’ Commissioner Dame Vera Baird to question the commitment to culture change at Scotland Yard.
It has been reported that the Met is checking back through 1,633 cases of alleged sexual offences involving 1,071 officers in the past decade. What retrospective action does the Home Secretary expect from that review? It should be a worry to all of us that those officers are still out there in their jobs, and that we may face what David Carrick reportedly told women when he flashed his warrant card: “I’m a police officer, you’re safe with me”—a chilling prospect. How does she intend to ensure that the review is thoroughly carried out? What updates can the House expect?
Lady Elish Angiolini has worked with Police Scotland to improve standards on this, and work is ongoing in Scotland too. How can women and people with vulnerabilities have the confidence that, if something happens to them while they are in London, the Met will respond in a proper way that respects their dignity?
The hon. Lady asks a series of good questions. To give more detail about the Met Commissioner’s commitments to strengthen the procedures, there is already a strengthening of the vetting of officers; an active review of historical cases is ongoing, where there may be a flag on the system for domestic incidents; and a data washing process is ongoing to ensure that the Met’s data is being very extensively checked against rigorously managed national databases. That is all being led by a new anti-corruption and abuse command unit, which is instilling an institutionally higher standard of managing and overseeing the important issue of vetting.
Apparently Carrick was known as “Bastard Dave” by his colleagues, in the same way as Wayne Couzens was known as “the rapist”, but alarm bells were not rung. The most worrying aspect of this is the culture of cover-up and complacency that has allowed such abuse to happen on an industrial scale by certain individuals—in this case, for 17 years.
When the new Met Commissioner appeared before the Home Affairs Committee, we were encouraged that he expressed his determination to root out that mindset and those offenders. I ask the Home Secretary to comment specifically on his queries and concerns, however, about the difficulty of sacking officers; about why professional standards are not investigating more of those cases; that it is not suitable to put officers who have been accused of serious offences on to light duties—they should be fully suspended—and that there should be a duty of care for whistleblowing. What urgent action will she now take on those issues to restore some confidence, particularly in the Met and especially among women?
My hon. Friend raises a very good point about the disciplinary process. Indeed, Sir Mark Rowley himself has spoken at length—not just at the Select Committee, but more broadly—about the challenges he has faced in trying to dismiss patently inappropriate officers. He has come up against a heavily bureaucratic process that is not working, and that is why I have today launched a review into the process of police officer dismissals. I want to ensure that we have a fair and effective system for removing those officers who are simply not fit to serve.
This case, which has rightly shocked the nation, is yet another appalling example of systematic failures within the police to confront male violence against women and girls, and the sexist culture that exists within the police. Again and again, the Home Affairs Committee has heard evidence of how weak or non-existent vetting and misconduct processes have allowed violent male officers to continue harassing and abusing women—not just in London, but in forces across the country.
The Metropolitan Police Commissioner has, as I understand it, made specific demands of the Home Secretary in relation to changes to the dismissal of officers, so could she just update the House as to what she is going to do about those specific requests, and why do we need a review when it is quite clear—from the recommendations of His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and the reports that the Home Affairs Committee has produced—what needs to be done? We do not need another review; we just need action.
It is important that we look closely at exactly what is happening in the police misconduct process. Concerns have been raised—not only by Baroness Casey, but by Sir Mark Rowley—and what I want to do is ensure that we have a system that is fit for purpose. For example, concerns have been raised about the presence of legally qualified chairs, who are somehow applying a quasi-judicial approach to a system that should be much more akin to an internal human resources disciplinary approach. That has so far been highlighted as not being fit for purpose; not fit for achieving the goal, which we all want, of empowering chief constables to make decisions on disciplinary matters and for those to be sustained.
Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)
Well, here we are again—it feels like groundhog day—questioning one of the Ministers in a Government I support about the culture within the Metropolitan Police Service. What is going to change? I listened carefully to the Home Secretary as she listed the new offences that this Government are putting on the statute book for protecting women and combatting male violence against women and girls, but the real challenge is the culture towards women that exists within our police service and throughout our criminal justice system. Can I just repeat the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel): when are we really going to fully use statutory power to protect women from male violence?
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It is vital that the Metropolitan police and other forces double down on their efforts to root out corrupt officers. This may mean more shocking cases come to light in the short term. It is a matter of the utmost importance that there are robust processes in place to stop the wrong people joining the police in the first place, which is why the Government have invested in improving recruitment processes and supporting vetting as part of the more than £3 billion that we have provided for the police uplift programme. I expect this work to continue at pace, and for all chief constables to prioritise delivery of the recommendations made by the police inspectorate’s recent report on vetting, counter-corruption and misogyny.
It is now for the Metropolitan police to demonstrate that they have an effective plan in place to rapidly improve their vetting processes. Much of the impetus for change must come from within policing, but this Government will continue leading from the front. As I have made clear, we are bringing forward part 2 of the Angiolini inquiry to make recommendations on how forces can improve culture and tackle the root causes of police criminality and misconduct. The inquiry was established by the then Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel). I pay tribute to her commitment and leadership on these critical issues.
As well as ensuring that vetting processes are watertight, there must be fair and effective arrangements for dealing with those who behave or act in a wholly unacceptable way while serving. Baroness Casey recently identified concerns about the misconduct and dismissals process within the Metropolitan police: it takes too long, it does not command the confidence of police officers and it is procedurally burdened. Bureaucracy and process appear to have prevailed over ethics and common sense. That is why I have announced an internal review into police dismissals. The review’s terms of reference are being published today.
This case will rightly throw a spotlight once again on women’s safety. No one should suffer abuse or feel frightened or harassed, whether they are at home, out and about or online. We are taking concerted action to prevent violence against women, support victims and survivors, relentlessly pursue perpetrators and strengthen the system as a whole.
On rape specifically, we are focused on delivering improvements across the board, so that victims get the support they deserve and cases are pursued rigorously from report to court. There have been some important steps forward since the publication of the rape review in 2021. The number of referrals and charges has increased nationally, while new operating models for the investigation and prosecution of rape are being developed through Operation Soteria.
None of that can undo the suffering of Carrick’s victims, but I assure the House that this Government will not shy away from challenging the police to meet the standards we all expect of them. Change must happen and, as Home Secretary, I will do everything in my power to ensure that it does. I commend this statement to the House.
We support the new Met Commissioner’s determination to take action, but this is not just about the Met. Concerns about misogyny and culture have been raised in Sussex, Hampshire, Derbyshire, Gwent, Police Scotland and other forces. There has been a lack of leadership from the Government on police standards for years. After the truly appalling murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer, Home Office Ministers promised change. The then Home Secretary promised to set up processes that would prevent this from happening again, and that has badly failed.
There are still no legal requirements on vetting. Forces can effectively do what they want. They do not even have to check employment history and character references, and some do not. They do not even have to interview people beforehand. When the inspectorate came up with the damning conclusion that hundreds, if not thousands, of police officers who should have failed vetting are still in the job, including corrupt and predatory officers and officers who have committed offences of indecent exposure and domestic abuse, the Policing Minister refused to even make it a requirement for police forces to follow the recommendations of the inspectorate. They just shrugged and said that it was a matter for police forces to follow. There has been no response to make it compulsory to follow vetting guidance or to follow the reforms.
All we have in this statement is a continuation of the existing Angiolini review and a new review on dismissals. I welcome that new review, because there are concerns that the dismissals process has become more difficult and worse since well-intended reforms were introduced that have not worked as intended, but it was announced in October, and it still has not started. All the Home Secretary has done is re-announce it today. The Home Secretary has dismissed as “woke” some of the things that police forces have been doing to tackle misogyny, increase diversity and improve their response to communities and to crime, even though they are about tackling some of the most serious crimes.
It is also about how seriously Ministers take tackling violence against women and girls more broadly. We know that the charge rate for rape has dropped to a shameful 1.5%—it has dropped by two thirds over the last seven years. Again, Home Office Ministers promised that tackling violence against women and girls would become part of the compulsory strategic policing requirement. It has been reported that that has not happened. Can the Home Secretary confirm that, nine months after Ministers announced it, she has not made it a strategic policing requirement to prioritise violence against women and girls?
After the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving officer, Labour called for change. After the horrific murders of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, Labour called for leadership. After the shameful case of Child Q, Labour called for reform. After the shocking Charing Cross station report, Labour demanded action. After the Stephen Port inquiry, Labour called for reform. After the cases right across the country of abuse and misogyny, Labour has demanded change. Conservative Ministers promised that action would be taken, but they have failed to do so.
Labour will change the law. Labour will overhaul the vetting, misconduct and standards system, because it is time for change. We are letting down police officers across the country who do excellent work and are being let down by these failures in the system. Most of all, women are being let down. It is too late for all the warm words in the Home Secretary’s statement. What is she actually going to do to make sure that standards are raised?
Let me be clear, however, that I am proud of the Government’s track record on supporting women and girls in the criminal justice system. We put in place the groundbreaking Operation Soteria around the country to improve practices when it comes to the police investigation of rape and serious sexual offences in the prosecution and court resolution phases. We are already seeing signs of improvement when it comes to supporting victims of those heinous crimes through our criminal justice system. We also introduced a raft of new offences, such as on upskirting, stalking, female genital mutilation and forced marriage, to better protect women and girls in society, and our landmark Domestic Abuse Act 2021, which expanded the definition and protections available to victims of domestic abuse. I am proud of the leadership and initiative that we have demonstrated when it comes to standing up for women and girls.
We will not be complacent, however, because of course we can go further and do more. I am keen to focus on the solutions and move forward, so that we do not see repeated incidents and tragedies, such as the one that we are talking about today.