My Lords, I sought this debate to give your Lordships’ House an opportunity to consider the need to restore confidence in our country’s police forces, which has been seriously weakened in the last few years, and to try to elicit from the Government a clear indication of what they are doing to ensure that the restoration of confidence is successfully accomplished.
How reassuring it would be to the public if the Government produced a coherent action plan showing precisely how they intend to assist the police in regaining public support and meeting new challenges, of which there will be many. So much good would be done if the Government set out in clear language, free from party-political knockabout, their vision of the shape of policing in the future, at a time when technology is developing at a prodigious rate with huge implications for the police, like everyone else. So frequently, any sense of a coherent plan for the future is lost amid a blizzard of statistics and details designed to scotch criticism of some current problem.
Policing in Britain has always rested on public consent. That fundamental principle was laid down by the great Sir Robert Peel when he created the Metropolitan Police nearly two centuries ago. Today, consent no longer seems firmly assured; that should be rectified. Our police forces need to renew their commitment to Peel’s great founding principle.
I am extremely grateful to all those participating in this debate, and I look forward to deepening my understanding of the issues it raises as a result of their contributions. I think it unlikely that we Back-Bench contributors will disagree about the gravity of the position in which the police find themselves today as regards the confidence reposed in them by the public. It is strongly reflected in surveys of public opinion. In 2020, YouGov found that 70% of their respondents thought the police were doing a good job. Last month, 47% held that view—down by nearly a quarter in just three years. Some 53% said they had little or no confidence in the police last month, compared with 38% three years ago—itself an alarmingly high proportion.
Detailed research embodied in a recent publication of the Social Market Foundation found that
“a substantial proportion of the population across England and Wales has little confidence in their local constabularies”,
with fewer than six in 10 believing that the police can be relied on when they are needed. No more than 22%, just over a fifth, felt that the police would be likely to apprehend a burglar, so widespread has become the habit of issuing a crime number for insurance purposes without attempting any serious investigation. It is hard to overestimate the worry caused to so many people by the indifference which tends to be shown by the police to what is termed low-level crime.
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Nowhere has confidence in the police fallen more sharply than in London, and nowhere will the decline be harder to reverse. After a succession of the most terrible scandals, how could it be otherwise? The crisis in the capital is bound to occupy a prominent position in this debate, as it should. It is likely to affect confidence in the police throughout the country in view of the widespread coverage of London’s crisis in the national media. The scandals in London have stunned the nation. Criminals have in some number been allowed to wear the policeman’s proud uniform. A few of the policeman criminals have committed the most heinous offences.
The details have been laid bare in all their horror in court cases and in a succession of independent reports, none more shattering than that of the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, published in March. It exposed huge, unforgivable failures in the way that the Metropolitan Police has been managed and run. Awful prejudices and attitudes have been allowed to flourish unchecked for years. The organisation
“has completely lost its way”,
the noble Baroness said in an interview last month, where she spoke passionately about the revulsion she had felt over what had emerged during her year-long inquiry. Her anger is palpable and understandable.
The noble Baroness’s report is packed with horrifying information. The detection rate for rape cases is so low, one police officer told her team,
“you may as well say it’s legal in London”.
More than 1,500 officers have been accused of violent offences against women. Black officers are regularly overlooked for promotion. I do not need to attempt a full summary of the report. The main points are well known.
This great police force has for too long had leaders who tended to look the other way when mistakes were made. Those responsible for the notorious Operation Midland a few years ago hounded two great public servants, Lord Bramall and Lord Brittan, mercilessly. The law was broken when warrants were sought to search their homes. In his thorough independent report on Operation Midland, Sir Richard Henriques listed 43 major police blunders, yet not one police officer has been held to account. Some have been promoted to high rank. The Independent Office for Police Conduct failed in its duty to listen to those who had suffered, like Lord Brittan’s brave widow, Diana. How could public confidence possibly be maintained by such an approach?
Midland had a close relation, Operation Conifer. Both of them were fed by the lies of a fantasist, now serving a long prison sentence. I take the opportunity afforded by this debate to return to it because I feel so strongly and deeply about it. Through Conifer, allegations of child sex abuse against Sir Edward Heath were investigated in Salisbury some 10 years after his death in 2005. No other Prime Minister has ever been accused of grave criminal offences. Clearly, the investigation needed to be handled with care and strict impartiality. Instead, under Mike Veale, then chief constable for Wiltshire, it was conducted with the intention of finding Ted Heath guilty. Not a shred of evidence was found to substantiate the allegations, yet Veale contrived to suggest at the end of the investigation that a few of them might have had some substance, thus overturning the presumption of innocence in a case where a judicial process was impossible.
Prime Ministers are prominent in the history books. As a historian, I find it shocking that no independent inquiry has been held in order to place the truth firmly on the record for all time. It is unconscionable that one of the Crown’s First Ministers should pass into history with even a faint suspicion of wrongdoing because no one in authority today will do anything to help wipe it out. I do not understand how the Government should fail to regard it as an obligation to ensure that posterity has an absolutely accurate account of what occurred.
For me personally, Operation Conifer showed how hard it had become in Britain today to feel full confidence in our police. At least Wiltshire declined to keep Veale after this disgraceful episode. But he found a new berth as chief constable of Cleveland, where he lasted a year before allegations of misconduct forced him to resign. A report by the Independent Office for Police Conduct, after a two-year investigation—no one seems to think it important to move swiftly in these matters—led the police and crime commissioner for Cleveland to announce that Veale would face a hearing for gross misconduct. The announcement was made in August 2021. A year and eight months later, it has yet to start. The Government will not be surprised that I should return to the issue in this debate. Over and again I have been told in Answers to Oral Questions that the matter is under the exclusive control of an independent, legally qualified chair. By law, hearings have to begin no later than 100 days after their announcement, but the chair can delay the start when it is in the interest of justice to do so.
Who is the chair? The person remains anonymous. How are the interests of justice served by delay? No explanation has been given. It would be perfectly understandable if the explanation were couched in general terms so as not to prejudice the case when it is eventually heard. Total silence is astonishing. As they say, you could not make it up. Is it not difficult to feel total confidence in a system which permits a former chief constable, the most senior of policemen, to evade justice for so long for reasons cloaked in secrecy and in circumstances where public accountability is totally lacking?
My noble friend the Minister told the House in March, rather to my surprise, that we were about to meet to discuss this issue. I am due to see Mr Philp, the Policing Minister, but unfortunately dates fixed for this meeting have had to be cancelled because he had pressing business elsewhere. This is perfectly understandable and the meeting is now due to take place on 15 May.
We should note with considerable sympathy the conclusion reached by the highly regarded think tank Policy Exchange, after its research into the work of legally qualified chairs, that,
“having been introduced with the aim of increasing public confidence in the police misconduct process, the experiment is having the opposite effect.”
These chairs play a part in hindering the sweeping changes in the Met—which, in Sir Mark Rowley, at last has a leader determined to root out the criminals in the ranks and punish misconduct. Sir Mark repeatedly makes clear that he needs to get rid of several hundred officers. Policy Exchange recommends that police regulations should be urgently amended, so that the decisions to dismiss officers found guilty of criminality or serious misconduct lie with police chiefs. That is exactly Sir Mark’s view. As he said last month:
“If you expect me to sort out cultural issues in the Met and get rid of the people who should not be employed, give me the power to do it. Can you imagine sitting with the chief executive of a big organisation saying they weren’t allowed to sack certain people”?
Before giving Sir Mark his answer, the Government conducted a four-month review, which began in January. The timetable for action after the completion of the review is unclear. What is clear is that, although Sir Mark has made good progress with the limited powers that he possesses, impatience is mounting for the swift ejection of officers who have no business to be in the police and the restoration of confidence in the Met. It was seen at a meeting of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee last week.
We must not let Sir Mark down. As he said last week,
“the vast majority of our people are good people”.
They deserve the full esteem that successful policing brings and to be freed from the taint that the presence of a bad minority inevitably inflicts on the entire Met. The bobbies need to be on the beat again throughout London. Policy Exchange is surely right to stress the need to return to a borough-based policing model with chief superintendents leading police teams in every London borough. It is a point that should be noted in all urban areas throughout the country.
Four things above all stand out as we reflect on the strengthening of confidence in our police today. First, there is the need for first-rate chief constables, fully supported by elected police and crime commissioners in charge of efficient, properly accountable offices. Secondly, we need to ensure that effective use is made of the 20,000 additional police now available as a result of the completion of the Government’s recruitment campaign. It is important to remember that we now have more police officers than ever before. Thirdly, there is the need to equip chief police officers with disciplinary powers that are used quickly and effectively but also humanely and wisely. Fourthly, we need to ensure that police forces throughout our country properly reflect the diverse society that Britain has become, with astonishing speed in historical terms, during the last two generations.