On 1 December, Alistair Lexden introduced a short debate in the Lords on the urgent need for the reform of the Metropolitan Police. The text of his speech follows.
My Lords, the Question which is the subject of this short debate refers to an important interview given by the new Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, to The Times on 18 November, and published the following day.
When Sir Mark took up his post in September, he promised to be “ruthless”—his word—in rooting out officers who have brought shame on a famous institution. In seven years’ time the Metropolitan Police will reach its bicentenary.
Nothing could be clearer than Sir Mark’s determination to restore its reputation as soon as possible. His sense of urgency is palpable. For that, he deserves the highest praise.
Sir Mark is entitled to expect the full and active support of the party which first assumed the name of Conservative in 1834 under Sir Robert Peel, who had founded the Metropolitan Police five years earlier.
In 1827, as he prepared his great reform, Peel said: “I can make a better arrangement after a searching inquiry and a thorough exposure of the defects of the present system.” Sir Mark is saying much the same thing today, conveyed with particular vigour in his Times interview—and this Conservative Government should back him to the hilt.
After the exposure of defects must come the establishment of better arrangements. Peel’s vision must be recreated: a police force that is “civil and attentive”—his words—in all its dealings with the people it exists to serve.
So many defects have now been exposed. Over the last few years, the Met has been engulfed by terrible revelations of racism, misogyny, misconduct and crime .
A succession of reports has documented the recent scandals. Further back, there were other appalling scandals, some documented in police reports that have remained secret, like that on Operation Tiberius in 2002, which set out in detail what it described as “endemic police corruption” in north and east London.
Other shocking cases, the subject of horrifying publicity, are seared for ever on our minds with their painful memories that will never die.
For me personally, Operation Midland remains a vivid enduring memory. Great public servants, Lord Brammall and Lord Brittan, were hounded remorselessly. In his thorough independent report, Sir Richard Henriques, listed 43 major police blunders.
Officers broke the law when they sought warrants to search the homes of suspects who were entirely innocent, yet not one police officer has been held to account. Not surprisingly, Sir Richard has made his dissatisfaction clear.
That disastrous operation contributed to another grave injustice: the slurs placed on the reputation of Sir Edward Heath by the then Chief Constable of Wiltshire, Mike Veale, who fell for the same lies, pedalled by a fantasist, that drove Operation Midland along its disastrous way--yet the Government dismiss the case for an independent inquiry into this injustice on the grounds that the internal police reviews which have taken place must suffice. They do not.
Sadly, against this deeply distressing background, it came as no surprise when last month yet another independent report, the latest in a long succession, this one by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, revealed long-established habits of wrongdoing and criminality among serving officers.
Many, she concluded, ought to have been dismissed, yet only 13 of more than 1,800 Met officers who have faced multiple charges of misconduct since 2013 have actually been dismissed. That is a truly appalling statistic.
To his great credit, Sir Mark Rowley does not seek to set aside or diminish these grave problems. In his Times interview, he said: “I’m just so, so angry about the decisions that have been made on some of these cases.” He accepts that a large number of officers and staff should have been dismissed.
He has stated explicitly that “there must be hundreds of officers that shouldn’t be here, who should be thrown out. There must be hundreds undermining our integrity.”
Swift and drastic action is needed. It has been done before. In the late 1960s, Sir Robert Mark, who went on to become one of the greatest Commissioners of the Metropolitan Police, dealt with massive corruption in the force by dismissing 478 officers and prosecuting some 50 more, including some of high rank.
Conservatives are natural supporters of the police. They want to see the police praised, not criticised. It is a laudable sentiment, but If we want to praise them with conviction in London, we must give Sir Mark our full backing.
He is making himself a determined reformer precisely because he wants to shed the corrupt minority so that the “heroic, determined” majority, to whom he referred in his Times interview, can regain the credit and respect they deserve.
But he faces a great difficulty in dealing with the 3,500 officers who cannot serve the people of London fully, 500 of whom have been accused of serious misconduct . The police’s disciplinary procedures are unduly complex and protracted.
In his Times interview Sir Mark said: “We can’t deal with a workforce where such a big proportion are not properly deployable. Many of these people… can’t work many hours in the day, or they can only have limited contact time with the public.”
Sir Mark has laid great stress on his need for stronger powers to bear down on criminals and other failures within the ranks. Of course he wants above all to get rid officers guilty of gross misconduct. Will existing regulations be changed to assist him?
He deserves a swift and decisive response from the Home Office. It seems that he is unlikely to get it. A review is under way to assess whether the regulatory framework for the disciplinary system should be changed.
A great department of state should be capable of reaching a prompt decision on such an urgent matter without a time-consuming review.
Has the Home Office woken up to the scale of the crisis? Replying to me in October after the Casey review, my noble friend Lord Sharpe referred to the Met’s failures as “worrying”. Worrying? “Dire” and “catastrophic” would be more like it.
My noble friend also told me that just seven officers had been suspended. How can that be squared with Sir Mark’s figure, given in his Times interview, of 500 officers on restricted duties or suspended because they have been accused of serious misconduct?
On 3 November 1829, the Duke of Wellington, who was then Prime Minister, wrote to Robert Peel. “I congratulate you”, he said, “upon the entire success of the police in London”. Will a Prime Minister be able to write in a similar fashion in our times?
Thanks to Sir Mark Rowley’s commitment to reform, there is hope--but the Home Office must also commit itself to decisive reform.
In his Times interview Sir Mark said: “We must be bold.” Will the Home Office be bold too? We shall find out at the end of this short debate.
[Note: the Minister’s reply at the end of the debate did not indicate any boldness on the part of the Home Office. It will be hearing more about this subject in future questions and debates.]
