There is no prospect of an early end to the scandals that have damaged public confidence in the Metropolitan Police so badly. The impressive new Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, who is committed to reform of the Met, said on 25 January that for some time to come he expected two or three police officers to go on trial every week for serious offences.
He should not be stuck with any law-breakers for lack of sufficient disciplinary powers to get rid of them, which is the case at the moment.
Speaking in the Lords on 1 February, Alistair Lexden said: “Are we not agreed across the House that urgent action is needed to enable Sir Mark Rowley, the courageous Metropolitan Police Commissioner, to boot out the many criminals and incompetents in the Met, while acknowledging, of course, the dedicated service provided by the majority of officers?”
He went on: “How can this urgent action be reconciled with the leisurely four-month Home Office review, whose terms of reference took several weeks to be agreed? Sir Mark has said that ‘we have hundreds in policing who shouldn’t be here’. Give him the means to clean up the Met, and give it to him now.”
This demand for an end to Home Office inertia was supported across the House, with a powerful endorsement from a previous Commissioner, Lord Hogan-Howe.
