Crime: Police Numbers

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The police will prioritise, and it is important that crimes are investigated. Locally, it is up to police to ensure that they are.

[Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon (Lab)]

My Lords, the previous Home Secretary indicated that he would increase stop and search, saying that we needed to do so to reduce crime. If that is the case, how do the Government square the circle of their talking about reducing stop and search?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

As I said to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, some of the indiscriminate, random nature of stop and search in the past has been replaced by a move to a much more intelligence-led stop and search, so that people—particularly young people—do not feel that they will be stopped every time they leave the house because of the colour of their skin, as the noble Baroness has said to me in the past. When they go out, people need to know that the police are stopping them because there is an intelligence reason for doing so.

Police: Recruitment and Retention

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they have made towards implementing the recommendations on the recruitment and retention of police officers in the report of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, published in February 1999.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, the police workforce is more representative in gender and ethnicity than it has ever been. The recommendations made by the Stephen Lawrence inquiry report on police recruitment and retention have been implemented. However, the Government are absolutely clear that there is more for forces to do to ensure that the police workforce reflects the diversity of the communities that it serves.

[Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for her Answer. This month marks the 20th anniversary of the inquiry. There were 70 recommendations but I will ask the Minister about only recommendation 64, which addresses the recruitment and retention of minority officers and staff. It says that the Home Secretary and police authorities’ policing plans,

“should include targets for recruitment, progression and retention of minority ethnic staff”,

that the Home Office should,

“facilitate the development of initiatives to increase the number of qualified minority ethnic recruits”,

and that HMIC should include,

“in a thematic inspection a report on the progress made by Police Services”.

I find it really difficult to find any report giving me an update. Can the Minister give the House an update on recommendation 64 on recruitment and retention since the report was published?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I pay tribute to the noble Baroness and all that she has achieved on some of the recommendations that have come out of the report. On the three recommendations she talked about, there are several things going on. She will have seen the race disparity audit, which is published by the Government and continually updated on the government website to show exactly where the disparities lie and where improvements need to be made. Last year, the NPCC produced a diversity, equality and inclusion strategy led by Chief Constable Gareth Wilson. It attempts, across all areas of the police, to increase inclusion and diversity. The superintendents’ association and college have a mentoring and coaching scheme precisely to improve the recruitment of BME staff. The figure has improved, but the noble Baroness is right to ask the question because we have much further to go.

Knife Crime

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

Monday 5th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I agree with all the points made by the noble Lord; he will have heard the Home Secretary’s words about future funding. The noble Lord is right about the scourge of drugs, and the fact that cocaine can be delivered quicker than pizza is really concerning. The police should make the most of technology on the streets and of intelligence as well. But make no mistake: the issue of drugs is something that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has committed to tackle in the most vigorous of ways because the two are linked.

[Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon (Lab)]

My Lords, back in 1999, at the end of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, when the spate of knife crime started, resources were put into Trident. This problem of people being killed on the street did not seem to warrant the same importance then. Now we hear when a young person has been killed that it is a fatal incident. What has changed from back in 1999 when so many young black men were losing their lives? Nobody took much notice then, but now it is seen as a fatal crime. Will the Minister explain the difference between then and now?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The difference between then and now—and I pay tribute to the noble Baroness for all the work that she has done in this area following the terrible death of her son—is that the increase in knife crime has become quite unprecedented over the last few years. Therefore, the Government, through legislation, through non-legislative measures and through their work with the police and local communities, are determined to tackle it.

Windrush Generation

Debate between Baroness Williams of Trafford and Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon

Tuesday 24th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I agree with the noble Lord that the culture is everything in an organisation and I hope that the Home Secretary’s words yesterday will have acted as a jolt to the culture not only in the Home Office but in other government departments because, in the end, everything is about human beings as individuals and citizens of this country. He mentioned our debate in Grand Committee and I will mention again what I have said: is not hindsight such a wonderful thing? If only this had come to light far sooner. It is 47 years after some of these people arrived, and indeed a lot longer for others. I understand that Paulette Wilson now has her documents and that Mr Bryan has had his status confirmed. That is an example of how, I hope, the Home Office is being proactive in its approach.

On David Lammy, I did mean to say when the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, made his point that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary also paid tribute to his work yesterday. I echo those comments.

[Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon (Lab)]

My Lords, I have been listening to the debate for a while. I had no intention of speaking but I have been sitting here and thinking about when the Windrush residents first came here and how they suffered with accommodation, jobs and all the signs in the windows saying, “no Irish, no blacks, no dogs”. Now here we are again, almost 70 years later, talking about the same people who travelled here and are facing deportation and everything else. These people are suffering a double whammy. They should never have been put in this position, because they came here as British citizens. They were invited here, yet here we are now, talking about hundreds of people being deported and what we should do. This should never have happened. This country was never told in the first place that these people were invited here to build the country up; they did not just come here. The residents of this country never understood why the Windrush people came here in the first place.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right: it is a double whammy. I have often referred to the comments in the windows of bed-and-breakfasts here in the 1960s, saying “no Irish, no blacks, no dogs”. What a terrible insult they are to the noble Baroness, myself and anyone who is black, Irish et cetera. We are a country of immigrants. These people are here by right and she is absolutely right that they are here because we invited them.