Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (First sitting)

Allan Dorans Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th May 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Allan Dorans.

[Allan Dorans (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (SNP)]

Q Thank you, Mr McCabe. I shall take this opportunity to declare my interest in this matter as a former detective inspector in the Metropolitan police service. My question is about the introduction of serious violence reduction orders, which is a new court order allowing police officers to search without reasonable grounds those who have such an order against them. What criteria would you expect to see before application was made for such an order?

Assistant Commissioner Hewitt: The first point I would mention is that there will be pilots for the serious violence reduction orders. We have been and will continue to work very closely with the Home Office to make sure that we fully understand the impact of such orders. There is no doubt that there are people who are more violent and have a history of violence, and we do a range of things to try to reduce the number of violent crimes. Our concern is to make sure that there is no disproportionality in the way these orders are used, so we are really keen to work very closely with the pilot site to assess how this can be another tool—and it is just one further tool—in dealing with street violence and violence among younger people.

We do think there is an opportunity for certain individuals to become subject to this sort of order, but we want to work with the pilot site to see how we can make that work; how we can make it an effective tool that does not cause more challenges with particular parts of the community.

[The Chair]

Thank you. I want to try to squeeze in one last Back-Bench question—Hywel Williams, could you make it brief, because I want to get to the Front Benches.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We will go to Mr Dorans. This had best be the last question before I go to the Front Benches.

[Allan Dorans]

Q The hon. Member for Stroud eloquently asked the question that I was going to ask about special constables. However, I will ask Mr Apter, who spoke recently on the importance of the mental health of officers. What else could be included in the police covenant to help with this?

John Apter: That is a really important question. If you go back 10 years or so, my colleagues would say very little. Some forces were better than others, and that is chief constable-led. If a chief constable has emotional intelligence and those values about how people really matter, that trickles through the organisation, but that has not always been felt. There has been a sad lack of consistency when people are in specialist posts that expose them to trauma. I can give you a lived experience. For many years I was a family liaison officer dealing with trauma every single day, knocking on far too many doors and changing people’s lives, and not for the better. That was many years ago, about 10 years ago, but my force at the time, Hampshire Constabulary, was very innovative and gave us annual check-ups—welfare and psychological check-ups. We had welfare officers in the force. We had a lot of support, but then with austerity, unfortunately, some of those measures were removed and the force was a poorer place for it. That was typical across policing.

We have moved forward in such a positive way. I am often criticised by my colleagues because I talk up the good work going on—whether it is Oscar Kilo, the national police wellbeing service; the Coventry police, which are doing really good work in this area; or the Police Federation, where we have invested heavily on a welfare support programme for our colleagues—but it is not always felt by all our members. Getting that message out to people about what is available and how to access it is a postcode lottery across policing. We need that consistency.

We need occupational health to be benchmarked to a certain standard. I know we are going to have a chief medical officer—hopefully for policing—which I hope will bring that consistency. That is where the covenant can have some good legislative teeth to say to forces: “This is not a nice to have”. We can’t talk all day about looking after our people and say: “Put a post-script about wellbeing and the job is done”. It is much more than that.

That is not to say that is the norm. I don’t believe it is now, we have come a long way, but the covenant must show its teeth. It must be brave and make sure that that consistency is across all policing to support my colleagues, certainly with their mental health. We are seeing a crisis in mental health in policing that we have never seen before. It is a real significant concern: a continuous exposure to trauma. Officers are being exposed to levels of trauma that are unprecedented—more than people have seen in the military. This is based on evidence from the charity, Police Care. Something has to be done. Things are happening, but the covenant is a great opportunity to pull that all together.

[The Chair]

Chief Superintendent.

Chief Superintendent Griffiths: Picking up on mental health and trauma impacts across the police service, we are also starting to see police charities supporting these areas. There has been a 36% increase in inquiries to the police charities compared with the previous year, the vast majority of which are mental health concerns. There is clear evidence of the impact of trauma on police officers and staff. We recognise that everybody will experience some trauma in their life, but the exposure for police officers is quite significant.

We then have to look at what is the best thing that we can do. There is a whole array of things that we can do: providing appropriate space for debrief, increasing communication, and occupational health support. There is a whole catalogue of things, but I would class those as probably falling under what I would describe as the programme management, rather than any legislative concerns.

There are two matters I would like to raise on the police covenant. The first is the important role of independence within the processes, so that we get an independent view. Our employment rights are restricted—naturally so, we would not contest them, because of the nature of our role and responsibility in society—but measures that can be put into place to provide independent support, guidance and oversight are really important, so I stress the importance of independence in the system.

I would also like to raise the issue of mental health concerns and seeking the police covenant as a way through helping and supporting. Unlike the Police Federation, the Superintendents’ Association goes beyond the 43 Home Office forces. We support other police forces, including British Transport Police and Civil Nuclear Constabulary, which at the moment are not directly covered by this legislation. I would like to emphasise the importance of the whole police family and make a plea to consider as part of the legislation those wider non-Home Office forces that play an integral part in UK policing.