Police Leadership Commission Report

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question and her constant championing of this issue. She is right. We said in our manifesto that we would look at the powers on children and strip-searching. We have that job still to do, and we will do it in this Parliament; I would be very happy to work with her on it. She is also right that in some areas we have seen some improvements; on stop and search, for example, we have seen significant improvements, but there is a lack of data and an inconsistency in some of the data; we are looking at whether we can improve that so that we have the right picture before us.

The work the police leadership commission undertook involved a substantial amount of evidence from women and people from different ethnic minorities, who talked about their struggles within policing. We know that more people from different ethnic minority backgrounds leave at different stages, so there is a job to be done there, and that is highlighted in this report.

[Sir Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

As the hon. Lady has said, the House owes considerable gratitude to their noble Lordships Blunkett and Herbert, but surely the problem is very well rehearsed: a lack of consistent, high-quality leadership within the police. Will she explore further the benefits of having within the police the structure of a professional officer corps? That has been regularly advocated, and we know that in the military it delivers outstanding leadership and leadership structures. Will she therefore bear in mind that there are many brilliant, very senior officers in the British military who would bring undoubted leadership skills to bear at the most senior levels within the police, including in future for the role of Metropolitan Police Commissioner?

[Sarah Jones]

I suspect that we are some way away from not having a warranted police officer as the Metropolitan Police Commissioner—but maybe we are not. We are open to looking at how to get some of our police leaders out on secondment in other, similar sectors, so that they can get some experience and then come back, and to looking at direct entry to the police force for people from similar roles. Many people in policing have different views about the correlation with the Army; as part of the review, there was some interesting work looking at what the Army does, and I recommend it to the right hon. Gentleman. The new rank of senior constable is interesting, as are the suggestions about very senior police roles. I urge him to read the report; although, as he says, some of these things are well known, there is a huge amount of nuance and detail that makes it well worth reading.