Metropolitan Police: Criminality

Lord Hogan-Howe Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend refers to the review of police officer dismissals that was announced by the Home Secretary on 17 January, when she published the terms of reference. That will include a consideration of the merits of a presumption for disciplinary action against officers found to have committed a criminal offence while serving in the police. Of course, the review was set up partly in response to the comments that Sir Mark has previously made, and partly in response to the interim review of the Casey report. It would be irresponsible not to collect the appropriate evidence before making these very important decisions.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, is quite right to raise the urgency of these terrible cases. Will the Minister reassure us that the review being carried out will consider the most radical measures? One thing that I have become convinced of over the past 15 years is that the office of constable is more a bar to excluding the bad than it is about protecting the good. A constable’s employment rights are protected by secondary legislation, which includes the ability of lawyers in the employment tribunal process within the police. Home Office guidance establishes that when dismissing an officer the standard of proof should not be just the balance of probabilities but should travel towards beyond reasonable doubt. Both those measures do not help to get rid of the difficult officers that the noble Lord and Sir Mark have mentioned. Both those things should change. By all means, give officers access to employment tribunals, which, frankly, they can get through other means anyway.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that and defer to his extensive experience. One of the things that the review is doing is looking at whether the current three-stage performance system is effective, which will obviously have to take into account some of the things that the noble Lord has just raised. I should have said in my earlier answer that the review has a time limit of four months on it. Obviously, that time is ticking, and the terms of reference were announced a couple of weeks ago.