Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 25 November 2020
I echo the thanks of members across the chamber to Dame Elish Angiolini for her wide-ranging and thorough report, and I thank the Conservatives for lodging the motion so that Parliament has the opportunity to consider that important report. Most important, I thank the police, as others have done. In my time on the Justice Committee and as justice spokesperson for Labour, I have been struck by the dedication and integrity of the many officers to whom I have spoken—those on the front line and those at the most senior levels. I have no doubt about their dedication and commitment to policing by consent.
However, it is clear from the report that there are serious deficiencies in the organisation and systems, and that the outcomes that result from those systems run contrary to those individuals’ efforts. Given the very recent creation of Police Scotland and the concerns that were set out at its inception, the report leads one to the conclusion that the fundamental flaws in the creation of Police Scotland and in the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012 need to be addressed.
Let us be clear: as members have pointed out, the report—which is almost 500 pages long and contains 80 recommendations; indeed, the executive summary alone runs to almost 30 pages—makes for very uncomfortable reading. The points that Labour has highlighted in our amendment regarding equalities and the treatment of minorities within the police are perhaps the most stark. The points about that in the report were unexpected, but I have to say that I was not entirely surprised.
It is almost a quarter of a century since the publication of the Macpherson report, and I find the fact that that report needs to be quoted in this one very serious. I spoke to many of the same people to whom Liam Kerr spoke, including Rhona Malone and other female police officers who pursued complaints. The stories that they told me were, frankly, shocking.
First, they experienced systemic opposition to their complaints. Vital safety equipment was not suitable for females or for people of smaller stature in policing roles. When police officers raised complaints, they faced the system being used against them through the recategorisation of complaints. They were frustrated in pursuing their complaints. They saw the system being used against them in relation to their fitness for front-line service and, ultimately, found themselves in positions in which they had no option but to resign from the police service.
That is unacceptable. It is a situation that must be confronted by the police, and I urge senior officers to take those issues seriously and to tackle them head on. It is not enough to say that that is not their intent or objective in the way that they manage their service; they need to accept that casual inaction is just as much at fault in such situations.
We must also take very seriously the points that have been highlighted regarding structures, governance and oversight. As many people have pointed out, at the heart of our policing is the principle of policing by consent. As Gordon Lindhurst pointed out, we need real action for real people. We cannot have confidence that we have policing by consent if the fundamental structures that are there to oversee our police are not working properly—and that is what the report tells us.
The report tells us that the PIRC—the body that we charge with investigating serious issues in our police—does not have the powers or standing that it needs in order to do its job properly. We hear that the SPA does not have the capacity or capability to undertake its job properly; indeed, the former chair of the SPA says exactly that. In short, the legislation that was enacted in 2012 was simply not adequate. We need to invest in the systems and ensure that the police service can invest in its organisation and that we have adequate oversight; otherwise, quite simply, we undermine the very principle of policing by consent. The Government should reflect on the fact that it has already conceded that it will need to introduce legislation to correct the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012 so soon after the creation of Police Scotland—that is a very serious situation in which to find itself.