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Policing in London

I beg to move, That this House do now adjourn. The Government have elected to debate the policing of London this afternoon, in what I hope will be a constructive attempt to understand where we stand in terms of that important subject. Members will know that until 2000, my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), who has just left the Chamber, was the police authority for London. On the first and only occasion that I criticised a Minister, I demanded that he abolish himself—at least so far as his role as the police authority for London was concerned. Happily, that has happened. He has not disappeared, which I am equally happy about—he is doing an excellent job as the Leader of the House—but it is right and proper that there is now in place other structures for scrutinising policing in London, instead of, as there had long been, a single individual who was a member of the Government. As part of the process of the Home Secretary’s being the police authority for London, we used to have annual debates on policing in London. Since the inception of the Metropolitan Police Authority, the Greater London authority and the various other elements of that family, there have been no such debates. I thought it right and proper, and the Government agreed, that this House have at least the intermittent opportunity to discuss policing in London, and I am very pleased that we are doing so today. I am sure that all Members will join me in congratulating at the outset the staff and officers of those agencies on whom the policing of London depends, and with whom Londoners come into daily contact—the Metropolitan Police Service, the City of London police and the British Transport police—on all that they do in defending the rights and public safety of people in London. It is their professionalism, dedication, watchfulness and response that secure for us the ordered society in the capital on which our individual and collective freedoms, prosperity and well-being depend. Beyond them, I pay tribute particularly to the leadership of Sir Ian Blair and James Hart—commissioners respectively of Police of the Metropolis and of the City of London—and to Ian Johnston, chief constable of the British Transport police. I also pay tribute to Len Duvall of the Metropolitan Police Authority, to Sir Alistair Graham of the British Transport police authority, and to the City corporation for its scrutiny and oversight. As I said, we used regularly to have such debates. It is right and proper not necessarily to reinstate an annual debate—perhaps we can debate that issue, as well—but every now and then to provide scope for London Members in particular to have an extensive and wide-ranging debate, as I hope today’s will be, on policing in London.