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Independent Police Complaints Commission

With that budget, one can understand that the IPCC simply cannot get through the level of complaints that are being made. In fact, a sub-set of complaints is in effect being handled by the police. Again, we will need reassurances about whether the budget is appropriate for the sort of organisation that has to be armed to do this job independently and effectively. This is why there is a trust deficit in what the organisation does, and I hope that the Minister will respond to it. The Minister will, of course, need to start by reviewing the many deaths that take place following police actions. Since 1999, according to the Library, 322 people have died in or following police custody, yet not one police officer has been jailed for any of those incidents. These are shocking figures. I ask the Minister to reflect on the sheer extent of those figures, whether he is content, and whether there should not be some independent review into that aspect of its work. I hope that the Minister will commit to an inquiry into the disgraceful revelations regarding the handing over of the wrong body to the family of Christopher Alder, who died in police custody in April 1998. Mr Alder was a paratrooper who fought for his country, yet he was left to choke to death, handcuffed on the floor of a police station in Hull. The fact that his family found out just two weeks ago that the body they buried was not in fact his, and that he is in a mortuary over a decade later, is a disgrace and of tremendous concern in a civilised country. I hope that the Minister will undertake an inquiry and get involved. I am pleased to see my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, in his seat; I am sure that he is as concerned as I am. We need a review of deaths in police custody. We need a review of the IPCC's powers and resources, and we need to understand that it is truly independent. My community waits to see its conclusions in relation to the death of Mark Duggan, and I hope that the Minister can reassure them.