'Our analysis suggests that, on the current rate of progress, we will not have properly representative police forces in England and Wales for another twenty years.'
MPs have warned that serious racial disparities still remain in policing in England and Wales, more than 22 years after the Macpherson report which found institutional racism within the police force.
The Macpherson report sought to find out why the white killers of Stephen Lawrence were allowed to go free.
Stephen was 18 when he was stabbed to death by a gang in Eltham, South East London, in 1993.
The Home Affairs Committee, chaired by Yvette Cooper, called for urgent action to tackle racial disparities in policing following its findings.
The report states: “The central aim of the 70 recommendations published by Macpherson was to ‘eliminate racist prejudice and disadvantage and demonstrate fairness in aspects of policing’. More than two decades later this aim still has not been met.”
The report issues a scathing assessment of attempts to diversify the police force, stating that despite commitments made over a number of years by police forces across the country, there has been a failure to do enough to increase BME recruitment, retention and promotion.
The report adds: “Our analysis suggests that, on the current rate of progress, we will not have properly representative police forces in England and Wales for another twenty years. That would be four decades after the Macpherson report raised the seriousness of this issue and nearly half a century after the murder of Stephen Lawrence. This undermines legitimacy and trust and is completely inexcusable. Urgent action is needed.”
It also found “deep-rooted and persistent racial inequalities” in areas such as the police misconduct system, unjustified inequalities in the use of stop and search powers and a ‘worrying decline in confidence and trust in the police among some BME communities point to structural problems which disadvantage BME groups’.
On stop and search specifically, the report states that Black people are over nine and a half times more likely to be stopped and searched than White people and adds: “Despite the Macpherson report and the concerns raised and recommendations by many other community and policing organisations over the last two decades, the disproportionality is greater now than it was when the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry concluded.”
Ms Cooper said: “We have found that in too many areas progress has stalled and for too long there has been a lack of focus and accountability on race equality in policing.”
She added: “Without clear action to tackle race inequality we fear that, in 10 years’ time, future committees will be hearing the very same arguments that have been rehearsed already for over 20 years.
“That cannot be allowed to happen.”
The report also sets out a number of recommendations to tackle racial disparities within the police force, including a new statutory race equality commissioner for policing and a new race equality steering group to be chaired by the Home Secretary to respond to the commissioner’s reports.
Policing Minister Kit Malthouse said: “The Macpherson Report left an indelible mark on policing following the terrible murder of Stephen Lawrence.
“Good progress has been made since its publication.
“Our police are more diverse than ever before, forces have worked hard to improve community engagement and we have seen major improvements in the way the police deal with racist crimes.
“But we know there is much more to do – that is why attracting more officers from a wide range of ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds is a core ambition of our drive to recruit an extra 20,000 officers.”
A spokesperson for the Institute for the Institute of Race Relations said: “While not doubting the seriousness with which the Committee has approached its investigation, the IRR is concerned that its recommendations, which focus on increasing diversity and reducing disparities in stop and search, don’t really hit the mark.
“The truth is that increasing concerns over excessive use of police force and black deaths in custody, is linked to a more authoritarian style of policing that exists in the poor multicultural neighbourhoods of Britain. This has intensified during the pandemic and is set to get worse if plans to increase suspicionless searches through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill and Beating Crime Plan are implemented.
“This does not take us back even to the discriminatory culture within a non-diverse police force that existed pre-Macpherson. It takes us back to 1981 and the saturation colonial-style policing that led to the Brixton uprisings, which even Lord Scarman who carried out the official inquiry characterised as ‘unwise’.
Basit Mahmood is co-editor of Left Foot Forward
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