Met chief says he’s ‘frustrated’ ministers haven’t changed rules to make it easier for rogue officers to be sacked – UK politics live | Politics

A barge that will be used to house 500 asylum seekers has belatedly arrived at Portland, Dorset, after voting in the House of Lords paved the way for the government’s illegal migration bill to become law, Ben Quinn reports.

Good morning. Shortly after midnight the government won the last of five votes in the House of Lords on the illegal migration bill, meaning the amendments to the bill passed by peers last week have been reversed, the bill is now broadly as the government wants it (it accepted some concessions in the early phase of ‘ping pong’) and it is now due to get royal assent, possibly very soon. The full story is here.

Officially, the Lords did not back down. There were five divisions last night, and the government won all of them.

But at least one vote was pulled, after Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, decided not to put his amendment, saying the government should produce an international strategy for tackling migration, to a vote.

And some of the peers who voted against the government on this bill in earlier divisions were not in the voting lobbies last night. In votes on this bill earlier this month there were up to 235 peers voting against the government. Last night the anti-goverment vote was never higher than 200, and the Tories won with a higher-than-usual turnout of Tory peers although their majority was only seven on one vote. The opposition went down fighting, but the numbers imply they weren’t trying as hard as in the past – which is normal in a chamber where it is accepted that ultimately the elected house has to have its way.

All this is very good news for the Home Office. But there was less good news for them on the Today programme this morning when Sir Mark Rowley, the commissioner of the Metropolitan police, gave them a kicking over their failure to change rules that make it very hard for him to sack rogue officers.

Rowley has been complaining about this every since his appointment. Here is a story from November last year, and in January he went futher, saying the regulations were “crazy”. Ministers said they would do something about this. But still nothing has happened, and Rowley said he was “frustrated” about the lack of action. He said:

The government announced a review that was, I think, due to report in May to look at police regulations and making the sort of changes I’d asked for. We haven’t yet heard the results of that review, and I’m frustrated. I need those changes in regulations to help me get on with them because some of the processes are too long, too bureaucratic.

And some of the decisions are made outside the Met. So people we’ve decided shouldn’t be police officers – an independent lawyer says, ‘Well, bad luck, you’ve got to keep them.’

That can’t be right. No other employer that has to deal with that. If I’m trying to get the minority out the organisation, whilst helping the majority of my people succeed, it’s not helpful to have useless, slow bureaucratic processes.

Asked why the government was taking so long to respond, Rowley replied:

I don’t know. There are legal technicalities and I’m sure there’s lots of reasons for them to work through. But I’m in a man in a hurry. We’re an organisation in a hurry to build the trust of Londoners and I’d like that support as quickly as possible.

Rowley also claimed that leaders in other organisations did not face the same constraints.

Why are we pretty much the only organisation where the leaders aren’t able to decide whether people stay in the organisation or no ….

You’re robustly challenging me on the culture of the Met and our ability to build trust in communities. It seems a little perverse, doesn’t it, that I don’t get to decide who works here. That’s a bit weird, and I don’t think anybody else works in an organisation where that’s the case.

Rowley was being interviewed because today the Met is announcing its New Met for London plan. Vikram Dodd has more on that here.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Rishi Sunak chairs cabinet.

11am: Grant Shapps, the energy secretary, gives a speech at the launch of Great British Nuclear.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

12.30pm: Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, gives a statement to MPs about his defence command paper.

2.30pm: Tim Davie, the BBC director general, gives evidence to the Lords communications committee.

4.15pm: Keir Starmer gives a speech at the Future of Britain conference organised by the Tony Blair Institute. Afterwards he will take part in a Q&A with Blair himself.

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