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Police Grant Report | Commons debates

I put on the record my gratitude and, I suspect, that of everyone in this place, to the victims who reported David Carrick to the police in Hertfordshire and elsewhere, and who put the case against him together, and to the judge for her sentencing yesterday. Now is not the time for more reviews or for sitting back and thinking the job is done; now is the time for action. I hope the Policing Minister will be lobbying the Home Secretary with some urgency to introduce mandatory standards on vetting and misconduct.

Last year, we stood in this place debating the police grant report in the midst of rising inflation, energy bills, billions lost on fraud and dodgy PPE contracts during covid, and an economy limping under the weight of this Government’s hapless policies. It was 10 days after that debate that Russia invaded Ukraine, and none of us could have foreseen that we would be here today with President Zelensky, a year after the start of that war. None of us—apart from perhaps the Policing Minister, who played a key role—could have foreseen the economic collapse following the last Prime Minister’s extraordinary crash-and-burn Budget, which cost us tens of billions of pounds.