Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)

My Lords, I rise to support and move the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, to which I have added my name. I also support the other two amendments in this group. The reason for the amendments is that the Police Federation of England and Wales is concerned because it believes—but is not sure—that there is an increased rate of suicide among police officers, and it has a similar concern around police staff. For those noble Lords who do not know, about two-thirds of police work is done by police officers and about a third by employees who are police staff. The Police Federation was concerned because it intuitively thought that the numbers were rising, so it sent out FoI requests to each of the 43 forces—in fact, there are also three non-Home Office forces. Unfortunately, it got only 34 replies, which has not helped it in determining whether there is a real problem. It could be worried for no cause, but at the moment it is struggling to establish the facts. The difficulty is that it cannot get hold of the data. I am really concerned about this, because it seems to me that it should not be that difficult. I suspect that, even if the numbers of suicides are increasing, there are probably not going to be hundreds, even among a workforce of a quarter of a million. It is probably a relatively small number—probably tens rather than hundreds. Even for the biggest organisations, you would think that they would be able to find this data. For the smallest forces, surely they can remember the individuals. Some of the smaller forces we heard about in the police reforms announced yesterday have about 1,000 people, so there are not going to be so many that small forces could not remember whom this shocking thing had happened to. Police officers and police staff are generally relatively young people. They do not tend to die when they are in service, and when they die through suicide, it is a terrible shock for everybody involved. There would be complications in gathering the data. As the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, proposes, it would be helpful to get the data not only about those who have committed suicide but also about those who have attempted it. Establishing whether a death is a suicide or not relies on a coroner; that is the only absolute way in which we can say that there has definitely been a suicide. Sometimes, to be fair, coroners are sympathetic. They realise that this can feel to the family like a judgment, and often they will find any way that they can, in law, to find an alternative, so getting hold of the data can be difficult. Of course, who can say what an attempted suicide is? There is no absolute proof of that. I suspect that the occupational health units in each of the 43 forces have some data. Because that is medical data, however, they cannot always share it with the employer. If it is relevant just to that person but is not relevant to their employment; it is a confidential issue and, if the individual wants it kept secret, then that is entirely up to them, and the occupational health units might not be able to share it. It is vital to get this data for a couple of reasons. One is to establish patterns, if there are patterns; for example, does it affect certain roles? We know already that it is an awful job for certain officers and staff who view, for example, child abuse images as part of their general work. To have to sustain that work over months and years, even with all the welfare support that they get, might make it an area that we would be worried about if we saw that there was an increase in the number of suicides; likewise, among firearms officers or dog handlers, male or female—the role does not really matter. We just need to understand what it is, obviously, to try to prevent it. What worries me about not being able to get hold of this data—it ought to be possible to get at least some of it—is what it says about the relationship with the chief officers, the Police Federation and the unions. There is a statutory requirement for the chiefs to meet personally with the head of the federation every quarter, and to meet with the unions. I am sure my colleagues will also explain that. Beyond that formal requirement, we also meet them informally, usually about once a month. Chiefs should be meeting their federation reps at times such as bravery awards, and there are various other internal mechanisms. If they are concerned, it is hard to imagine that they have not mentioned it. If they have mentioned it, why have they not got a response? Why has it ended up with FoI requests, three-quarters of which have been badly answered? In fact, some of those who did not reply were the biggest forces of all. Sometimes people take it that 30-odd out of 40-odd forces is three-quarters; it is three-quarters of the forces, but some of the forces are very big and some are very small, so we do not have any representative data. My final point is for the Home Office. There are, broadly, two amendments here. One is very detailed from the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, about not only how the data is gathered but what is done with it afterwards. My amendment just says that the Home Office might want to collect this data. I wonder whether the Home Office has asked for it and also been refused; perhaps the Home Office could be interested as well. It is important for two reasons. First, when people are committing suicide in their employment, it matters that we establish whether it is their employment that is causing it, or there is something else that the employer has absolutely nothing to do with. The employer might have been able to help had they had some sensitivity to the problems that their staff are facing. Secondly, policing is about care. Those who serve must look after each other. My test is always that at 3 am, when everybody else has gone home, you cannot call the police if you have a problem, so you must rely on your colleagues. It is vital for any employer to care for their staff because they want better performance, and to make sure that their staff can do what they are paying them a salary for. But in policing and the emergency services in particular, you must rely on each other and look after each other. If that is not done properly, or if there is anything we could do to help a person, but they then take their own life and we could have noticed, it is probably the worst example, and, surely, we would all want to do something about that. It matters for many reasons and that is why I support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, and have tabled my own. I beg to move Amendment 435.