House of Commons Home Affairs Committee The Macpherson Report: Twenty-two years on Third Report of Session 2021–22 Report, together with formal minutes relating to the report Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 21 July 2021 HC 139 Published on 30 July 2021 by authority of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee The Home Affairs Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Home Office and its associated public bodies. Current membership Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP (Labour, Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) Chair Rt Hon Diane Abbott MP (Labour, Hackney North and Stoke Newington) Dehenna Davison MP (Conservative, Bishop Auckland) Ruth Edwards MP (Conservative, Rushcliffe) Laura Farris MP (Conservative, Newbury) Simon Fell MP (Conservative, Barrow and Furness) Andrew Gwynne MP (Labour, Denton and Reddish) Adam Holloway MP (Conservative, Gravesham) Dame Diana Johnson MP (Kingston upon Hull North) Tim Loughton MP (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham) Stuart C. McDonald MP (Scottish National Party, Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) The following Members were also Members of the Committee during this Parliament: Janet Daby MP (Labour, Lewisham East); Stephen Doughty MP (Labour (Co-op) Cardiff South and Penarth); Holly Lynch MP (Labour, Halifax) Powers The Committee is one of the departmental select committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 152. These are available on the internet via www.parliament.uk. Publications © Parliamentary Copyright House of Commons 2021. This publication may be reproduced under the terms of the Open Parliament Licence, which is published at www.parliament.uk/copyright. Committee reports are published on the Committee’s website at www.parliament.uk/homeaffairscom and in print by Order of the House. Evidence relating to this report is published on the inquiry publications page of the Committee’s website. Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Melissa Bailey (Committee Operations Officer), Chris Battersby (Committee Specialist), Chloe Cockett (Senior Specialist), Elektra Garvie-Adams (Second Clerk), Elizabeth Hunt (Clerk), Kate Johal (Committee Specialist), Niamh McEvoy (Committee Specialist), Penny McLean (Committee Specialist), George Perry (Senior Media and Communications Officer), Paul Simpkin (Committee Operations Manager). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Home Affairs Committee, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 6856; the Committee’s email address is [email protected]. You can follow the Committee on Twitter using @CommonsHomeAffs. The Macpherson Report: Twenty-two years on 1 Contents Summary 5 1 Introduction 13 Background to the inquiry 13 Aims and recommendations of the Macpherson report 13 Home Affairs Select Committee 2009 Inquiry 15 Twenty-two years on inquiry 16 Terminology used to describe ethnic categories 17 George Floyd, and Black Lives Matter 17 Structure of the report 18 2 Confidence in policing among BME communities 20 Confidence in policing among BME communities 20 Force-level confidence data 24 Relations between young BME people and the police 26 3 Racist incidents and victims of crime 32 The Macpherson report’s findings and conclusions 32 Reporting and recording of racist incidents since the Macpherson report 33 Crime Survey 34 Police-recorded crime 34 Online hate crime 35 Victims of racist crimes 36 Assessment of police response to racist crimes 37 Investigation of crimes and victim support 40 BME victims of crime 40 4 Recruitment and progression of BME officers and staff 43 Measuring progress: ethnic diversity of the police workforce 43 Achievement against representation targets set in 1999 46 New recruitment 47 Barriers to recruitment 49 BME representation in the wider police workforce 51 Progression and retention 52 Barriers to progress 54 Disproportionality in resignations, conduct hearings and dismissals 54 Workplace culture 54 Routes to improving ethnic diversity in the police service 58 The Equality Act 2010 and the Public Sector Equality Duty 58 Positive action 59 Police force measures to increase BME recruitment and use of the Equality Act 2010 60 Limitations of the law 65 Tie breaker provision 65 Positive discrimination 66 5 Police misconduct and discipline 74 Police officer voluntary resignations and dismissals 74 The police discipline system 76 MOPAC 2016 report 79 NPCC review on ethnic disparity in police misconduct 81 6 Stop and search 86 Macpherson report: stop and search overview 86 Stop and search: statutory powers 88 Use of stop and search powers in England and Wales and historical comparison 89 Disproportionality in stop and search 92 Disproportionality in ‘reasonable grounds’ (Section 1 and 23) searches 94 Disproportionality in ‘No suspicion’ (Section 60) searches 96 Disproportionality in road traffic stops (section 163 of the Road Traffic Act 1988) 98 Explaining racial disparities in stop and search 100 The effectiveness and impact of stop and search 102 Arrests following stop and search 102 The impact of stop and search on crime levels 104 The impact of stop and search on communities 106 Metropolitan police use of stop and search during the first national lockdown 108 Reforms to stop and search 112 Home Office reforms (2014–2019) 112 National policing measures to improve stop and search 116 Initiatives to build community oversight and confidence 118 Use of force 121 Handcuffing during stop and search 121 Tasers 123 Disproportionality in the use of force 124 The Macpherson Report: Twenty-two years on 3 Recording and monitoring use of force 124 7 Use of police technologies and tools 127 The Metropolitan Police Service Gangs Violence Matrix 127 Effectiveness of the Gangs Violence Matrix 128 Disproportionality on the Gangs Violence Matrix 129 Reforms to the Gangs Violence Matrix 130 Police body worn cameras 131 Live Facial Recognition Technology 132 Policing the covid-19 regulations 133 8 Racism and the police twenty-two years on 138 Response to Macpherson and action on racism since 1999 139 Race equality in policing today 140 The response of UK policing to the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement 142 Approaches to tackling racism and promoting race equality 144 Individual prejudice and unconscious bias 144 Training 144 Racism in structures, culture and policies 147 The concept of institutional racism and the Macpherson report 148 Race equality in public sector institutions and the Public Sector Equality Duty 150 Contemporary analysis of racial inequality within public institutions, policies and structures 151 The Lammy Review 152 The Wendy Williams Review 152 Sewell report 153 9 Delivery and Accountability 157 Delivery of the Macpherson recommendations 157 Monitoring progress today 158 Police accountability and institutional responsibilities for delivering change 159 The role of Chief Constables and Police and Crime Commissioners 159 The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) 163 The College of Policing 164 The Independent Office for Police Conduct 164 HMICFRS 165 Holding forces to account for failings 167 The role of the Home Office 168 4 The Macpherson Report: Twenty-two years on Annex: Supplementary data 172 Conclusions and recommendations 175 Formal minutes 196 Witnesses 197 Published written evidence 199 List of Reports from the Committee during the current Parliament 203 The Macpherson Report: Twenty-two years on 5 Summary Stephen Lawrence was murdered on 22 April 1993 in an unprovoked racist knife attack in Eltham, South London. The Inquiry into his murder led by the late Sir William Macpherson uncovered major failings in the police investigation and in the way Stephen Lawrence’s family and his friend Duwayne Brooks were treated. The report, published twenty-two years ago in February 1999, was truly ground-breaking, leading to major changes in the law, in policing, in the response to institutional racism and the treatment of racist crimes, and ultimately to two convictions for Stephen Lawrence’s murder. Many of the findings and subsequent 70 recommendations made by the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry focused on longstanding issues which remain as relevant today. Our inquiry was prompted by concerns that in some areas, in the words of Baroness Lawrence, “things have become stagnant and nothing seems to have moved.” We have assessed progress against some of the most important Macpherson report recommendations: on community confidence, on tackling racist crimes, on recruitment and retention of Black and other minority ethnic officers and staff, on race disparities in the use of stop and search and other powers, and on the overall aim set by the late Sir William Macpherson of “the elimination of racist prejudice and disadvantage and the demonstration of fairness in all aspects of policing.” We have also looked at the structures needed to deliver further progress today. We have found that policing today is very different from twenty-two years ago. Since the Macpherson report was published there have been important improvements in policing including significant improvements in the policing of racist crimes, in the commitments made to promoting equality and diversity and in good examples of local community policing. But our inquiry has also identified persistent, deep rooted and unjustified racial disparities in key areas including a confidence gap for BME communities, lack of progress