Baroness Casey’s Report painted a damning and familiar picture of the Met Police victimising communities, failing victims, creating a toxic working culture, and wrecking public confidence. I spoke in Parliament on this issue, where I pointed out that in our area, trust in policing is at an all-time low after the fatal shooting of Chris Kaba and murder of Sarah Everard. I asked the Government to ensure officers are properly vetted and automatically suspended when they come under investigation for crimes or misconduct.

Sadly, there appears to be a lingering inability to name the problems the Met faces. When the Government and Met leadership can’t bring themselves to say out loud that racism, misogyny, and homophobia are institutionalised in the Met, can we really be confident that they are committed to eliminating them? Many people in our area are also rightly asking why, instead of addressing abuses of existing police powers, the Government has been creating new unaccountable police powers which it openly admits will target racialised communities. I voted for the Lords amendments to protect the right to protest.

Root and branch reform won’t happen overnight but we need to see the Government and Met leadership taking the actions available to them today. That starts with more transparency, better democratic oversight, stronger vetting and zero tolerance towards officers who commit offences. Before the Met can be trusted to police our communities, they need to show they can police themselves.