Source · Select Committees · Home Affairs Committee
Recommendation 7
7
Deferred
Paragraph: 67
Repetitive protests significantly strain police resources, impacting other duties and officer wellbeing.
Conclusion
The repetitive nature of the recent large Israel-Gaza protests places considerable resource constraints on the police. This places additional pressure on the Met, which, having failed to meet the Uplift target, already struggles to meet the regular demands of policing London. The protests further drain police resource with more than 4,000 cancelled rest-days, and the same police officers being deployed week in, week out. We are concerned both about the effect on other aspects of policing, and about the human impact and the wellbeing of these police officers. With many officers regularly being deployed from outside of the Met, and should these protests continue indefinitely, it stands to reason that forces across the country will be less able to carry out the everyday neighbourhood and response policing that is so vital to the public.
Government Response Summary
The government's response outlines its strengthened approach to tackling extremism, including changes to Prevent Duty Guidance and a new definition of extremism, without addressing the committee's concerns about police resource constraints and officer wellbeing due to repetitive protests.
Paragraph Reference:
67
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government
Deferred
The Home Secretary welcomed the report by Dame Sara Khan and Sir Mark Rowley on the challenges of tackling extremism. We take this matter seriously and have strengthened our approach through: (1) Reinforcing the role of the CCE; (2) Changing the Prevent Duty Guidance to stipulate the need to tackle environments that are permissive of extremism; (3) Strengthening the focus of Prevent on ideology, including through guidance, training and changing Prevent objectives. (4) Increased work across government to tackle antisemitism and blasphemy. Police already have the powers to arrest those who incite violence or racial hatred. The government, rightly, keeps this under review. On 14 March, DLUHC announced a new definition of extremism, alongside a set of cross- government engagement principles to be used by government departments and officials to ensure that they are not inadvertently providing a platform, funding or legitimacy to groups or individuals who attempt to advance extremist ideologies. The new definition draws on the work of Dame Sara Khan and Sir Mark Rowley’s 2021 ‘Operating with Impunity Report’.