A senior Police Officer has accused Government Ministers of “damaging” attempts to enforce coronavirus lockdown by saying “different things” about the rules.
Martin Hewitt, who is the head of the National Police Chief’s Council said that the relationship between Ministers “has at times been tense and difficult” saying officers had times delayed enforcing new rules whilst the guidance was being prepared.
The speech to the London College of Policing comes just days after Mr Hewitt stood alongside Priti Patel at the Downing Street Press Conference and vowed to get tough on Covid rule breakers.
“We’ve pushed really hard, not always successfully, to get consistent messaging and management of expectations out of Government,” he said.
“That’s been really troubling for us because it’s been very damaging to our efforts where you’ve got different Government Ministers saying different things, answering questions and giving a slightly different perception.”
Mr Hewitt said that the relationship had been “pretty challenging throughout”, he suggested that senior officers had had to make clear that all enforcement was not down to the police as local authorities, licencing authorities and those running shops, pubs and restaurants all have responsibility to ensure that the regulations are followed.
“We have had to assert our independence about the way that we will do what we do, whilst at the same time playing a really full role in the way that we can play to help the country fight the pandemic, but it has been a challenging relationship with Government,” he said.
He continued: “The legislation and the guidance moved quickly, it often changed quickly, and often we didn’t have enough time that we would have wanted to prepare our guidance to go out to police staff and police officers.
“We had some real challenges, fighting a bit with Government to make sure that that was as effective as it could be.
“On some occasions, we did not start policing a new regulation, until we had got the guidance out, and we made that very clear with Government we weren’t going to have our officers bounced into a situation where they didn’t understand what they should be doing.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are grateful for our hardworking police officers who continue to support the national effort to stop the spread of the virus, enforce the rules and save lives.
“This is an unprecedented global health pandemic. It has been necessary to be dynamic and tighten restrictions quickly when the number of cases of Covid-19 increased.
“We have a strong relationship with the NPCC, and police chiefs around the country, and have been in constant contact with them throughout. We have worked in conjunction with them to ensure the guidance is clear in a necessarily fast moving and complex environment.”
Editor-in-Chief | Carl D. Pearson has been involved in British politics and media from an early age, with the key knowledge of what it takes to run a news organisation for the 21st century. Mr Pearson, as Editor-in-chief, is responsible for supervising the daily tasks of publishing media and content to UNN’s website and various platforms.
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