Yvette Cooper MP, Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary, responding to Theresa May’s speech on police standards, said:
“Today’s plan from the Home Secretary goes nowhere near far enough on police standards.
“A code of ethics is of course right, but it’s not enough. This week’s evidence at the Select Committee should show everyone we need an entirely new framework for standards, and a better system for when things go wrong.
"The IPCC doesn’t have the power, authority or resources to investigate and hold the police to account. It should be replaced with a much stronger, properly empowered and better-equipped Police Standards Authority.
"Simply giving the IPCC more resources isn’t enough - it will just expand a structure that isn’t working, isn’t proactive enough and has failed to deliver for victims, the police or the public too many times.
“The case of Andrew Mitchell and the meeting with the Police Federation is the latest in a long line of failures by the current system to adequately oversee or investigate the police. The structure for integrity and accountability is not working. There needs to be a way of learning lessons and improving standards in the future. The IPCC doesn’t have the power, authority or the capacity to do that but a Police Standards Authority could.
“The Independent Commission into the Future of Policing, chaired by Lord Stevens, will be setting out more radical and far-reaching plans next month to address this key area of policing.”