Home Secretary to work with Federation on police driver legislation

9 June 2021

The Home Secretary has said she will “absolutely” work together with the Federation to ensure that changes to legislation to offer protection to police drivers do not inadvertently further criminalise them.

Priti Patel was put on the spot during a Q and A session at today’s Police Federation conference by Tim Rogers, deputy secretary of West Midlands Police Federation and the national Federation’s pursuits and driver training lead.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill seeks to ensure that police officers’ driving is no longer judged by the standards of the careful and competent driver but Tim explained the current wording of the new legislation could mean more officers are prosecuted since they could be found to have breached policy and procedure.

“Your remedy could put police drivers at a greater risk,” Tim explained, asking: “Officers when acting instinctively to protect the public may well drive in a way that has not been trained, the new legislation leaves these officers vulnerable to prosecution for a breach of policy, can you assure us that this flaw will be remedied?

“What are you going to do to address this so that officers don’t end up in court for doing their job?”

Ms Patel said there was no intention to criminalise officers and that as the bill made its way through Parliament the Home Office would work through how it could make it work in the right way.