The Undercover Policing Inquiry was established by the then Home Secretary Theresa May in 2014 under the Inquiries Act 2005. As such, the Home Office is the ‘sponsoring department’ in the Government, and it is to the Home Secretary whom the Inquiry will ultimately deliver its findings. It was also the Home Office which commissioned the Stephen Lawrence Independent Review and the Taylor Report, whose comments and criticisms led to the creation of the Inquiry.
The Home Office sets the Terms of Reference, appoints the Inquiry Chair and provides it with resources and funding. In 2015, it drew up a Management Statement which sets out the powers of oversight it has in relation to the Inquiry.
For the most part, the Home Office appears to have played a hands-off role, leaving much of the decision-making powers in the hands of the Chair. However, at a Parliamentary hearing in 2022, Michael Rycroft, the then Permanent Secretary to the Home Office, told MPs that it was concerned about the cost and length of the Inquiry and mentioned that it could close the Inquiry down (see below for a transcript of the exchange). It is believed that, behind the scenes, pressure has been applied to the Inquiry to cut its costs.
As well as being the sponsoring body, the Home Office plays its own role in the Inquiry as the government department which oversees the police and Security Service. Funding for the Special Demonstration Squad in its first 21 years (1968-89) came from the Home Office which also had a role in overseeing the unit (see the Taylor Report).
The Home Office has provided a number of witness statements and oral submissions in the preliminary hearings of the Inquiry. These have tended to be short and supportive of the Inquiry’s work. Sometimes the Home Office is referred to in the Inquiry as the Secretary of State for the Home Department (SSHD).
Transcript of Matthew Rycoft of the Home Office to the Home Affairs Select Committee hearing of 22 June 2022 (courtesy of Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance).
Diana Johnson MP: I just want to ask you one last question about the Undercover Policing Inquiry, which was supposed to have reported by 2018. It was set up in 2015 by the Home Secretary at that time. It has now been running for seven years, it has spent over £50,000,000 to date and only the first two of six tranches of work have been properly started.
There is no forecast information about the overall expected time it is going to run, nor the cost. Now, I have written to you about that Inquiry. I have had someone who is likely to be a witness to that Inquiry write to me and say that he doesn’t think he’ll be alive to
give evidence because of the time this Inquiry is taking.
The Home Office is the sponsoring Department. What do you have to say about the cost
and the length of time of this Inquiry?
Matthew Rycroft: I very much agree with you that the Inquiry needs to get on with it. It has been going on for a long time. Of course, it is hugely complex work and the Inquiry, as other inquiries, is operationally independent. It is up to them to work out how to fulfil their terms of reference and how to account for their budget, but it is a £50,000,000 budget and it is seven years and counting.
What the Chair has agreed to do, which I welcome, is to set out an interim report that I think will help to demonstrate that there has at least been some progress on some aspects – the things that were heard through that first phase of hearings.
Diana Johnson MP: Does that mean you just have to keep paying?
Matthew Rycroft: We don’t have to. Obviously, there is a choice, you know. The Home Secretary could choose to close down that Inquiry. Of course, there would be pros and cons to that. I think, as with all things, it’s a balance.
Getting to the truth is really important for that Inquiry and indeed for others, which is why it is taking time. But I think the rather practical consideration that you have mentioned about a potential witness who is presumably getting on in years, and we would all benefit from the Inquiry being able to hear the evidence of that witness before too long.
And so, rest assured that, in our sponsorship role, the Home Office – including myself, but mainly my colleagues – works closely with that Inquiry’s Secretary and Chair in order to get a move on.