SHOULD Scotland’s police be routinely armed? That’s one of the questions being discussed by rank and file officers during an emergency debate at today’s Scottish Police Federation annual conference.
The motion, put forward in the wake of last week’s Westminster attack that left PC Keith Palmer and four other people dead, will also see officers discuss how ready Police Scotland are to deal with the terror threat facing the country.
Delegates at the conference will be asked to discuss: “The policing responses and readiness of the police service in Scotland to deal with the terror threat, specifically that conference discusses whether the fight against terrorism risks being undermined by drastic cuts to the policing budget, the erosion of community-based policing, and whether officers have sufficient personal protective equipment (including firearms) to be able to protect themselves in the event of a terrorist incident.”
Federation general secretary Calum Steele said it would be wrong to focus too much on the arming of police officers, and that the debate should not “be dragged down to whether police officers should be armed or not – it’s a much more complex question”.
It isn’t as simple as giving police officers a gun and ending terrorism, he said, but a question of resources, and allowing the police to be more proactive and not always reactive.
However, Steele said there “would need to be a real discussion over how we can expect police officers to protect the public when they don’t have the equipment necessary to protect themselves.”
Green MSP John Finnie, a former police officer and official at the Scottish Police Federation, called for “calm heads to prevail and for no-one to rush to conclusions about either more armed officers or, heaven forbid, routine arming”. He added: “If there is to be any prospect of Scottish policing retaining a community base then we must ensure officers are approachable and that will not happen if they look like they are going into armed battle.”
Human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar echoed Finnie’s sentiment: “There should be no knee-jerk response to calls for greater arming of police officers in this country.
“We operate on a cherished principle of policing by consent but since 2015 armed officers have been increased by one-third and are at record levels. I hope that the Federation does not conflate the public’s desire for protection with a need for seeing all officers turning into paramilitary types.”
Anwar said the real success of Police Scotland in counter-terrorism was down to “community engagement built up over many years of hard work”.
The debate comes a day after the UK Government unveiled plans for a major counter-terrorism exercise in Scotland later this year.
Prime Minister Theresa May announced the event when she met Police Scotland Chief Constable Phil Gormley yesterday.
The exercise will happen in October and will mimic a large scale terror attack. Part of the National Counter-Terrorism Exercise Programme, it brings together police, the armed forces, and governments.
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