Police Training College

HC Deb 23 January 1964 vol 687 cc1253-4

15 . Mr. Longden

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will now establish a police training college on the lines of that inaugurated at Hendon by the late Lord Trenchard, which ceased to function during the last war and has not since been reopened.

Mr. Brooke

The higher training of the police is, in my view, well provided for at the Police College at Bramshill, which was established in 1948.

Mr. Longden

Will not my right hon. Friend agree that the Hendon College was a very great success in its day; and that many of the people who are now at the top in the force were graduates there? Would it not be a good thing to reinstitute it?

Mr. Brooke

The Hendon College was for the Metropolitan Police alone. It was an experiment which started in 1934; the arrangements were substantially altered in 1938 and, inevitably, it came to an end during the war. But I hope that my hon. Friend, and any other hon. Members on both sides of the House who are interested, will take the opportunity to visit the new Police College at Bramshill, if they have not done so. I think that they will be very greatly impressed by the higher training going on there.