Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
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Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, this has been a very interesting and important debate. My noble friend and other noble Lords raised very pertinent questions about the status of the elected police commissioner and chief constable as corporations sole, the financial consequences of the proposed arrangements, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and the financial relationship between the commissioner and the chief constable. I will start with that. Since it is the commissioner who will set the precept and ultimately sign off the plan, he will have considerable influence over the chief constable, because he who controls the resources tends to pull the strings. It will be rather like the relationship between Her Majesty's Treasury and the Home Office. My experience of friends in the Treasury over 10 years as a Minister was that they delighted in micromanaging the affairs of departments, which they did not think could organise a you-know-what in a brewery. It will be inevitable that the commissioner, who in the end will have total control over how much money the chief constable gets, will be able to exercise considerable operational control. We should bear that in mind when we consider the construct of the Bill.
My other concern is about the lack of good corporate governance when it comes to the concept of corporation sole and issues of expenditure, contracts and the employment of staff. As I said on our previous day in Committee, it is puzzling that the party opposite, the Conservatives, who 20 years ago were very concerned about ensuring good corporate governance both in the public and private sectors, seem to have forgotten all this when they came to construct the Bill. This has been a very good debate and noble Lords have used their experience of how the police service currently operates to tease out some of the issues.
The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, talked about the chief officer as chief executive. He thought that it was probably a good thing, provided that it was done in the right way. The problem I have with that is that, as I read the Bill, the chief constable, being corporation sole, is not just the chief executive; he or she is also the chair and the non-executive directors. It is the realisation of a Gilbertian fantasy: the Lord High Everything Else. The chief constable is not just the Lord High Everything Else; he is the Lord High Everything. Of course the noble Lord was right to ask the Minister whether there will be structures, such as good employment practice and all the other constraints and necessary safeguards, and I am sure the Minister will seek to give an affirmative response, but, in the end, it will be down to the chief constable as a corporation sole. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, said, in the end those who make, for instance, employment decisions will be employed by the chief constable, the corporation sole, and that must have an impact on their behaviour.
This corporate governance structure, or the absence of it, would never be contemplated by the Government if this were a private sector operation. The idea that you can have one person without some kind of board structure and without non-executives to give the check and balance would not be contemplated. Why is this kind of structure being contemplated in this part of the public sector? It is a puzzle to me. I have always paid tribute to the previous Conservative Government for the emphasis they gave to good corporate governance, the encouragement they gave to the Institute of Directors and the CBI and the work by Cadbury. The previous Conservative Government encouraged all these things. Why are they ignoring that when it comes to this Bill?
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Browning)
My Lords, I am grateful. This has been a very constructive debate on a very important part of this legislation. In her opening remarks, the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, mentioned the corporation sole, and I shall begin by setting out where the Government are coming from on this. As Members of the Committee will know, a corporation is a body that has its own legal personality distinct from that of its members. This means that a corporation can own property, enter into contracts and take part in legal proceedings in its own capacity and that its assets, rights and liabilities are those of the corporation rather than the members. Typically, corporations have more than one member. Such corporations are called corporations aggregate. Local authorities are a typical example. However, a corporation can consist of only one person: the corporation sole. The sovereign is a corporation sole, as are various ecclesiastical figures, such as bishops, and various other public offices have been created corporations sole by legislation, such as the Treasury Solicitor, the Information Commissioner and the Children’s Commissioner, so this is not something completely new that has been contrived for the purposes of this legislation.
The amendments concerning this part of the Bill and particularly concerning the chief officer’s status as a corporation sole remove or limit the status to apply to employment matters. They also remove the chief officer’s ability to enter into other contracts and agreements, including the ability to borrow money and sell property. The Government are clear about the need to establish chief constables as corporations sole. This legal status will allow them to employ staff in their official capacity and thus have greater control over running their forces. We believe that it is a very important move for chief constables to be able to have that more direct link with the employment of the police. I accept what noble Lords have said about the status of existing police officers who are not employed as such by any one particular body. It is quite right that that has been mentioned. But this does not in any way detract from the oath that they take or from their status. They would go into a direct employment situation as far as the chief constable is concerned.
My noble friend Lord Carlile of Berriew clearly set out what I thought was exactly spot on as to why we want to do this. In terms of the increased capacity that the chief constable would have, particularly in the employment field, we want to ensure that a PCC is also enabled to focus on accountability rather than on running the force. Those two roles are quite distinct. We believe that the corporation sole allows the chief constable to fulfil that clearly defined role. The legal status that allows them to employ staff in their official capacity is very important in its vital function in the context of providing greater autonomy over the day-to-day management of the force. It is at the heart of clear operational independence, about which a lot has been said in our deliberations so far. This clearly, we believe, would contribute to it.
However, noble Lords have raised issues that are of concern and I hope that I can reassure them. As currently drafted, there are parts of this part of the Bill that we intend to change. Perhaps I may set them out. The noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, and my noble friend Lady Harris raised the concern that chief officers will have significant powers to enter into contracts and agreements. It is our intention to consider this further. We will consider laying amendments which would prevent the chief constable from borrowing money and require him or her to obtain permission from the police and crime commissioner before entering into any contract other than a contract of employment. I hope that noble Lords will accept that we have already revisited this. They have made some important points around this aspect and at later stages of the Bill we will bring forward government amendments to try to correct this.
The amendments tabled by my noble friends Lady Hamwee and Lord Shipley and the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, would mean that, while the chief police officer would be able to appoint a chief finance officer, they would not be required to do so. Nor would they be required to appoint someone suitably qualified to hold that role. Currently, the Bill will require each chief police officer to appoint a chief finance officer of the force and require that person to be a member of a chartered financial institute. This is not about gathering chums around; it is about making sure that there is proper professional support for the role. I understand that the requirement for separate chief finance officers reporting to the chief police officer and the police and crime commissioner may on the face of it seem like duplication. Several Members of your Lordships’ House have mentioned that tonight but I stress that this is not the case. The noble Lord, Lord Dear, made the point that there is a situation here with the police authority and the chief constable.
The Bill makes key changes to the current system of financial governance for the police, flowing from the fact that it will be the chief police officers who employ the police staff currently employed by police authorities. The Bill provides for chief police officers to be corporation sole so that they can do this in their official capacity. As two distinct bodies both legally capable of holding moneys and entering into contracts, it is right and proper that chief police officers and police and crime commissioners both have suitably qualified people responsible for the propriety and efficiency of their financial affairs.
The provisions in the Bill set up two distinct bodies whose financial responsibilities will have to be formal, clear and accountable in law and to the public. I want to clarify any confusion between the role of the two. The chief finance officer to the force will be primarily involved in the propriety of operational spending and employment. The PCC’s chief financial officer will have the overall oversight of spending, including grant-making functions. I can confirm that there is no reason why there cannot be group audits of these two functions.
Lord Harris of Haringey
I want to question whether my noble friend has got the correct nuance of the argument. We have to be very clear about what we are trying to achieve with this Bill. My understanding is that the Government are trying to achieve stronger accountability, and that the mechanism for accountability is an elected police and crime commissioner—or we may end up with some other model. The danger is that, inadvertently, that accountability will be weakened. While my noble friend is right to say that being able to set the overall budget and strategy provides some degree of control, it does not provide the full picture. If you have a situation in which the corporation sole status of the chief officer of police is untrammelled—I was very pleased to hear what the Minister said about putting some limits around that, and I think it would be helpful to see those sooner rather than later—the danger is that chief officers of police will ignore what the body to whom they are supposed to be accountable will say are the key strategic issues that matter to their local communities. We would not want every minor arrangement in respect of an individual investigation to be referred to the accountable body, but we should have some system that ensures that those key decisions lie clearly with the body to which the chief officer of police is being held accountable.
Baroness Browning
My Lords, I am very grateful for the further contributions that have just been made to the debate. I can assure my noble friend Lord Carlile of Berriew that if, for example, forensic science commissioning were suddenly needed, there would not be a time lag while permission was sought. That is not our intention. I also take on board what noble Lords opposite have said about getting the balance right. I can assure the Committee that we will bring forward an amendment that I hope meets the concerns that have been expressed.
Lord Soley
Would the Minister answer my question, which arose from the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, about the number and type of weapons purchased? Does she need more time to find out what the situation would be if it is a corporation sole? Does she want to come back to the Committee, or can she answer the question now?
Baroness Browning
I hope that I can answer the noble Lord now. The situation will be as it is now.
Lord Soley
So the situation now would override the corporation sole nature of the body.
Baroness Browning
Yes, that is right. I ask noble Lords not to press the amendment.
Lord Harris of Haringey
My Lords, the Minister has given a very helpful explanation in relation to the chief financial officer. I do not think anyone is suggesting that the chief officer of police should not have financial support from somebody who was suitably qualified. It is told, no doubt apocryphally, that the Metropolitan Police, when it was under the control of the Home Office, had only two qualified accountants responsible for a budget of £3 billion, which may have explained why it did not have a system for knowing whether it had paid bills more than once. Having a senior financial person who is a qualified accountant is not the same as having a chief finance officer, which has a specific meaning in local government law. It is clear that the post is intended to have that specific meaning in local government law. I do not think that anyone is suggesting that we should move away from the situation that exists at the moment, where every force has a senior finance person, but the person who is clearly responsible for accounts and everything else resides within the police authority or, in this case given the Government’s construct, with the police and crime commissioner.
Baroness Browning
My Lords, this has been a very interesting debate. I am very grateful to noble Lords for the history that has been contributed. Not much of it appeared in my notes but it has helped me to put into context the City of London and the role of its police. I hope noble Lords will not mind if I begin by paying tribute to that police force. It is a small force but it has in recent times dealt with significant investigations and major incidents. It has dealt with them and acquitted itself extremely well. Because of its position it has a national role. I hear what has been said about the movement of financial services around not only the country but the globe. None the less, the force has taken a lead in tackling white-collar crime that continues today.
When the noble Lord, Lord Harris, began, I thought this would be one of those sublime moments when, as a politician, one could sit back, listen to two arguments and make up one’s mind as to which was the more persuasive. As a Minister, I do not have that luxury, as Members will know, more is the pity. It would be very nice to do so. However, the noble Lord, Lord Harris, lost me when he mentioned motoring offences in comparison with what my noble friend Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville said about the much more significant and recent role that this police force has played. Neither the Mayor of London nor the Metropolitan Police Authority has a role in the governance of the City of London Police.
The position of the Common Council as the police authority for the City of London Police has, as we have heard, remained essentially unchanged. It was not altered by the Police Act 1996, which created the police authorities that currently exist outside London. Nor, I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, was it changed when his Government introduced the Greater London Authority Act 1999, which created the Metropolitan Police Authority. Therefore, when he asked me why we are not doing this and said that the amendments are reasonable, I noted that he did not refer at all to what his own Government did. I assume they, too, when they were legislating for London would have looked at this issue. There was no offering or crumb there to persuade me that the previous Labour Government looked at this and decided that it was an appropriate thing to do.
Lord Rosser
The Minister’s argument is that she has been so overwhelmed by the decision of the previous Labour Government that it cannot possibly be challenged or questioned. Is that the argument for keeping the City of London Police?
Baroness Browning
Not at all, my Lords. We studied very closely the actions or lack of actions of the previous Labour Government. I assure the noble Lord that they are on our radar screen all the time. However, we have this situation not just because of the many years that the City of London Police has been in place but because of the exemplary way in which it conducts itself. The size of the population of the City of London has been mentioned. There are 8,000 voters but one must put that in the context of there being 25 wards in the City, of which only four have residents. To translate that into representation would be quite complex. The City of London is unique and has unique policing governance to recognise that fact. I suspect that various Governments down the years have looked at this and probably all came to the same conclusion. It operates on a non-party political basis through its lord mayor, aldermen and the members of the Court of Common Council. The governance is tailored to the particular institutions and traditions of the City of London. I am sorry to disappoint your Lordships, but it is not my intention to change that tonight. I hope the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Harris of Haringey
My Lords, I am enormously grateful to Members of the Committee for their consideration of the amendment. I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, for his history lesson as it demonstrated the extraordinarily effective lobbying power of the Corporation of London over the past two and a bit centuries.
Noble Lords have asked why the previous Labour Government did not address this issue. I was very engaged in the discussions that led to the creation of the Greater London Authority and I can let your Lordships into a secret: the then Prime Minister, who was renowned for his bravery in taking on international conflicts when other counsels might have prevailed, was not prepared to enter into a conflict with the massed troops of the Corporation of London. He did not wish to see tanks trundling down Ludgate Hill towards Westminster to try to suppress any uprising on the part of the unruly citizens of Westminster vis-à-vis the traditional powers and role of the Corporation of London.
I am sure the Committee will recognise that my amendment is very modest. It does not propose subsuming the City of London Police into the Metropolitan Police. It merely suggests that the City of London Police should be accountable to the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime in the same way that the Metropolitan Police are. That would not necessarily mean any disruption of the City of London Police’s excellent work, particularly on economic crime. It may have been unfair of me to refer to the heavy load of traffic offences with which the force deals. I was talking to a colleague in the House earlier this evening who remarked that the City of London Police dealt with a particularly high number of cases of indecent exposure, and that that factor should be taken into account when arguing for a separate force. However, the argument has always been about economic crime, certainly during my involvement in this area. We are talking about 213 new investigations during the past year, which is a comparatively modest figure.
This was intended to be a minimalist amendment to try to bring the City of London Police into line with some of the arrangements prevailing in the rest of the country. London is already an anomaly in the Bill, as we shall discuss further in a few minutes. The amendment is not intended to destroy the City of London Police or its work; it simply tries to create a system of accountability which would at least be parallel to that in the rest of London, if not in the rest of the country.
I note that the Minister is as susceptible as all previous holders of that office and, indeed, all previous Ministers in every other department of government, when it comes to the lobbying power of the Corporation of London, to which I defer. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Rosser
One reads with interest the amendment, which, as my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey said, provides for the deputy mayor for policing and crime to be elected, on the basis that it ought to be done on the same terms as the Government proposed for everywhere else in the country under the Bill, namely, for the police commissioner to be directly elected. Clearly, as long as the Bill remains as it is, where there is no elected police commissioner, we will not press for the deputy mayor for policing and crime to be elected. We will be consistent and say that we will stick with the same arrangement in London as the Bill currently has, having been amended by your Lordships' House.
If the Government are to make an effort in future to restore elected police and crime commissioners to the Bill, it would appear rather odd if they did not also say that, if that is what is to happen outside London, Londoners should also be able directly to elect the person who in reality will be responsible for policing. The arrangement that we appear to have at present is for an elected mayor to appoint a deputy mayor, who takes over the role that, if the Government get their way, an elected police commissioner will have elsewhere. I suppose the only parallel—although it is hardly a parallel—is that, if we had elected police commissioners and one were suspended or otherwise unable to operate, that elected police commissioner would, as the Bill stands, appoint someone from their own staff to act in their stead. The arrangement that we appear to be moving towards in London is not that of the mayor waiting to be suspended or otherwise unable to act before appointing someone, but that the mayor, immediately he or she comes into office, appoints someone else to act as the deputy mayor responsible for policing and crime.
We look forward to the Minister’s response on this. As I said, as long as the Bill remains as it is without elected police commissioners, we do not wish to be inconsistent by saying that the deputy mayor for policing and crime in London should be elected. However, if the Government intend to try to restore elected police commissioners to the Bill, we look forward to their explanation of why they think Londoners should not be able to elect the person responsible for policing as well.
Baroness Browning
My Lords, these amendments would prevent the mayor holding the mayor’s office for policing and crime and would instead create an elected deputy mayor for policing and crime to hold that office.
This Government’s policy is to introduce a directly elected police and crime commissioner in every force area in England and Wales outside London but, as your Lordships are only too well aware, these provisions have been removed from the Bill. It therefore seems rather odd that your Lordships should now be debating whether those self-same provisions should apply to the Metropolitan Police Service. I noted the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, about wanting to remain consistent. However, having struck out from the Bill the part that proposed elected police and crime commissioners, your Lordships now seem to be applying the same arguments to elect the deputy mayor for London.
The Government had not intended to introduce a new elected person to hold the police to account in London for the very simple reason that the whole of London already elects a single person to take responsibility for strategic issues such as policing, and that of course is the Mayor of London. The mayor is in the unique position of having responsibility for a whole force area and, as such, it seems sensible for him to have overall responsibility for holding the police to account as well.
The amendment would create a situation in which both the mayor and the deputy mayor had a direct democratic mandate across a whole force area, although they might have different ideas about what should happen. I do not think that that could work. It is right and fitting that the mayor should take on formal responsibility for holding the Metropolitan Police to account and, in turn, the mayor should be directly accountable to the public for how that is done. I am tempted to say to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, “Nice try”, but I regret that I am not able to accept his amendment.
Lord Harris of Haringey
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords who have contributed to this short debate. As ever, the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, highlighted what he called the thin end of the wedge. There is a choice and it goes to the heart of the Minister’s response to this. One can either envisage that the deputy mayor for policing and crime is elected by all Londoners on the same day and in the same manner as the Mayor of London, in which case the logic is that the 8,000 electors in the City of London should cast a vote for the deputy mayor of London as they vote for the Mayor of London. Alternatively, if the noble Lord preferred it and would be happy to support it on a later occasion, we could exclude the 8,000 electors from the Corporation of London area and have a deputy mayor elected on a slightly different franchise from that of the Mayor of London. That would, of course, completely undermine the Minister’s argument about how difficult it would be if these two individuals were elected on the same basis. The Government cannot have it both ways—I am trying to—by saying that we should not include the City of London in this. If you do not include the City of London, you therefore require that the franchise for the deputy mayor of London should be different from that for the Mayor of London and the argument about having the same franchise, being elected on the same basis and possible conflict, disappears.
The reason for including it was to try to achieve some consistency with the arrangements for the election of the Mayor of London. If it makes the Minister happier I am sure that we can construct the amendments in a way that excludes the City of London. That would then mean that she had achieved her objectives in terms of my previous amendment as well as this one. I am not clear that even had we altered the franchise slightly the Minister would have been happy with the amendment.
I have to say that there is a difficulty. I do not believe through very close observation that it is possible for the Mayor of London to fulfil the full range of activities of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime. I was certainly clear when I chaired the police authority about the amount of time that that took up. The role of being responsible for the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime will take up more time than that, and it would be impossible to combine that with the other responsibilities of the Mayor of London. The present Mayor of London, who no doubt is the role model for which the MOPC is being created, tried for a period, having made a manifesto pledge, to chair the police authority as well as being Mayor of London. After a comparatively short period, he decided that it was impracticable and not possible. We now have the situation that the Mayor of London appoints the chair of the police authority.
The difficulty is arguing that the arrangements will somehow be an improvement in transparency with current arrangements. Essentially, you are saying that the Mayor of London will appoint a person to fulfil the responsibilities in respect of holding the police service to account. That is the arrangement that we have at the moment. The Mayor of London appoints the chair of the police authority and that person, who is called the deputy mayor, although it is not a statutory title, fulfils those functions. That dilutes the principle of direct accountability. People might feel that the Mayor of London was doing a wonderful job on transport arrangements, introducing bicycle schemes, representing London on an international stage in such a way that all Londoners feel that the cockles of their hearts are warmed by seeing him perform. They might feel that or they might not, but they might have very different views about the conduct of the role on policing.
Under these arrangements being proposed by the Government, people cannot differentiate between them. All of it is subsumed in the responsibilities of the single elected mayor and the mayor can distance him or herself from what happens in policing by the fact that they appoint somebody else to do it. That is a weakness. If the Government are intent on restoring the principle of direct election to the rest of the Bill they need to think again about restoring the principle of direct election to the position in the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime. If they are worried about duplication, they could take policing out of the Mayor of London’s area of responsibility. That is not something that I would personally advocate. The proposals are intended to balance those different responsibilities.
I will think carefully about what the Minister has said. When we know the Government’s intent it will be clear whether something like this needs to be put into the Bill at a later stage. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Harris of Haringey
My Lords, I will speak to an amendment that is in my name, to four other amendments to which I have added my name and to an amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. The amendment in my name is Amendment 110. I have to confess that this is possibly a refugee from what should have been another group. However, it could stand on its own here. It essentially deletes Clause 19(4), which is about the power of the deputy mayor for policing and crime to,
“arrange for any other person to exercise any function of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime which is, in accordance with subsection (2), exercisable by the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime”.
This comes back to the issue that we keep raising in relation to policing and crime commissioners: their ability to delegate functions to people who are not accountable in the same way. The proposal is that, even though this is an activity which is specifically the responsibility of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, and specifically should be carried out by the deputy mayor, it should not be possible to delegate this to any other person in such a cavalier way.
I also wanted to speak to Amendments 103 and 116, which essentially say that the deputy mayor for policing and crime shall be a Member of the London Assembly. If your Lordships and the Government are not minded to accept the principle of direct election, then the second best must be that the person delegated by the Mayor of London must themselves be an elected person, a Member of the London Assembly. It really is extraordinary that the Bill gives such latitude to the Mayor of London to appoint someone whom they have not met and may have no personal direct mandate. One could create a justification as to why it would be inappropriate to have a direct mandate, but it seems to me that the main thrust of this ought to be that that the person who is acting on behalf of the Mayor of London in this very important role should themselves have at least been subject to the electorate for at least part of London, if not the whole of London. It is important that the deputy mayor of London for policing and crime should be an elected Member of the London Assembly, and Amendments 103 and 116 deal with this.
I have also put my name to Amendment 105, which enables the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime to delegate to any person the functions that would otherwise be carried out by the deputy mayor for policing and crime. The issue is the same: whether it should be possible for these functions so easily to be delegated to people who are not elected. Amendment 105 would at least require the mayor to delegate them to somebody who was part of the structure of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime rather than to someone completely different. What would be the point of having a Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime if the mayor could say, “Well, one of these functions I am not having done by somebody who works for the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime; I’ll have it delegated somewhere else”? I suspect that this was an unintended consequence of something else when the drafting was done, but it seems to be a very strange arrangement.
Amendment 180 would involve Members of the Assembly in the appointment of police officers of ACPO rank other than simply the commissioner and deputy commissioner. I spoke earlier today about the importance of that responsibility being shared. It is an important issue of governance. It is also important that senior officers of the Metropolitan Police not only see the line of accountability to the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis but recognise the importance of democratic accountability. The involvement of Members in the appointments process would help facilitate that.
Baroness Browning
My Lords, there is a great number of amendments in this grouping. I shall try to do justice to as many of them as I can.
Amendments 61, 62, 107 and 116 would prevent the mayor appointing as deputy mayor for crime and policing anyone who was not already a Member of the London Assembly. I understand the concerns that lie behind the amendments. It is argued that if PCCs elsewhere are directly elected to their position, the deputy mayor should have some democratic legitimacy. We touched on this in previous amendments. However, it is important to remember that the deputy mayor does not occupy the Mayor's Office for Crime and Policing; the mayor alone may hold that office. The mayor may appoint a person to whom to delegate the day-to-day responsibilities of the office, but I emphasise—particularly to my noble friend Lady Hamwee because she raised this matter—that the liability and accountability to the public rest squarely on the shoulders of the mayor, whatever the nature of the delegation. For that reason, I suggest that it is not necessary for the deputy mayor to be elected, although there is no reason why they could not be.
To require the deputy mayor to be an Assembly Member would also limit the mayor's discretion to 25 people, many of whom already have important responsibilities. Until the Greater London Authority Act 2007, Assembly Members were not able to serve on the Transport for London board. While they are now able to do so, there is no requirement for any of the members or the chair to be an Assembly Member. In fact, none of the current members of the Transport for London board is also an Assembly Member; the accountability comes through the mayor. I therefore ask that this cluster of amendments not be pressed.
Delegation is very important in any organisation. No one person, be that the mayor or the deputy mayor, can carry out all the functions of an organisation from making strategic decisions to replying to letters. The Bill sets out that the mayor may delegate to the deputy mayor, who in turn may also delegate functions.
Amendment 109 would seriously restrict the mayor's ability to delegate to the deputy mayor, meaning that the mayor would have to carry out all the day-to-day functions of the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime. With a role as large and strategic as the mayor’s, it must be right that day-to-day functions are able to be delegated. As such, I ask that that amendment not be pressed.
Amendment 105 would restrict the mayor's ability to delegate functions so only the deputy mayor or an employee of the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime may have functions delegated to them. I would be very concerned that this would prevent the useful shared services that already exist in the GLA, as it would require that all of the mayor's functions in respect of policing and crime are performed by the staff of that office. In order to ensure that the mayor can make sensible decisions about the most efficient and effective way of working, I ask that this amendment not be pressed.
Amendments 106 and 109 make it clear that the mayor retains overall legal responsibility for any function he or she should choose to delegate. This is a fundamental principle of the law on delegation. The mayor could not choose to delegate overall responsibility of his or her functions even if he or she should wish to. As such, these amendments would have no practical effect and I ask that they not be pressed.
Amendment 114 would forbid any person but the mayor from exercising any rights of his or her office or using any property. That would effectively be a bar on the mayor from delegating any functions, as nearly all functions would require that person to exercise some rights of the mayor.
Amendments 110 and 111 would prevent the deputy mayor from delegating any functions that he or she has been delegated by the mayor. This would mean only the mayor or the deputy mayor could carry out any function of the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime. Were this the case then the mayor's office could have no effective staff, as every function from appointing a junior member of staff, to replying to a letter on behalf of the mayor's office would need to be carried out by either the mayor or the deputy mayor. Similarly, Amendments 103 and 112 would prevent the mayor and deputy mayor from delegating functions to any person but a London Assembly Member. I do not think it is right that only the mayor, deputy mayor or a London Assembly Member are able to perform the basic administrative functions of that office. Any organisation needs to allow for effective delegation to be efficient, but the amendments would prevent that and so make the office bureaucratic, if not actually impossible. For that reason, I would ask noble Lords not to press those amendments.
Finally, Amendments 97 to 101 make similar changes to restrict the ability of a police and crime commissioner in delegating functions. Your Lordships may care to consider what effect if any the amendments will have following the vote on the first day of this Committee. Had that vote not taken place, I would be arguing that PCCs also need to delegate, and it would be as inappropriate to expect police and crime panel members to handle a PCC's correspondence or to interview the staff.
I would have made similar arguments in respect of a PCC as I have in respect of the mayor; that it is right that conflict of interest considerations prevent them from delegating functions to a police officer, and the law is already clear that they cannot delegate overall responsibility for any function. I do not think that Clause 18 has any practical effect any longer, and as such, neither do the amendments sought.
To pick up on some of the other points raised, my noble friend Lady Hamwee mentioned the question of term limits on MOPC. As drafted, the amendment would mean that the current mayor would not be able to take on MOPC if successful in the 2012 election, as only the mayor can hold MOPC. That would leave the office vacant. This is probably not the place to open up the debate on how that problem might be resolved, but no one other than the mayor would be able to fill the role of MOPC and how that would be decided and how that situation would be dealt with is not clear in the proposals that have been brought forward.
Lord Harris of Haringey
The Greater London Authority Act provides for circumstances in which the office of mayor is vacant. It provides for arrangements in which the statutory deputy mayor under the Greater London Authority Act—not to be confused with the deputy mayor for policing and crime—assumes the functions of mayor. Surely those arrangements are covered under the Greater London Authority Act.
Baroness Browning
I am not up to speed with the Greater London Authority Act, but I would have hoped that in bringing forward amendments that created the circumstance, there would have been provisions to decide how to deal with the situation that I described and could well happen in respect of the sitting mayor and the elections due next year. So if the noble Lord does not mind I will not engage in the detail of that. Those proposals are simply not in front of the House today and I am going to move on to the role of the London Assembly.
These amendments would establish the London Assembly as the police and crime panel for London. I appreciate the position that noble Lords have taken with this. Like them, I am keen to ensure that the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime in London is properly challenged and that its decisions are tested on behalf of the public on a regular basis. However, I see that the police and crime panel must comprise members of the London Assembly so as to ensure proper accountability.
The first question to address here is why there should be a bespoke committee of the London Assembly called the police and crime panel rather than, as proposed by noble Lords, the functions being conferred on the London Assembly as a whole. The reason is one of practicality. Having a dedicated committee, representative of the wider London Assembly, will ensure that sufficient attention and scrutiny can be paid to delivering its policing responsibilities and would also allow for independent members to be brought on to the panel to ensure diversity and the right mix of skills. Independents would be appointed subject to the existing rules of the Assembly.
This smaller group will be able to focus its attentions on the important business of scrutinising, in detail, the actions and decisions of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime—particularly in respect of the police and crime plan. The requirement for the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime to produce a police and crime plan is a statutory requirement. It is right and proper that the London authority, through its police and crime panel, should have the appropriate opportunity to review and report on the draft police and crime plan. This is a very important element of its scrutiny role. However, given the statutory nature of the police and crime plan, and the accompanying requirements made of it by this legislation, it would not be appropriate for the police and crime panel to have the power to veto the plan itself.
Finally, these amendments would introduce a role for the London Assembly in the appointment of the commissioner and the deputy commissioner, and their senior team. I will address these in turn. The Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police remain royal appointments, subject to the advice of the Secretary of State, due to the number of important national and international functions that they undertake. In making this recommendation, the Secretary of State must have regard to any recommendations made by the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime.
It has been proposed that the London Assembly should also be a part of these considerations. Requiring the London Assembly to do so, be that directly through the police and crime panel, would add an additional layer of bureaucracy to the process, which would delay the decision further. The proposed amendments would also establish a role for the London Assembly in the appointment of the assistant commissioners, deputy assistant commissioners and commanders of the Metropolitan Police. Such appointments under this legislation will now be made by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, in consultation with the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime. They will no longer require the approval of the Secretary of State, which reflects the Government’s commitment to reduce interference from the centre and reduce bureaucracy.
The Government feel that the commissioner is best placed to make decisions about the make-up of his top team. The role of the police and crime panel for London is to scrutinise the decisions taken by the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime in London. It is not its role to scrutinise the decisions of the commissioner and neither it, nor the GLA more widely, as these amendments propose, should therefore have a role in the appointment of the commissioner’s senior team.
Furthermore, allowing the assembly to call in the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to give evidence will mean the commissioner having to answer to two masters. The commissioner is held to account by the mayor and the mayor by the assembly. These clear lines of accountability are needed.
I have not been able to go into a lot of detail—we had a long list of amendments before us—but I hope that your Lordships who have tabled amendments will feel able not to press them.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, there is a long list of amendments because there are a lot of issues. I would have been considerably happier if we had been able to unpack this package somewhat. From listening to the Minister’s reply—she has been saddled with this, I accept—it seems to me that some of the provisions are straining to apply to London the model provided for the rest of England and Wales. That feels very awkward and very inappropriate. I cannot see that we will finish the debate about London tonight, so I think that we will have to come back to aspects of it.
On delegation, at one point I referred to that as “trickle-down”, but I think that the Minister’s reply vindicates that description. I have realised, a bit late in the day, that “Delegatus non potest delegare”, as we all say—