Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)
Read Full debate19:59 - The House divided: - Ayes: 296 / Noes: 220 - Question accordingly agreed to.
20:17 - The House divided: - Ayes: 291 / Noes: 224 - Question accordingly agreed to.
21:53 - The House divided: - Ayes: 202 / Noes: 300 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)
I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.
Mr Speaker
With this it will be convenient to consider Lords amendments 2 to 4 and 6, Government motions to disagree, Government amendments (a) to (d) in lieu, amendment (i) to Government amendment (a) in lieu and amendment (ii) to Government amendment (b) in lieu.
Nick Herbert
This Government are determined to swap bureaucratic control of the police for local democratic accountability, replacing police authorities with directly elected commissioners. In the past there has been too much central interference with decisions that should have been taken locally and by professionals, yet too often the centre has been weak where it needed to be strong, such as in ensuring the fight against serious and organised crime or better co-ordination between forces. Our aim is to reverse this position, giving greater freedom to professionals to do their job and sweeping away central interference and bureaucracy, while refocusing the Home Office on key priorities and threats.
But we cannot just take away central direction and leave the police to get on with it. Like any public service, the police must answer to someone. Politicians do not and should not run the police, but they should and they must hold the police to account on behalf of the public whom the police serve. Officers must be accountable for their actions and forces must be accountable for their performance. Both parties in the coalition were committed in their manifestos at the last election, in differing ways, to enhancing the democratic accountability of policing. The coalition agreement pledged the introduction of directly elected individuals, subject to strict checks and balances, by locally elected representatives.
The Bill seeks to establish clear and democratically accountable leadership for police governance, but amendments in another place would remove those provisions. The Lords amendments do not try to increase the local accountability of the police. They do not even try to ensure that there are adequate checks and balances in place. The amendments simply say that the status quo should be preserved and that the chair of a police authority should be called a police and crime commissioner. This rebranding of the status quo will not suffice.
The whole purpose of the Government’s reform and its strength is that local councillors will still be involved in the governance of policing, but an elected individual, with a mandate from the people, will take the executive decisions.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The Minister is preaching a great sermon on how everything will be transformed by the creation of commissioners, but my concern is that what he means by the word “local” is not at all what is going to be brought about. The South Wales police force area covering Swansea and Cardiff—two cities that have never particularly loved each other—and large chunks of the valleys, which have a very different policing agenda from those two cities, could not possibly be constituted as a single political unit by anybody who was starting afresh. So my worry is that there will be less political accountability to local people and more accountability to one individual, who will probably be more likely to represent somebody in Cardiff and Swansea than somebody in the valleys.
Nick Herbert
Although I think there is a serious debate to be had, I disagree with the hon. Gentleman for a number of reasons, principally that he may be making an argument for smaller forces—that is not a proposal that the Government are making, or one that, I suspect, the Opposition would support. Also, if a single chief constable can be in charge of that whole force and be responsible for the operation of the force across the varied area that the hon. Gentleman describes, why should not a single individual be capable of holding that chief constable to account? In London we have seen the Mayor taking responsibility for policing over a very much greater population, including a diverse population with a large number of local authority components.
Chris Bryant
What I have found in the past few years in South Wales police is that although it is true that the chief constable is not particularly accountable, what has made the police accountable is the local PACT—Police and Communities Together—meetings, where members of the public get to know they can get in touch with their local beat police officer. It is that transformation of the police that will render policing far more effective, rather than the somewhat bureaucratic system that the Minister is setting up.
Nick Herbert
We are hardly setting up a bureaucratic system. It is one that involves direct democratic accountability. The two things that the hon. Gentleman describes are not mutually exclusive. It is possible to maintain neighbourhood policing and local accountability while still introducing direct democratic accountability and governance, for the reasons that I set out.
Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
I must say that I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on the usefulness of PACT meetings. The Minister referred to accountability and to the Metropolitan police. There is an issue with the governance of the Metropolitan police, because they do not and will not have a police commissioner, as that is part of the Mayor of London’s muddle of responsibilities. Of course, the Metropolitan police’s activities go far beyond London and have implications not only for other parts of England but for Scotland and Wales, yet we have a Mayor with devolved responsibility getting rid of a Metropolitan Police Commissioner. Is there not a bit of a muddle over the accountability issues right across this new pattern of policing?
Nick Herbert
I do not accept that there is a muddle. The right hon. Gentleman will know that it was the previous Government who set up the current governance arrangements in London. The Metropolitan police have national policing responsibilities and therefore answer in part to the Home Secretary, which makes them unique. However, the reforms in London to give greater local accountability have been popular with the public, and it is that principle that we seek to extend. Indeed, the principle of having one accountable individual directly responsible for the totality of force activity is crucial to the Government’s vision. Policing governance by committee has led to an unelected body having power over the precept, with no one being properly held to account for decisions or poor performance and no one truly being in charge.
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
The Minister states that this whole idea is popular. What does he base that on, because all the information I have seen indicates that the public do not want this?
Nick Herbert
If the hon. Gentleman had been paying attention, he would know that I was talking about the popularity of the reform that his Government introduced —the introduction of the Mayor of London. Evidence from opinion polls shows that a large majority of the public welcome the idea of enhanced local accountability for policing.
The public have not had a voice. As the shadow policing Minister, the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), has pointed out:
“Under the current system, 93 per cent of the country has no direct, elected representation.”
Indeed, only 7% of wards in England and Wales are represented on a police authority, so it is no surprise that only 7% of the public understand that they can approach their police authority if they are dissatisfied with policing. Most people have no clue who their police authority chair is. How can a body be an effective link between the police and the people if it is invisible to the people? I agree with the former policing Minister, who said that people must “know who to go to” and be
“able to influence their policing through the ballot box.”
That was the hon. Member for Gedling.
Some say that this visibility does not matter and, provided that a wise committee takes the right decisions, there is no need to refer to the people. That is the argument that favours rule by quangos over democratic decision making. The defenders of the current system of governance say that it works well, but I am afraid that I disagree. Only four of the 22 inspected police authorities were assessed by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and the Audit Commission as performing well in their most critical functions. I understand why police authorities oppose their own abolition, but there are few who believe that the authorities can remain in their current form. Even the Opposition do not share that view.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
I welcome the Minister back to the Dispatch Box after his recent illness. We have missed him. There have been riots and both the commissioner and the head of counter-terrorism have resigned, so the Minister’s re-emergence provides great stability for all of us who are interested in policing issues. I agree with him about the invisibility of police authorities. The Home Affairs Committee considered this matter in the last Parliament when the Government wanted to introduce an element of election. What concerns me is the progress on the protocol, which the Committee believed was extremely important in defining the relationship between the chief constable and the new police and crime commissioner. If he does not plan to refer to this later in his speech, will he tell us now what is happening about the protocol?
Nick Herbert
I share the right hon. Gentleman’s concern to ensure that we get the protocol right. We have made very good progress with it, and I will deal directly with those remarks, if I may, later in my speech. I also thank him for his kind words.
Nick Herbert
I am just going to make a little more progress. Let me deal with costs, and then I will come back to the hon. Gentleman.
The shadow Home Secretary says that the reform will cost “well over £100 million”. No, it will not. She reaches that figure by counting in the running costs of police authorities—money that, apparently, should not be spent. So, this is Labour's latest policy: not just no elections for those who hold the police to account, but no one to hold them to account at all—because, apparently, police authorities would go as well.
The only additional cost of the Government’s reforms is the cost of elections. That will normally be £50 million every four years, £12.5 million a year on average, or 0.1% of what is spent on police forces.
Nick Herbert
I will come to that immediately. There will be a one-off additional cost for holding the elections in November next year, rather than in May, and the cost will indeed increase: it will increase from 0.1% of police spend to 0.15%, and then it will go back down to 0.1% again. So, this is apparently the full weight of the Opposition’s argument: a delay in holding an election will temporarily cost 0.05% of police spend. That is a risible case.
Mark Tami
But why is there a delay? The whole House knows why: it is because the Liberal Democrats do not want the elections on that day—despite the fact that the Liberal Democrat leader has previously said that the electorate are perfectly capable of understanding different elections on the same day.
Nick Herbert
Hon. Members have spent their whole time trying either to stop the reform or to delay it, and now, when an introduction is delayed for a few months, they apparently do not want that, either.
The central point is that, in any case, the cost of elections is not going to come from police budgets. It is just nonsense to claim that the money for elections could instead be spent on police officers. That is a poor argument. It ill behoves an elected politician to complain about the cost of democracy. It was Labour that made the police more accountable to a new Mayor of London. The referendum itself cost £3 million to conduct, and the elections still cost £18 million every four years. Did Labour then say that this money could be better spent on police officers? No, of course not. If greater democratic accountability is a price worth paying in London for a quarter of all policing, why not in the rest of the country?
Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)
The Minister will know that the impact assessment said originally that the cost of elections was £50 million. He will also know that the Prime Minister told us, and he has confirmed, that additional costs for the one-off election were another £25 million. Will he also confirm that the impact assessment contains £37 million of transition costs to the new arrangements, which do take the figure to over £100 million?
Nick Herbert
No, I do not accept what the Opposition have constantly been saying, which is that the overall cost of this reform is over £100 million. That is based on a figure that the Association of Police Authorities has been using, where it appears that it has been counting two elections into the cost. I go back to the point that I have made: the only additional, ongoing cost in relation to this reform is the cost of holding elections. It is a very bad argument to suggest that a democratic reform should not go ahead simply because elections will cost money, and it is not an argument that Labour Members were willing to use in the past when they supported all sorts of proposals for elections, including in relation to the Mayor of London.
I now give way to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who has been very patient.
Chris Bryant
I have never supported the politicising of the police, and I will not do so under the Minister’s plans. My anxiety is that when a politician comes along, they usually do not just want a little office in the corner; they want lots of other people to service that office. I suspect that the cost that he is allowing for now will be hideously understated by the time we have had these people in place for four years. However, the bit that I completely do not understand is why we have to have elections next November. Surely, if we were trying to save money and one believed in having these elections, they should be at the same time as the other local elections six months later.
Nick Herbert
I will come to that issue. However, I will say to the hon. Gentleman now that if the elections were delayed for a further six months to take them to May 2013, incoming police and crime commissioners would be unable to participate in the budget that would already have been set for that year. They would be unable to take the key decisions—[Interruption.] It will still be the case, even though the elections will be delayed by six months, that incoming police and crime commissioners will be able to set the budget and the plan for the following year, as originally intended. I do not accept that there would be no difference as a result of a delay until the following year.
Nick Herbert
If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I am going to move on.
I want to come back to the issue of London’s Mayor, which was much discussed in the other place, as it has been here. I want to credit the Opposition for the creation of the office of Mayor, which, as I have said before, has been a popular reform. As we debate these issues, the Mayor has been playing a key role in the decision over who will next lead the Metropolitan police. He has given Londoners an important voice in policing. How many Londoners would prefer their police force to answer to an invisible committee? Now the Opposition are criticising the Mayor’s role in policing—well, they invented it. Of course the Opposition do not like the current Mayor. They may not like what he does, but that is not a reason to dislike the office or to object to the same principle of greater democratic accountability being introduced in the rest of the country.
Let us be clear: the Mayor does not run the police in London; he holds them to account, and that is the principle that we are advancing. The British model of impartial policing must be retained, and it will be retained. Our aim is not to abandon the tripartite arrangement of police governance between the Home Office, local representatives and forces, but to rebalance it.
Keith Vaz
The name of the new Metropolitan Police Commissioner has been announced as the Minister has been speaking from the Dispatch Box, and I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will tell the House who it is. I will leave it to him to make the announcement rather than me. [Hon. Members: “Go on!”] No, no, no. I do not want to spoil the fun. [Interruption.] Perhaps the Minister does not know, but it has just been announced. Will he assure the House that it was done with the full agreement of the Mayor of London, that there was no dispute, and that we will all now be able to unite behind the new commissioner, whose name, I think, is winging its way over to him as I speak?
Nick Herbert
I am sorry to disappoint the right hon. Gentleman, but I am not going to make an announcement before it is confirmed to me that the name has been formally announced.
To prevent too much power from being vested in a single individual, we are putting in place strict checks and balances. This is an important part of the argument. The checks and balances include local police and crime panels with representatives from each local authority and independent members, which will have the power to scrutinise the commissioner’s actions. District councils will have a stake in police governance for the first time. They do not currently have that position in police authorities. The panels will have teeth. They will have the power of veto over excessive precepts and the appointment of chief constables, and they will have the weapon of transparency.
We have listened to concerns and have strengthened the safeguards in the other place. I will go into the detail of those changes when we discuss them later. However, I want to highlight three important areas where we have listened, not least to the professional advice of senior police officers, and acted. First, in response to the point made by the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee on the operational independence of the police, it is fundamental to the British system that the police remain operationally independent. No politician can tell a constable—a sworn officer of the Crown—who to arrest. Forces will continue to be under the legal direction and control of their chief constable. There is no change in those legal arrangements.
Since the Bill left this House, the Government have published a draft protocol that clearly sets out the roles of the chief constable and the police and crime commissioner, and how they and the other actors, including the police and crime panel, will interact. We did that partly in response to the recommendation of the Home Affairs Committee. Senior chief constables, including senior leaders of the Metropolitan police, welcomed the publication of the draft protocol. They have said that it provides clear direction on the future roles of chief constables, police and crime commissioners and the Home Secretary, and that it ensures the balance between operational independence and appropriate public accountability. I agree with chief constables that we must include in the protocol the fact that the police and crime commissioner must set the strategic direction and objectives of the force and decide the budget of the force, while being clear that chief constables remain operationally independent.
We also amended the Bill in the other place to make it a statutory requirement for the Home Secretary to issue the protocol. This work is not over. We will continue to work closely with the Association of Chief Police Officers and others to ensure that the protocol covers all the necessary issues in the necessary depth. It is vital that we get this right. We have made tangible progress in ensuring that the operational independence of police officers will be protected under this Bill.
Nick Herbert
The protocol is intended to govern the relationship and it will be issued by the Home Secretary. The legal control and direction of the force will remain, as I said, with the chief constable. The protocol describes the appropriate legal arrangements. I have no doubt that, as we have seen in London, those who stand for election will understand that.
Secondly, we will ensure that policing in this country is able to deal with national threats. It has been suggested that police and crime commissioners will be focused on local issues to the exclusion of those that require a strategic response, making them too parochial. I disagree. PCCs will be responsible and accountable to the public for the totality of policing. However, the fight against terrorism and against serious and organised crime is an area in which the central Government have a legitimate role.
The new national crime agency, working with police forces, will transform the fight against organised crime. The Home Secretary will issue a strategic policing requirement, which will guide forces on their responsibilities for serious and cross-boundary policing challenges such as terrorism, organised crime, public order and responding to major incidents and emergencies. Police and crime commissioners and chief constables will be under strong duties to have regard to that requirement. This is not about addressing a problem created by the introduction of police and crime commissioners. The strategic policing requirement, alongside the national crime agency, is a critical refocusing of the Government’s role to address an existing set of policing challenges for which the response to date has been lacking. We continue to work closely with the police service to ensure that that happens. The passing of the Bill will by no means be the end of the conversation, but let me be clear: ensuring that police forces can continue to deliver on national and strategic issues, and meet national threats, remains a priority for me and for this Government.
Nick Herbert
I will give way quickly to the hon. Gentleman, who can also have a final intervention.
Chris Bryant
If what the Minister says is true, how could Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, say that the phone hacking allegations were just codswallop, and that the police should not investigate because the story was dreamt up by the Labour party?
Nick Herbert
I apologise to the hon. Gentleman, but I was reading a note and was not properly listening to what he said. Will he say it again?
Chris Bryant
Do concentrate! If all of what the Minister says is true—that the police and their operational independence should not be politicised—how can it be right for the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, to say that the phone hacking allegations at the News of the World were codswallop, and that the police should not investigate any further because it was a story got up by the Labour party?
Nick Herbert
Surely the hon. Gentleman misses the key point. First, the Mayor should not seek to direct an investigation any more than the Home Secretary should. Secondly, the Mayor will be held accountable for all issues, which is what Londoners expect. The point is that, before the Mayor, accountability was invisible. We seek to introduce that greater accountability elsewhere. The issue is not whether the hon. Gentleman thinks that the Mayor was right or wrong. There is now a figure who can be held accountable for the performance of the Met.
Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)
The Minister will know of the constabulary of Dyfed-Powys police in west Wales. There are probably 15 elected politicians of various parties representing people for that area, including in the Welsh Assembly. Does he agree that if there were any hint of a police commissioner taking a political line, the 14 other elected members of various assemblies and Parliaments would hold him to account and ensure that that did not happen?
Nick Herbert
I agree with my hon. Friend. We are putting in place very strong accountability arrangements, but also checks and balances and transparency. That will ensure the visibility of decisions when they are taken. Panels of locally elected members will be able to hold the commissioner to account and to scrutinise the decisions that are made. All of that will be done in full view of the public, in a way that the current proceedings of police authorities simply are not.
I am afraid that I must briefly detain the House on other formal matters before us. In lieu of the Lords amendments, I shall move a Government amendment to re-establish the Secretary of State’s power to issue a financial management code of practice for police and crime commissioners. A code of practice is currently issued to police authorities, which are required to have regard to it in the discharge of their financial functions. This enables the Home Office accounting officer to assure Parliament that funds given to the Department are used appropriately.
The Bill repeals the general power to issue codes of practice to police authorities under which the existing financial management code was issued. To ensure that we adhere to the principles of financial regularity, propriety and value for money, we propose that the Bill be amended to retain the power to issue codes of practice, but to restrict it to codes relating to financial matters only. The code will set out to PCCs and chief constables how they are expected to conduct the financial management within their force area and ensure good governance of public funds, the majority of which fall within the ambit of the vote from this place. It will be the responsibility of the Government to ensure that the code is fit for purpose and that it enables a PCC to set a budget that is responsible and, crucially, responds to the needs of their local communities and priorities. As such, I cannot agree with the Opposition amendments.
Government amendment (b) in lieu of Lords amendments 1 to 4 and of Lords amendment 6 will move back the date of PCC elections by six months, from May 2012 to November 2012, to allow more time to ensure that all the necessary preparations are in place. That will give good quality candidates, including—I hope—independents, the time to come forward, plan and campaign. PCCs will still be able to lead the strategic planning for 2013-14, as originally proposed—that was the point I made to the hon. Member for Rhondda. Thereafter, elections will revert to May every four years. Reform in London can still take place early because the Mayor is already in place.
In respect of the amendment giving the Welsh Assembly the power to set the first election date in Wales, the Government have placed on the record, in this House and another place, the efforts and negotiations in which I took part and which we undertook with the Welsh Government in order that the National Assembly for Wales could play a stronger role within policing governance in Wales. We have made it clear that we cannot legislate potential to provide two different systems of governance within England and Wales. Moreover, we cannot withhold from the people of Wales the necessary reform that will give them a stronger voice and visible accountability for how policing is delivered within their four police force areas by delaying the implementation of these reforms until the National Assembly sees fit. As the House knows—and, indeed, has determined through statute—policing remains a reserved matter and therefore the House shall decide when and how policing governance will be delivered. That said, we hope soon to restart constructive discussions with the Welsh Government so that they can consider positively how to work in partnership with both PCCs and police and crime panels.
In conclusion, these reforms are essential to address the democratic deficit in policing, to end the era of central Government’s bureaucratic control, to reduce crime and antisocial behaviour and to drive value for money. There will be benefits all round. Chief constables will be liberated from targets and central direction so that they can be crime fighters. Police officers will benefit from a less bureaucratic system in which discretion is restored and someone close to their force has a strong interest in driving out waste and prioritising the front line. Local authorities will benefit from a continuing say in the governance of policing, and district councils will have a role for the first time. The taxpayer will see better value for value money as commissioners, who will have responsibility for the precept, focus relentlessly on efficiency in their forces. Local policing will benefit from a strong democratic input, focusing attention on issues of public concern. The Home Office will be focused on its proper role, especially to address national threats and to co-ordinate strategic action and collaboration between forces. Above all, the public will have a voice in how they are policed. PCCs will have the mandate and the moral authority to reflect public concern about crime.
In the end, the House has a choice. The shadow Home Secretary repeatedly described elected police commissioners as a “US-style reform”. It is striking that Labour seems to think that democratic election and accountability are un-British. The Government trust the people to elect representatives to make the right decisions and to kick them out if they do not. It is strange that so many democrats are so wary of democracy. I believe that we can and should trust the people.
Vernon Coaker
With the indulgence of the House, let me start by endorsing the comments that the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee made in welcoming the Minister back to full health. I know that the Minister has not been too well, and we missed him on the TV over the summer. In all sincerity, I am pleased that he is back and functioning well.
However, I do not intend to let my feelings of good will towards the Minister prevent me from saying that for a moment at the end of his speech it was like being in church—the “Hallelujah Chorus” was all that was needed to illustrate the promised land to which the Minister believes he is taking us. However, let us be clear about this: what we are doing is quite extraordinary. We are not just repairing a bit of damage or tweaking that the Lords have done; what the Minister is having to do—and in a way that is hugely embarrassing for the Government—is reinsert in the Bill the whole concept of police and crime commissioners. In other words, he is having to reinsert the absolutely fundamental principle of the Bill.
However, one would not have known that from what the Minister said, which was that what we are doing today is nothing more than a tidying-up exercise—a bit of tweaking that the Government have found it necessary to do to ensure that the Lords did not inadvertently cause a problem that they had not intended. However, let us be clear: the Lords absolutely wanted to create a problem for the Government on this issue. What they were saying was that, unlike the Government, they recognise that the proposal has absolutely no support in the country. The only people who support the policy are the Minister, a few of his friends, a couple of people at No. 10 Downing street, a few Back Benchers, a couple of think-tanks and the whipped masses, who we will no doubt see later.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.
I am tempted to say that there is no need for me to rise to my feet now, given that the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee has given the name of the new commissioner. As I have just come into the Chamber, the policing Minister and I were discussing the best way to announce to the House the appointment of Bernard Hogan-Howe as Metropolitan Police Commissioner. He is the former chief constable of Merseyside, where he had a fine record of crime fighting, seeing crime levels go down by just under 40% over three to four years. I am sure that he will bring that crime-fighting capability to London and the Metropolitan police.
Alun Michael
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is good that the Home Secretary has now spoken to the House, but before this debate, when the Chancellor was at the Dispatch Box, the new commissioner’s appointment was widely publicised on television. So, as my right hon. Friend the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee was suggesting, the appointment has not come to the attention of the House as quickly as it should have.
Nick Herbert
I should point out that the protocol was negotiated with the deputy mayor with responsibility for policing in London and with a representative of the Association of Police Authorities—the chair of a police authority. That side of policing governance was therefore represented. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that that is important.
Keith Vaz
Indeed. I thank the Minister for reminding me. I know that he has mentioned it to me before. He is right. It is important that those two individuals are consulted, but neither of them is going to be a police and crime commissioner. Kit Malthouse is very experienced, but he is already there. A bit of wiggle room may be needed when we get to the end of the process. Let us wait and see. However, the Minister has made excellent progress.
I am concerned about the timing of the election. When Ministers appeared before the Select Committee they were emphatic. We asked them to delay the election until May 2013, after the Olympics, but they emphatically replied that they thought everyone would be able to cope and the election should be held in May 2012. Delaying it until November at an additional cost of £25 million, over and above the cost of police and crime commissioners, is in my view an example of the fact that money can be found when there is a political will to find it.
When negotiations have to be conducted with the Treasury, Ministers are very willing to enter into such negotiations, but I understand from the Home Secretary that the matter has not yet been signed off by the Treasury. When she appeared before the Select Committee on Thursday, she said that she was in negotiations with the Treasury. I should have thought that if the Prime Minister says, “Find the money,” and the Home Secretary says, “Find the money,” even the Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to accept that. I am not sure what the negotiations are about, but I assume the Minister will get his £25 million.
Graham Stringer
I do not disagree with that. The hon. Gentleman makes a clear and explicit point; the point that I was trying to make is that there should not be just one person, who has only one service to think about. That person should also have to engage with the rest of our public services.
Greater Manchester has had an interesting history with its last four chief constables. They have been very different people. James Anderton ran a prejudiced police force. He was openly prejudiced against gay people, while the force that he ran was secretly—although most people knew—prejudiced in a racist kind of way. David Wilmot, who followed, was a very different chief constable who tried to improve relationships with the country. Mike Todd, who followed him, was a different kind of chief constable altogether, and now we have the current one. The interesting point is that the electorate of Greater Manchester have been left out of any of the debates about who their chief constable should be—from the bigot to the effective police officer to the peacemaker—and I do not think that that is a proper process for one of the most important services that is provided locally.
I am sorry, in a way, that I cannot vote with the Government, because there is a powerful argument for improving the accountability of police commissioners and the police service, and I hope that some of the people who have spoken on my side of the House will think a bit harder about some of those democratic arguments. Unfortunately, however, the Bill is seriously flawed, and I wish that the Government would go back and think again.
Nick Herbert
In the few minutes remaining, I want to pick up on a few of the points that have been made. First, however, I should like to add my own congratulations to Bernard Hogan-Howe on his appointment as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. He had a fine record of fighting crime when he was with Merseyside police and, since then, as one of the inspectors of constabulary. He has a challenging task ahead of him, and I am sure that the whole House will wish to congratulate him on his appointment.
Stephen Pound
I am grateful. The Minister is entirely right to congratulate Bernard Hogan-Howe, but I am sure that he will also want to offer a word of commiseration to the other candidates, excellent as they were in their way—particularly, if I may say so, Sir Hugh Orde.
Nick Herbert
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I would like to extend that note of commiseration to all three unsuccessful candidates, all of whom have given great service to policing in their current jobs. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reminding me of that.
The hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), the shadow policing Minister, raised a couple of issues that I would like to address. The first related to the transition costs resulting from this reform, and if I heard him correctly, he suggested that they would amount to some £37 million. He is not nodding, so perhaps he cannot recall mentioning that figure. I would like to ask him where he got the figure from, because it is not one that the Government remotely recognise, and I challenged him on it at the time. If he reads the impact assessment that we published in conjunction with the Bill, he will see that we estimated the transition costs at just £5 million. It does not help the debate if inflated costs are put about. It has been bedevilled by exaggerated costs for the reform and the elections, and I have put on record the fact that I disagreed with some of the figures presented by the Association of Police Authorities. Indeed, I have remonstrated with the association about them. I do not know whether those are the figures that the hon. Gentleman is using, but they are not right.
Vernon Coaker
I stand by the figure of £37 million, which, from memory, some external consultants came up with. Of course the Minister will disagree with many of the estimates that have been made of the costs, because they show that the reforms will cost quite a lot.
Nick Herbert
The hon. Gentleman really must do better than that; he has been a policing Minister, as I now am. As far as I am aware, those consultants were commissioned by the Association of Police Authorities. They made a number of assumptions, including about the additional use of Home Office official time, and those assumptions are wrong. The figures that I gave the hon. Gentleman are the official figures produced by the Government, and it is our formal view—I am basing this on the advice that I am given by officials—that the estimate of the transition costs made by the Association of Police Authorities is wrong; I want to say that again.
The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of November elections. I am advised that, in the dim and distant past, elections have been held in this country in November and, in the more recent though still fairly distant past, in October. It is of course the case that the presidential elections in the United States are routinely held in November. The next such elections will be held in November next year. Indeed, it was thought possible at one time that the former leader of the Labour party and former Prime Minister was going to call an election in 2007. Presumably, that would have been held in late October or early November, but the right hon. Gentleman chickened out, as we all remember. So November elections are not such an unusual proposition.
I would like to pick up on something that the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) said when he challenged my use of the term “middle office”. He said that I had just invented it, but in so doing, he betrayed his lack of knowledge on these issues, and the fact that he has not read Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary’s report, in which the inspectorate helpfully offers a definition of the front line. Indeed, “middle office” is a standard term in policing; it is one that the inspectorate uses. It denotes functions that are not directly public facing but nevertheless involve fighting crime.
I want to return to an important point that I made during questions earlier. A very considerable amount of police resource, and a third of all human resources, are not on the front line. That is what the inspectorate’s report said, and it is clear that the hon. Gentleman has not read it; otherwise, he would not have been so astonished at the term “middle office”. Hon. Members should read that report. If they did so, they would see the inspectorate’s assessment of the number of officers in the back and middle office—the figure is well over 20,000—and of the way in which chief constables should consider whether those officers are in appropriate roles. As the Opposition are making a great deal of the fact that 16,000 police officers must be lost, it behoves them to look more carefully at where police officers are actually employed. There is no need for the front line to be damaged, provided that the right decisions are taken and that policing is made more efficient and transformed in the right way.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) paid tribute to the role of our police officers in dealing with the riots, and it was remiss of me not to have done so earlier, because that was the first opportunity that I have had to do so in the House. I certainly join him in paying tribute to everything that those officers did to protect the public and property, and to everything that they went through. I remind the House that a considerable number of officers were injured during that period. In my view, it is right that the justice system operated swiftly in order to deal with the perpetrators.
In the three minutes remaining to me, I should like to comment on the speech made by the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) on the relationship between Cardiff and London and the significance of the reforms in Wales. I have been engaged in discussions with the Welsh Assembly Government, and specifically with Carl Thomas—
Nick Herbert
I am sorry; I meant Carl Sargeant. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman.
In those discussions, I tried hard to reach an agreement with Carl Sargeant that would respect the devolution settlement in Wales. I recognise that he did not support the reform, but I pointed out that policing was a reserved matter. We wished to go ahead with it, but we also wished to ensure that the arrangements, particularly those relating to local government—a devolved matter, as the right hon. Gentleman pointed out—reflected the wishes of the Welsh Assembly Government. We came up with the legislative consent motion.
I must put it on record, however, that, quite extraordinarily, Welsh Assembly Ministers then proceeded not to support their own motion, in spite of the fact that I had negotiated it with them in good faith. I said at the time that I thought that was a pity because, in doing so, they denied the special arrangements for Wales that this Government had tried hard to promote. It is important to understand that we tried very hard and will continue to try to respect the devolution settlement in Wales on this matter and, through constructive dialogue, to make the reform work in Wales.
Finally, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley), who cited Sir Robert Peel, who said:
“The police are the public and the public are the police.”
The reforms are about devolving power, giving it to the people, protecting the operational independence of the police while ensuring that the public have a right and proper say in how policing is delivered in their communities.
Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Lords amendments 7 to 42.
Lords amendment 43, Government motion to disagree and Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu.
Lords amendments 44 to 52, 54, 55, 58 and 60 to 79.
Lords amendment 80 and amendment (a).
Lords amendments 81 to 97.
Lords amendment 98, motion to disagree and amendments (a) to (c) in lieu.
Lords amendments 99 to 162.
Lords amendment 163 and Government amendment (a).
Lords amendments 164 to 168.
Nick Herbert
There are many amendments to consider, and I shall be as brief as I responsibly can be in taking the House through them.
Since the Bill was first introduced, a number of points have been made against it, principally on the issues of operational independence and the alleged politicisation of the police, and on the police and crime panel’s relationship with the police and crime commissioner being unclear with the panel having insufficient checks and balances to be able to scrutinise the police and crime commissioner properly. I want to reassure the House that the Government have listened carefully to those concerns. We spent many months considering them, and I believe that we have responded to all the key issues. That is reflected in the amendments we made in the other place.
I will not say any more now about operational independence, as we fully discussed that in our previous debate. I also alluded to the checks and balances, saying that we had made changes to strengthen them, and I want briefly to set out what they are. We have increased the powers of police and crime panels by allowing a veto of either the police and crime commissioner’s proposed precept or proposed candidate for chief constable through a two-thirds, rather than a three-quarters, majority. That was pressed on us early on, and we agreed to it. The panel will also have the power to request the chief constable—or Metropolitan Police Commissioner in London—to attend before the panel to answer questions, alongside the police and crime commissioner; that was also urged upon us.
The changes will also give the police and crime panels more discretion to decide their own make-up, thereby allowing a more diverse mix and better geographical spread. I know how important that is to many hon. Members. The panel will now be able to co-opt additional members, and the provision restricting the number of co-opted members to two will be removed. Instead, provided it is with the agreement of the Secretary of State, panels will be able to co-opt further members, so long as the total membership of the panel does not exceed 20. A local authority will also now be obliged to nominate a locally elected mayor, should there be one. These changes further remove the provision preventing co-opted members from being local authority members; instead, there will merely be an insistence that at least two must be non-authority members. That change allows maximum possible discretion as to the panel’s membership and flexibility across larger force areas or areas where local government structures vary.
Similarly, we are freeing up arrangements in London, where the London assembly will be able to decide the composition of its panel and allow the panel to contain persons who are not members of the assembly. Our approach will further allow the panel to decide the composition of its sub-committees, and allow for them also to contain non-assembly members. We have further strengthened the powers of the panel in London to allow it to veto, by a two-thirds majority, a candidate for the position of deputy mayor for policing and crime, if that individual is not a member of the London assembly. I remember discussing these issues in Committee, so I hope that the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) will be pleased that we have moved towards some of the suggestions he was making then. The changes place a new duty on the police and crime panel to support, as well as challenge, the police and crime commissioner, helping to ensure that they work together in the public interest, rather than having an adversarial or political relationship. That concept of support and challenge is important, and I am pleased that it has been introduced by way of these amendments.
The changes ensure that the London assembly will have all the necessary powers to require reports of the Mayor and to decide the constitution of its police and crime panel. They will also allow the assembly to hold a binding confirmation hearing should the Mayor wish to appoint anyone other than an assembly member to the post of deputy mayor for policing and crime. Our amendments will ensure that regulations regarding the handling of allegations of misconduct can be made in relation not just to police and crime commissioners, but to deputy PCCs, the holder of the Mayor’s office for policing and crime and the deputy mayor for policing and crime.
On PCCs working with police, the criminal justice system and local government partners, the changes will help to ensure that PCCs work well with their local government partners by requiring PCCs to send copies of their police and crime plans to community safety partners and by placing a reciprocal duty on PCCs and community safety partners to have regard to each others’ objectives. The changes will also ensure that PCCs hold chief officers fully to account for the way in which they carry out their duties to co-operate in safeguarding and promoting child welfare under the Children Act 2004. Our amendments will ensure that PCCs have the right powers to hold chief officers to account; they ensure that PCCs can obtain the right information from forces and that the chief officer cannot borrow money or enter contracts, except of employment, without the police and crime commissioner’s consent.
We are also proposing changes in relation to deputy PCCs. These will ensure that should a PCC wish to appoint a deputy, they would have to do so through a specific process and could not appoint certain people, for example, another PCC. That will ensure greater transparency in senior appointments within the PCC’s office. I should emphasise that there will be no requirement to appoint a deputy PCC; our amendment will simply allow it to happen. That inserts further flexibility and localism into the Bill by allowing PCCs the freedom to manage their affairs as they see fit.
We have discussed the appointment and dismissal of chief officers and I raised it briefly in our debate on the previous group of amendments. I wish to reiterate that it is a key part of a PCC’s role and it is essential that it is properly undertaken. Chief constables should not be appointed or removed on a whim or for improper reasons. Police and crime commissioners must take these key decisions fairly and reasonably, and the arrangements must include appropriate safeguards. We have ensured that the chief constable will have the right to attend a hearing of the police and crime panel should they be facing dismissal, and to make representations at that hearing, rather than simply being able to answer questions.
We will also consult the Police Advisory Board for England and Wales on regulations for these arrangements. We have made amendments to allow a retired chief officer to be re-appointed as a chief officer, whereas previously the Bill would not have allowed that. The change will widen the pool of talent available to the service and allow PCCs to appoint the right people to the right jobs. I wish to repeat what I said about the first group of amendments, which is that it is important to get the checks and balances on appointment and dismissal right. I hope that what I have said this evening will reassure chief officers that the Government intend that proper arrangements should be in place to deal with those procedures.
On elections and eligibility, the changes would ensure that the elections for PCCs can be properly regulated by the Electoral Commission, especially in terms of campaign spend. A lively debate took place in the other place about the role of peers in the House of Lords should they wish to become PCCs. There was a strong feeling in the other place that peers should be allowed to stand for this position and, following that debate, we introduced changes that will allow them to do so. We will allow a candidate to serve as many terms as a PCC as the public wish them to serve, rather than be limited to two consecutive terms. That will allow the public truly to decide who they wish to serve as their PCC and heighten the pressure of democratic accountability over them. It seemed on reflection that the two-term limit, which was a constitutional innovation in this country, was not necessarily appropriate.
By introducing a two-stage process for the transfer of police authority staff, the changes will allow police and crime commissioners to be properly involved in the decision about how staff will be split between themselves and the chief officer, rather than the decision being made for them by police authorities before they come into office. That will be complemented by a power of the Secretary of State to direct a policing body to vary a transfer scheme, which is an oversight power to ensure transfers are handled effectively. I believe there is general support among police authorities and chief constables for such a two-stage process.
I ask the House to agree to all these amendments and to pause to note that they represent the fact that the Government have listened to the debates on a range of subjects in the Commons as well as in the other place and responded by tabling amendments. That is contrary to what the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) was saying. We have listened on some of these important issues and have shown ourselves to be willing to amend the Bill and to introduce the necessary checks and balances.
The Government tabled amendments in the other place to allow the police and crime commissioner to suspend or remove a deputy or assistant chief constable who is standing in for the chief constable. I ask the House to disagree with amendment 43, because the Government have tabled new amendments in lieu of it. They achieve the same effect as Lords amendment 43 in respect of deputy or assistant chief constables, but also give the Mayor’s office for policing and crime the same powers of suspension and dismissal in respect of an assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police who is standing in for the commissioner. Meanwhile, we are amending Lords amendment 163, which gave the police and crime commissioner responsibility for complaints against a deputy or assistant chief constable who was standing in for the chief constable, again with the intention of applying it to London as well. I ask the House to agree to this Lords amendment, as amended.
Let me turn now to a couple of amendments tabled in this place. First, I want to discuss the amendment tabled by some of my hon. Friends on the Liberal Democrat Benches. I understand that the amendment is an attempt to deal with what I know is a considerable concern—the matter was raised at Home Office questions today—about the position of Cornwall. As it is a unitary authority, it would have had only one member of the police and crime panel under the Government’s previous proposals. As we debated the matter in Committee, there was general recognition that that would have to be dealt with. We listened carefully to the concerns and that is why the Government amended the Bill in the other place to allow panels to co-opt additional members up to a maximum of 20. In the case of Devon and Cornwall, that will allow an additional five councillors to be co-opted. If the councils agreed to that, once it had been submitted to the Home Secretary it could potentially bring Cornwall’s representation up to six members, which is proportionately higher than its current share of the police authority.
The amendment would mean that when exercising that power, Durham, Devon and Cornwall, and West Mercia police and crime panels would have to try to make representation on the panel as proportionate to the population as is reasonably practicable. Although I do not disagree with those principles, I believe we can trust elected local government representatives to make decisions in the best interests of the public. I do not think that councils would want to take advantage of a perceived benefit by denying other councils in their area sufficient representation. Government cannot prescribe in detail how those relationships can work, but it is important to note that the Secretary of State has the final say in approving the additional members of the police and crime panel who might be appointed. As I said in a letter to the leader of Cornwall council, which I copied to my hon. Friends who are Members of Parliament for Cornwall, the Home Secretary is fully aware of the situation and the potential imbalance in membership of the police and crime panel between Cornwall and Devon. We therefore expect that, in meeting the geographical balance criteria now in the Bill, as a consequence of the amendment that we tabled, police and crime panels with balanced county representation will be produced. That is now provided for in relation to the new members.
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
I very much appreciate my right hon. Friend’s reassurance and his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) earlier. We like to have a lot of confidence that our colleagues in Devon will act in the honourable way that the Minister has described, but can we have an absolute assurance from him that if that were not the case, the Secretary of State would intervene to make sure that Cornwall had its fair representation on the panel?
Nick Herbert
I am happy to reassure my hon. Friend that were proposals brought forward that did not give that proper, balanced county representation on the panel, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State would not be happy with those proposals. It is quite clear that Parliament’s intention in promoting these amendments is to ensure a proper geographical balance. The changes are being made precisely and explicitly because there are situations in unitary authorities where that would not be achieved. If there were any attempt to subvert that by nominating members in a way that did not reflect the proper geographical balance, my right hon. Friend would not feel able to approve such a scheme. I hope that my hon. Friend is reassured by those comments, but the Government stand ready to meet her and other Members of Parliament from Cornwall, and the leader of Cornwall council if that is appropriate and he wishes it, to reassure them. Had the Bill not been amended, I would have fully understood the depth of their concerns, but I believe that the amendments address them.
On the Opposition’s amendments about the appointment and dismissal of chief officers, I have explained the changes that we have made and proposed on this issue. Important safeguards are being put in place and will be put in place through regulations. The Opposition suggest that even though the panel will already be required to scrutinise the proposed dismissal of a chief constable and even though the police and crime commissioner will be required to consider the panel’s recommendation, the panel should also be able to block the dismissal. I understand that that would be the force of their amendments, but that would give the police and crime panel the power to act as judge and jury on the police and crime commissioner’s electoral mandate to set the direction of the force and to hold the chief constable to account. It would also circumvent the governance structure of the chief constable, who is accountable to the police and crime commissioner, not to the panel. In establishing police and crime commissioners, we are giving the public a strong and powerful elected representative to hold their chief constable to account. Ultimately they should be able to appoint and dismiss that chief constable, subject—in relation to dismissal—to the proper safeguards. That power is available to police authorities. It is fundamental to the reform.
I repeat that chief constables should not be appointed or removed on a whim or for improper reasons. Police and crime commissioners must take these decisions fairly and reasonably. The amendments are not the right way forward. It would create an impossible situation if, in effect, a police and crime panel were able to veto the dismissal of a chief constable who would otherwise be properly dismissed under the arrangements that we are putting in place, as well as under the existing arrangements. That would produce an impasse. No doubt the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) tabled some of the amendments in order to probe the safeguards. I fully respect that, but I hope that on reflection he will recognise that the amendment goes too far and the Government would have to resist it.
The changes that we have made will all help to bring about the much-needed democratic accountability to the public, while ensuring that the strict checks and balances that we were committed to introducing are in place, and that concerns about operational independence have been fully addressed. I am grateful for the scrutiny of the Bill in another place, which enabled us to secure a number of important amendments. I commend to the House our amendments and the approach that I have set out.
Vernon Coaker
It is fair to say that a number of the amendments that the Government have accepted improve the Bill. The Minister was right to point out some of them. I was particularly pleased to see Lords amendments 5 and 7, which place a duty on the police and crime commissioner with respect to the well-being and the safeguarding of children, a topic that we raised in Committee. Those are important amendments with which we would all agree, and I am glad the Government have accepted them. Many of the other amendments have improved the Bill, given that following the Division earlier the Bill is going through with provisions in place for the appointment of police and crime commissioners.
As a result of the Lords amendments, there is now a requirement for elected mayors automatically to be members of the police and crime panel. I gently point out to the Minister that it will be interesting to see the clash of mandates that may occur when the mayor is elected on one crime mandate and the police and crime commissioner on another.
I shall not detain the House. As I said, I accept that many of the amendments mentioned by the Minister improve the Bill. I do not want to intrude on the private grief of Devon and Cornwall. I can only imagine the private meetings and surreptitious phone calls, amendments tabled and withdrawn, reassurances given about meetings, and so on.
Amendment 98 and the amendments in lieu that I tabled would give police and crime panels the power to veto the dismissal of a chief constable. I cannot for the life of me understand why the Minister does not want at least some sort of power to be made available to either the Home Secretary through HMIC, or the police and crime panels, whereby the dismissal of a chief constable can be vetoed.
To be fair to the Minister, the Government have rightly changed the majority required to veto an appointment from three quarters to two thirds, showing that they have listened in that respect, but why do they regard the dismissal of a chief constable to be different from the appointment? A police and crime panel can veto an appointment or a precept with a two-thirds majority. The Minister questions why we would want to fetter or in any way circumvent the power of a democratically elected individual when it comes to dismissal, yet they have done that with appointment and precept. The logic seems to be that if that is wrong for dismissal, we would not have it for appointment or precepts either. I say to the Minister that I honestly believe that this is a significant and serious flaw. Indeed, I think that it is a dangerous flaw.
The Government have included the protocol, which must be agreed by affirmative resolution of both Houses, in the Bill, but we can imagine a locally elected politician with sole responsibility for the police in their area believing that they should be able to do certain things or require the chief constable to do certain things. The chief constable could say, “No you can’t, because that breaks the protocol”. The Minister ought to tell us what would happen in those circumstances. Where there is such a conflict, what will happen if the chief constable says, “I’m not doing that because it’s contrary to the protocol”?
Even if there is a legal means by which the chief constable could try to resist such pressure, each and every hon. Member present can imagine the emotional pressure and the strain on normal human relationships that would result from knowing that, unless they conformed to what the police and crime commissioner was asking, they could be sacked. Who prevents the police and crime commissioner from doing that? The Minister says that it is okay because the Government have amended the Bill so that the chief constable can now go to the police and crime panel and make representations. What use is that?
The police and crime panel, having heard those representations and listened to the chief constable say, “I am being treated unfairly and required to do things that are inconsistent with my view of how I should conduct policing in this area,” may actually agree, but ultimately it can do nothing. The police and crime panel can say to the chief constable, “We absolutely agree with you. The police and crime commissioner is acting unreasonably and has it wrong.” What can it do? The answer is nothing. It can veto an appointment, as I have said, but it cannot veto a dismissal. What sort of framework is that for the Government to set up?
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart), who has followed this Bill throughout its passage. He served on the Public Bill Committee, as did other right hon. and hon. Members who are in the Chamber, and he has clearly devoted a huge amount of thought over recent weeks and months to what aspects of the Bill need to be amended. Given that I am arriving at this late stage of the debate, I am grateful for the benefit of his thoughts, just as I am grateful to other hon. Members for their contributions.
My hon. Friend referred to his work with the Plain English Campaign on simplifying the language of financial products and so on. For new Members and perhaps those of us who are less familiar with speaking in debates on Lords amendments, he also pointed out how important it is to ensure that we get our terminology right. In that light, I am rising to speak to amendment (a) to Lords amendment 80, which is in my name and those of my hon. Friends. Other Cornwall Members who are in the Chamber are very sympathetic to the proposal, although their names are not appended to it, and we heard another hon. Member raise this issue at Question Time.
The hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), with whom I had the pleasure of spending some time to discuss the Academies Act 2010, said that he did not want to intrude on any private grief in Devon and Cornwall. I can assure him that it is not grief, and nor is it private—we are here discussing the matter in public. It will not come as a surprise to him or anyone else that concerns have been raised in Cornwall, which is represented by a unitary authority that brought together the functions of the previous six district councils and Cornwall county council to form one body. The concern is that, as of right, we would have only one representative on the police and crime panel or crime and police panel—whichever way round it goes.
Dan Rogerson
I defer to the right hon. Gentleman, who has lived and breathed the panels for a long time.
As we have heard, in neighbouring Devon, where they still have district councils, every council will get representation on the panel, as I understand it, regardless of the huge disparities in population between some of the smaller district councils in Devon and the Cornish unitary authority and the unitary authorities in Torbay and Plymouth—the major city on our peninsula. The message coming strongly from members of the public and elected representatives—in the form of Cornwall councillors—is that they are deeply dissatisfied that this issue has not been resolved to the point where they feel that all areas are getting equal representation. I am sympathetic to that.
The Minister has set out, very helpfully, the possibility of using co-option. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart) said, that has been pressed for a while, and I am delighted that the Government have responded by allowing this flexibility so that local circumstances can be accommodated. We are familiar with the police authority model—I accept that it is a different type of body—under which geographical areas are represented. We want to ensure a range of views on those bodies, and co-option has been used to ensure that people from different backgrounds, for example, are represented on those organisations. That is important. Before the census this year, people in Cornwall pressed for the opportunity to recognise their Cornish identity and for it to be enumerated in the census. I was delighted when a friend of mine sent me a picture of her son’s data-monitoring form in Hertfordshire, where they were able to circle “White, Cornish”.
I am departing from the point a little, but I am merely trying to make the point that those of us in Cornwall who are proud of our Cornish identity would not want to feel that we were being given less of an opportunity to put our point across than our neighbours in the most westerly English county, Devon. Amendment (a) would give a bit more of a steer on how the power of co-option could be used to ensure that such concerns are dealt with. I do not think that the amendment goes far enough to reassure everybody in Cornwall that there is equality of opportunity in seeking representation on the panel, but given where we are in the passage of the Bill, it is as far as we can go while still being in order, given what is in Lords amendment 80.
I want to ask the Minister about the Secretary of State’s discretion to approve or not to approve the pattern of co-option that members of a panel put to her. Clearly she could decide to reject a series of proposed co-options on the basis that they did not reflect adequately the geographical make-up of that policing area. The Minister pointed that out, helpfully, although I hope that it would not be necessary. As the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) said, we would hope that the members of the panel who were there as of right would seek automatically to use the power of co-option constructively to secure proper representation. Hypothetically, however, should they not do so but instead seek further to entrench the position of their communities with regard to the make-up of the panel, it would be reassuring to know that the Secretary of State could have regard to the need to secure equality and therefore reject the co-options.
However, it occurs to me that were such a panel happy not to alter the geographic balance, it might simply not put forward any co-options at all. That is the fear, although we are dealing with a hypothetical situation, and I imagine—indeed, I hope—that, as the hon. Lady said, those appointed under the Bill as it stands would not seek to do that, but would listen to our debate today and to the debate out there in the community, and would reassure people by using the power of co-option in the way that the Minister has suggested would be helpful. Therefore, my question for the Minister is: if those panels decided not to go down the co-option route, what message could be sent to say that the Secretary of State would be looking to them to act in that way? What discussions might the local authorities have among themselves prior to the constitution of the panel to address some of those concerns?
Nick Herbert
We have had a good debate and a rather more technical one on this group of amendments. The hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) began by setting out the reasons for his amendment that was intended to achieve a veto over the dismissal of chief constables on the part of the panel. I addressed the issue when I first spoke to this group, so I shall not detain the House by repeating all those arguments, except to say that I think there is a distinction between the area of the appointment of the chief constable and that of dismissal.
I assure the hon. Gentleman that there is process around dismissal, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart) pointed out very well. We are introducing further safeguards in regulations, and we have given a stronger role to the inspectorate of constabulary. The exercise of the power of dismissal is not untrammelled: proper safeguards are in place. However, giving a panel of appointees the power of veto over a dismissal that would be merited under the existing arrangements and through proper process, and allowing them to insist that the chief constable remain in office when the police and crime commissioner legitimately wished that chief constable removed, would be a recipe for complete deadlock in local policing. That is one reason why it would be inappropriate to extend the veto in that regard. I fear that we will simply disagree on the matter, but I agree about the principle that there should be proper process around dismissal.
Vernon Coaker
Should the Government find out that there was a problem with the process in due course, would primary legislation be required to change it, or could it be changed through an order-making power or a process other than primary legislation?
Nick Herbert
We are putting in place regulations in relation to the procedures for when a police and crime commissioner wishes to dismiss a chief constable. We are discussing that with the Police Advisory Board. There is an order-making power.
Vernon Coaker
Is the Minister saying that, if the Government were to decide in due course that a veto power with respect to dismissal was appropriate, primary legislation would not be required to introduce it?
Nick Herbert
To clarify the matter for the hon. Gentleman, the procedures do not extend to the power of the panel. If we wanted to give the panel the power of a veto, that would have to be determined by primary legislation. The matter must, therefore, be settled now. I have set out the Government’s case fully, but it seems that he disagrees with us.
Mark Reckless
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that what he is saying would apply also to my point? Although the Localism Bill contains mechanisms for a referendum, were we to want to use that to settle a dispute between the panel and the commissioner, the provision would have to be on the face of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill or, perhaps better, the Localism Bill, for the panel rather than the Secretary of State to have that power. Without that, we are left solely with the “have regard” formulation.
Nick Herbert
I hope to be able to answer my hon. Friend’s question in a moment.
I had already sought to addressthe issue of the position of Cornwall as a unitary authority, which my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) raised very well with his amendment. I hope that my earlier comments about the power under the Bill will help to answer his concern.
Having spotted that the amendment did not allow the Secretary of State to impose unilaterally members who had not been proposed by the police and crime panel, the hon. Gentleman raised the interesting question of what would happen if the panel did not propose any co-opted members. He was right to suggest that we would not have the power of direction, but discussions would of course take place, and I have already indicated that we would be unhappy if a proposal for additional members of the Devon and Cornwall police and crime panel did not reflect geographical balance. We would certainly seek meetings with the relevant local authorities to discuss the issue.
Mark Reckless
There are two potential issues in the Secretary of State’s involvement. One of them is to do with setting an excessive precept level in respect of the Localism Bill, and the other arises when a panel vetoes and the commissioner “has regard to” that, and the panel and the commissioner have a dispute. My concern is that unless the commissioner or panel make a decision—although I cannot see how that can happen given the reference to “have regard”—these regulations will lead to an appeal to the Secretary of State, who will then in some respect have even greater central power than under the current system.
Nick Herbert
I appreciate my hon. Friend’s point to the extent that there are two checks in this process: the check that is provided by the police and crime panel, thereby giving a voice to local authorities in this matter, with every local authority in the policing area represented on the panel; and the check that is provided ultimately by the people, triggered by the Secretary of State suggesting that there may be an excessive precept and substituting, effectively, a democratic lock for an administrative lock. My hon. Friend is right that two procedures are riding side by side in this respect, and we have to work out how they fit together. We hope to achieve that through the regulations. We are, effectively, following the proposals on the democratic lock set out in the Localism Bill, but I repeat that I would be very happy to have a meeting with my hon. Friend to discuss how these regulations will be shaped and how we might establish procedures that are workable and that ensure policing does not grind to a halt if there is a dispute. I hope that what I have said reassures my hon. Friend in the interim, and I look forward to having those discussions with him.
I think I have now responded to all the issues raised in what has been a useful, if somewhat technical, debate.
Lords amendment 5 agreed to.
Lords amendments 7 to 42 agreed to.
Lords amendment 43 disagreed to.
Government amendments (a) and (b) made in lieu of Lords amendment 43.
Lords amendments 44 to 52, 54, 55, 58 and 60 to 97 agreed to.
Schedule 8
Appointment, Suspension and Removal of Senior Police Officers
Motion made, and Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 98.—(Mark Tami.)