Lord Keen of Elie
That the Bill be now read a second time.
Relevant document: 3rd Report from the Delegated Powers Committee
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Keen of Elie) (Con)
My Lords, policing in England and Wales has been transformed over the past six years. There has been a step change in the way police forces are held to account. In May, nearly 9 million people voted in the second elections for police and crime commissioners, and I am pleased that one of our number, the noble Lord, Lord Bach, is now one of 41 police and crime commissioners setting local policing priorities and visibly holding their police force to account.
We have enhanced the capacity of the police to respond to serious and organised crime through the creation of the National Crime Agency. We are strengthening the professionalism of police forces through the work of the College of Policing. When things go wrong, we have substantially enhanced the ability of the Independent Police Complaints Commission to independently investigate the most serious complaints made against the police. Much of this transformation has happened over the period of the last Parliament, during which police forces made a £1.5 billion contribution in cash terms to the reduction in the deficit but at the same time continued to cut crime, by over a quarter since 2010, according to the independent Crime Survey for England and Wales.
We are under no illusions that there is more to do. There are still far too many victims of crime, and police forces continue to face many challenges and demands on their necessarily finite resources. We need to drive further reform in order to build more capacity and capability to tackle the scourges of child sexual exploitation, modern slavery, online fraud, terrorism and the many other threats to the peace and security of our communities. The provisions of this Policing and Crime Bill will make an important contribution to that end.
It has long been accepted that the fight against crime and keeping our communities safe are not the responsibilities of the police alone. Police forces need to work closely with many other partners to deliver these shared objectives. Working collaboratively with other agencies can secure better outcomes for the public and at a reduced cost. We have seen some good examples of this in the collaborations up and down the country between the three emergency services. In Hampshire, the police, fire and rescue service and county council have integrated their back office functions, including HR, procurement and property services. In January, a joint police, fire and ambulance facility was opened in the town of Poynton in Cheshire, and in Durham, tri-service community safety responders have been trained to act as police community support officers, retained firefighters and community first responders for the ambulance service.
As welcome as these and other similar initiatives are, it is clear that there is scope for far greater joint working between the emergency services to improve front-line services and deliver greater value for money. Accordingly, Part 1 of the Bill introduces a high-level duty on the emergency services to collaborate to help maximise opportunities for improving efficiency and effectiveness.
However, this is not simply about value for money for the taxpayer. These reforms will also extend the police and crime commissioner model to fire and rescue services. The benefits of a having a single, visible, directly elected individual who can hold the fire and rescue service to account are clear. So, Part 1 of the Bill will also enable a police and crime commissioner to take on the responsibilities of the fire and rescue authority where a local case is made. Police and crime commissioners will be able to take this governance model a step further by adopting the single employer model, which will enable a single chief officer for both the police force and the fire and rescue service to maximise efficiencies through the integration of back- office functions.
Let me be clear: these provisions do not provide for the takeover of one emergency service by another. The important distinction between operational policing and firefighting will be maintained, and the Bill’s provisions will ensure that the funding for the two services, while it can be spent on matters of joint benefit, will continue to be accounted for separately. If the existing and new PCC-style fire and rescue authorities are effectively to hold fire and rescue services to account and drive improvement, they need clear, robust and independently verified information about their performance. The existing peer review arrangements do not satisfy those requirements.
That is why the then Home Secretary announced in May that she intended to bring forward proposals to establish a rigorous and independent inspection regime for fire and rescue in England. As a precursor to that, Part 1 of the Bill also strengthens the existing but dormant inspection framework provided for in the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004. It does so by providing for the appointment of a chief fire and rescue inspector for England, charged with preparing an inspection programme and ensuring that fire and rescue inspectors have the necessary powers to enter premises and obtain the information they need to report on the efficiency and effectiveness of fire and rescue services.
Turning to Part 2 of the Bill, I have already alluded to the significant additional resources we have invested in the Independent Police Complaints Commission to enable it, rather than individual police forces, to investigate all serious and sensitive complaints made against police officers and police staff. The lack of independence in the way serious complaints were investigated was, and is, only one of a number of legitimate concerns that have been voiced about how the police complaints system has operated. The system has been viewed as too adversarial, too complex, too slow and lacking impartiality, given that many appeals are handled in-force.
The provisions in Part 2 address these deficiencies, including strengthening police and crime commissioners’ oversight role in the local complaints system and making them the appellate body for those appeals currently heard by chief constables. We are also simplifying the appeal process by replacing five separate appeal rights with a single review at the conclusion of the complaint. The reformed system will also encourage the timely resolution of customer-service issues by expressly providing for low-level matters to be dealt with outside the formal complaints process.
In moving from a system where the IPCC conducted a little over 100 independent investigations in 2013-14 to one where this figure has increased fivefold, it is clear that the IPCC, too, must change. Following an independent review, it is apparent that the existing commissioner-based governance model is not sustainable—a conclusion shared by the IPCC. In its place, the Bill provides for the appointment of a single executive head of the organisation—the director-general—who will have ultimate responsibility for all case-working decisions. Corporate governance will be provided by a board comprising a majority of non-executive directors. In recognition of these new governance arrangements, we are changing the name of the IPCC to the Office for Police Conduct.
Part 2 also contains some important reforms of the police disciplinary arrangements. I am sure the whole House would agree that it cannot be right that a police officer, knowing that he or she is to be the subject of a serious complaint, can avoid being held to account by resigning or retiring from the force. To address this, the Bill and accompanying regulations will enable disciplinary action to be taken where a serious allegation is received within 12 months of an officer leaving a force. If, in such a case, gross misconduct is proven, the officer can then be barred from serving in any police force.
We believe a 12-month cut-off is both fair and proportionate, but we have listened to the representations from the Official Opposition and others who have argued for this period to be extended. In response, the Government are committed to bringing forward an amendment in Committee that will, exceptionally, allow for proceedings to be brought later in the most serious misconduct cases which are likely to do serious and lasting damage to the reputation of the police force or policing more generally.
Part 3 is designed to create a more skilled and effective police workforce. Police staff and volunteers have for many years worked alongside warranted officers to help keep our communities safe, but the current legislation constrains chief constables in how they can make best use of the staff available to them. To overcome these barriers, the Bill will confer on chief officers greater flexibility in the way they designate operational staff with police powers. Instead of a current prescribed list of powers that can be conferred on police staff, chief constables will be able to designate suitably trained and qualified staff with any of the powers of a constable, with the exception of those expressly reserved for warranted officers. This list of “core” powers, such as powers of arrest and stop and search, are the most intrusive. It is right that they continue to be reserved for fully trained police officers.
Under these new arrangements, it will also be open to chief officers to designate volunteers with powers appropriate to their role. We should be doing more to promote volunteering. If public-spirited individuals want to help keep their community safe by volunteering as a community support officer, or by putting their IT or forensic accountancy skills to good use, they should be allowed to do so. It simply makes no sense that the law enables a volunteer to serve as a special constable, with all the powers of a police officer, but in any other volunteering role in policing they cannot be designated with any powers whatever.
Part 4 relates to police powers. Where there is a well-founded operational case, the Government will act to address gaps in the ability of the police and prosecutors to prevent, detect, investigate and prosecute crime. Accordingly, this part strengthens police maritime and cross-border enforcement powers, and enables the police to retain DNA profiles and fingerprints on the basis of a conviction outside of England and Wales.
Equally, where there is evidence that police powers are being inappropriately used or misapplied, we will act to protect the rights of the individual. The police approach to the use of pre-charge bail is a case in point. There have been too many instances where individuals have been left subject to pre-charge bail for many months—in some cases, years—only for no charges to follow. During this time, they may have been subject to onerous conditions, restricting their liberty and causing added stress. Of course, the police and prosecutors need adequate time to gather and weigh the evidence, but there must be checks and balances so that interference with the rights of individuals who have not been charged or convicted of any offence is kept to an absolute minimum.
To this end, the Bill introduces a presumption that an individual subject to an ongoing investigation will be released without bail. Where pre-charge bail is both necessary and proportionate, it will normally last no longer than 28 days, with any extension beyond three months being subject to judicial approval. As now, the police will be able to attach necessary and proportionate conditions to pre-charge bail. Where these are breached, it is open to the police to re-arrest the suspect but in the generality of cases we do not believe it proportionate to make breach a criminal offence. Those arrested for a terrorism offence and bailed under PACE are, however, a special case. Given the continued draw of Daesh, there is a particular risk that someone bailed in these circumstances will seek to flee the country. Consequently, in such cases the Bill makes it an offence to breach pre-charge bail conditions related to travel. Of course, such a sanction will not, on its own, deter those who are determined to leave the jurisdiction. That is why the operational guidance used by the police has been updated to ensure that information relating to such individuals is shared in a timely and effective way with other agencies to stop travel at the border.
Part 4 of the Bill also seeks to transform the experience of those who have committed no crime but who come into contact with the police having suffered a mental health crisis. Such individuals must have their mental health needs assessed as quickly as possible by a mental health professional in an appropriate place of safety. While significant progress has been made in recent years to reduce the use of police stations as a place of safety, it is clear that in some parts of the country a police cell is too often used as a first, not last, resort. The Bill therefore prohibits the use of police stations as a place of safety for children and young people under 18 and ensures that, in relation to adults, they will be used only in exceptional circumstances. The Department of Health is investing up to £15 million this year in the provision of health-based places of safety but the Bill also affords greater flexibility to use other suitable premises in appropriate cases. We are also reducing the maximum period of detention under Sections 135 and 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983 from 72 hours to 24 hours.
Part 6 of the Bill seeks to close a number of loopholes in the Firearms Act 1968 which can be exploited for criminal ends. The Government fully accept that there is a strong case for the codification of firearms legislation but such an exercise will necessarily take some time. In the meantime, the Law Commission identified a number of defects in the law which are open to abuse. It is these that the Bill seeks to tackle. In particular, Part 6 now seeks to provide a definition of “lethality”, define what constitutes a “component part” of a firearm and provide greater clarity for both collectors and the police as to what constitutes an “antique firearm”. Part 6 will also ensure that defence companies and others who require a prohibited weapons licence under Section 5 of the 1968 Act meet the full cost of such licences rather than the cost falling, as now, to the taxpayer. This change does not affect the fees charged to individual firearm and shotgun certificate holders. This part will also enable the Home Secretary to issue statutory guidance to the police on the exercise of their functions under the 1968 Act. This will ensure that the highest standards of public safety are maintained when the police are determining the suitability of an individual to hold a firearm or shotgun certificate.
The legislative framework governing the sale and supply of alcohol is in a rather better state, having been completely overhauled in the Licensing Act 2003. Nevertheless, that is still 13 years ago and it is right that here, too, we seek to update and improve the legislation in the light of experience. Among other things, Part 7 of the Bill will strengthen the powers of licensing authorities to revoke or suspend a personal licence where the licensee has been convicted of a relevant offence. Part 7 will also ensure that powdered alcohol is covered by the licensing regime—something I know will be welcomed by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, who previously raised this issue. I know that a committee of your Lordships’ House chaired by my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering is currently undertaking a post-legislative review of the Licensing Act and I look forward to seeing the committee’s conclusions and recommendations when it reports next March.
Part 8 of the Bill strengthens the arrangements for implementing and enforcing UN and other financial sanctions, including by providing for new administrative monetary penalties and by increasing the maximum sentence the courts may impose following a conviction for breaching such sanctions. The UK currently gives effect to UN sanctions by way of regulations made under the European Communities Act 1972. How we implement UN sanctions in the future is one of the many issues that we will need to work through as a result of the decision taken by the British people to leave the EU. What is clear is that financial sanctions are, and will remain, an important foreign policy and national security tool and, as such, we need to ensure that they are robustly enforced however we give effect to them in this country.
Part 9 includes some further measures to help protect our borders. Establishing the nationality of individuals as early as possible in the criminal justice process increases the prospect of being able to remove foreign national offenders. Clauses 139 to 141, which introduce a requirement on arrested persons and defendants in criminal proceedings to state their nationality, are directed to this end. I can assure noble Lords that the provision in Clause 139 does not amount to another stop-and-search power. In order to exercise the new power, the police must already have arrested the person on the basis of having reasonable grounds to suspect that he or she has committed a criminal offence.
Finally, Part 9 will also strengthen the law to help protect children and vulnerable adults. The amendment to the Sexual Offences Act will ensure that behaviour relating to the live streaming or transmission of images of child sexual abuse is caught by relevant offences in that Act. The new power to issue statutory guidance to local licensing authorities will help safeguard the users of taxis and private hire vehicles. And the introduction of lifelong anonymity for the victims of forced marriage will, we believe, encourage more victims to come forward and thereby help bring to justice the perpetrators of such crimes.
I am conscious that this is a wide-ranging Bill, but its purpose is clear. The measures in this Bill will support the continued transformation of policing by improving efficiency, strengthening accountability and building public confidence. It is only by continuing to drive these reforms that the police will be better able to deliver their core objective of cutting crime and keeping communities safe. I commend the Bill to the House.