Police Reform
(1 day, 9 hours ago)
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Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, I remain confused as to the true purpose of this Statement. The Government announced a police reform White Paper last year, but this has not yet materialised. We now see the Government announcing the abolition of police and crime commissioners. Why have the Government made this particular announcement now, ahead of the publication of the full details of their plans for police reform? More importantly, why is the Home Office fiddling about with PCCs rather than taking real action to reduce crime?
Turning to the content of the Statement, there were two main arguments deployed to support the abolition of police and crime commissioners. The first is that the PCC model has led to the politicisation of the police. But the proposals in the Statement are for oversight of police forces to be moved to the directly elected strategic mayors or local councils. Directly elected mayors are party political, as are councillors. The Government’s solution to the problem of the politicisation of the police is to move control from one elected politician to another. That argument is completely nonsensical. There is no world in which this policy leads to a decreased politicisation of the police.
The other argument the Government have put forward is on accountability. The Minister said in her Statement to the other place that
“the PCC model has weakened local police accountability”,
but there is no evidence for that assertion, and nor did the Home Secretary explain how the Government’s new model would rectify that. We know that where there will not be an elected mayor, the functions of oversight will be undertaken by policing and crime boards. How will transferring the functions of PCCs to boards of councillors and bureaucrats increase accountability?
Further to that, the Minister said that
“we have seen the benefits of the mayoral model, including greater collaboration, visible leadership and local innovation”.
Yet here in London under Sadiq Khan, knife crime is up 86%, five police front counters are being closed altogether, and a 24/7 station front counter is being removed from every borough. The total crime rate has increased from 89.3 per 1,000 people when he took office to 106.4 per 1,000 people in 2024-25. I would hardly call that a success story.
The simple fact is that policing is not overly complicated to get right. It requires common sense, good leadership and practical training. We cannot pretend that everything is rosy, but embarking on some police reform crusade will simply distract us from the real task at hand. The Home Office needs to focus on boosting police numbers, keeping front counters open, stopping officers policing tweets, and cutting crime.
The British people feel that crime and disorder is certainly on the rise. Do the Government seriously think that these changes will have a material impact on the daily lives of the British people? I look forward to what the Minister has to say.
Baroness Doocey (LD)
My Lords, police and crime commissioners were an innovative idea, but experience has shown they have not delivered as intended. Instead, they have proved to be a costly and flawed experiment, so we welcome their abolition. However, I hope the Minister will be able to provide the House with rather more clarity on what will replace them. We do not believe that transferring PCC powers to mayors is the answer, as this would concentrate even more power in single individuals, with too little scrutiny or accountability.
The proposal for a police and crime lead, described as
“akin to a deputy mayor for policing and crime”,
risks being a rebadged PCC. Unless the legislation is crystal clear, this role could again become a focal point for political leverage over chief constables. It must be made abundantly clear that chief constables retain full operational independence, and that these new leads and boards will not have hire-and-fire powers. If not, we risk repeating the mistakes of the PCC model, drawing policing further into politics rather than strengthening impartial policing by consent.
The Government say that these boards will not be a return to the invisible committees of the past, but this assurance needs substance. How will they work, and how will their work be accessible and visible to the public? The former Metropolitan Police Authority may offer some useful lessons. Having served on that body for seven years, I can attest that no one could describe it as invisible. Its meetings were in public and widely reported, and its scrutiny of senior police officers was robust. Will the Home Office carefully consider what worked in that model before finalising these new arrangements?
I was particularly disappointed to learn from the Minister’s Statement in the House of Commons that the £100 million that could be saved in this Parliament through the abolition of PCC elections will go to the Treasury rather than to front-line policing. An over- stretched police service will find that a very difficult pill to swallow. The Home Office says that reforms to police governance will save at least £20 million a year —enough to fund 320 extra police constables. Can the Minister give a clear undertaking that this money will definitely be spent on recruiting those 320 extra police officers? Saying that something can happen is very different from saying that it will happen.
Finally, rebuilding public trust in police goes far beyond governance. True accountability demands transparency. Will the Government require police forces to publish data on officers under investigation for sexual or domestic abuse, and will they now act to bring police record-keeping in England and Wales into line with Scotland and Northern Ireland, ending the discretionary destruction of police records, as recommended by the Hillsborough Independent Panel?
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)
I am grateful for this opportunity to outline the Government’s plans for police and crime commissioners. In doing so, I hope I can answer the questions raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord, Davies of Gower.
First, we anticipate doing this for efficiency reasons. As the noble Baroness mentioned, there is a potential £100 million saving. Some £87 million of that £100 million will be through the cancellation of elections. They are currently funded centrally, which is why that resource will go to the Treasury. This will save around £20.3 million over the course of the rest of this Parliament, which will be put into front-line policing and fund around 320 additional officers. They will be part of the 13,000 officers we intend to put on the ground over the course of this Parliament, either as specials, PCCs or warranted officers, of which 3,000 are already in place.
In answer to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Davies, there is currently a patchwork of responsibilities for policing. Five existing mayors—in London, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, and York and North Yorkshire—have policing powers. The existing mayors in Merseyside, Nottingham, Derby, the West Midlands and the West Country do not have policing powers. There are new mayors coming on stream in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Sussex, Cumbria, Hampshire, and potentially in Cheshire and Lancashire, who do not currently have policing powers. There are also other areas, such as Humberside and Lincolnshire, where the responsibilities of police and crime commissioners overlap with those of their directly elected mayors. That is a big patchwork. As far as possible, we are trying to get the mayoral model to have accountability for policing, as is the case for the five such mayors to date. Usually—but it is up to the mayor—a deputy mayor is appointed to be responsible, as the lead person, for those statements. I think that is helpful.
The noble Lord asked why we have brought this forward now. We thought it was useful to give as much notice as possible that the cancellation of the elections would happen in 2028. The noble Lord also asked about the police White Paper. I can assure him that it will be produced before Christmas of this year and will therefore be before both Houses of Parliament before this Christmas. It was important to give as much notice as possible once the decision had been taken, and we wanted to ensure that police and crime commissioners had an opportunity to reflect upon that.
The noble Lord asked how this helps with crime. It gives a focus, direction and greater efficiency but, equally, it is not to be seen in isolation. As he knows, almost every day of this week we will be dealing with the Crime and Policing Bill. We have 13,000 extra officers in place, additional initiatives on shop theft and a whole range of proposals to deal with anti-social behaviour and knife crime. He mentions London; it has had its lowest murder rate this year. It is still very high, with 93 people being killed—I am not denying that—but it is the lowest rate for many years. There is a push to try to reduce crime across the board, of which this will be part.
In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, operational independence is critical. That is one of the reasons why we are trying to move away from this model, because there is still a temptation for police and crime commissioners to want to be the chief constable as well as setting the budgets for police and crime. Operational independence from political interference is vital. The police and crime boards that we will establish in areas where there is not a mayor will potentially have the same role, with lots of senior councillors from an area being able to hold a chief constable to account and set a budget. The London model might be very appropriate for that, because there is an opportunity for the lead councillors in an area, usually the leaders of local councils, to hold a chief constable to account and set a budget, and to do so. I say again that, in local council areas, the budget settlement is a precept; the police precept is usually included in the rates bill, which is held to account usually by the leader or leaders of the council. So there is scope there as a whole.
I welcome the noble Baroness’s welcome for the abolition and hope she will work with us when we publish legislation, as we will have to do to implement this measure, at some point in the future. She will have the ability to test those issues at that time.
I say to all noble Lords that the first election had a turnout of 15%. The second election was slightly higher. The third was down from the second, at 24%. There is not necessarily an awareness. Anybody in Greater Manchester knows who Andy Burnham is; everyone who lives in my neck of the woods in Merseyside knows who, ah—
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
Knows who Steve Rotheram is. I am being distracted by the noble Lord, Lord Swire, who is anxious to bounce up. We have 20 minutes in this first part—he should know that by now. He is bouncing away and trying to get in. I will give him the opportunity, but I still have up to eight minutes before the 20 minutes for questions from the House. Everybody in the area knows who Steve Rotheram is. The noble Lord put me off at a crucial moment there, but I forgive him and will continue.
I say to the House generally that this is an efficiency measure that will focus policing and help support the Government’s crime and safer streets mission. I commend it to the House.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I remind the House and declare that, as a former director of Liberty, I was in unusual lockstep with chief constables in opposing what was to become the cross-party mistake of police and crime commissioners. Does my noble friend agree that the design fault that distinguishes the PCC model from others that have been discussed, including committees of councillors, mayors and so on, is in the word “temptation” in the Statement? An elected politician whose sole raison d’être is policing faces the almost inevitable temptation to dip their toes, particularly in media statements, into operational matters, and it is that design fault we need to avoid in future.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I agree with my noble friend. Key to the potential new model is that the police mayoral model/policing board model will be accountable for setting the budget and for holding the chief constable, whoever he or she may be, to account for the delivery of a police and crime plan that the police and crime commissioner signs off.
The temptation is there now for a running commentary and wanting to be the front person on any incident in a community because, ultimately, that election depends solely on police and crime performance. It does not depend, as mayoral elections do, on a whole range of issues, many of which are not directly political but many of which are. So there is a shift there which I hope will be welcome. Again I say that, at some point, this House will have an opportunity to test our proposals, because legislation will be required to facilitate these changes.
Lord Swire (Con)
I am most grateful to the Minister. We will shortly be debating the English devolution Bill, where it will be interesting to raise these matters again, because, of course, some local authorities are moving to unitary and others to mayors. This will all fit into that new template.
How can the Minister convince us that this will actually improve the quality of some of our senior police? We have some very good chief constables, not least the chief constable of Greater Manchester: we need others of that calibre. Equally, we have some situations, as in my own area of Devon, where we had at one point three chief constables: one suspended, the temporary one suspended as well, then an interim chief constable, all being paid for at the same time. That is bad policing and bad leadership. How is any of this going to increase the quality of those at the top of policing?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The noble Lord is absolutely right: we must ensure we have extremely good support, via the police service, for improving the quality of senior officers. If he looks and the Crime and Policing Bill in detail, he will see that there are measures to improve training, support, promotion opportunities, quality, vetting and other mechanisms, in relation to improving the quality of police officers.
Again, it is important that the policing individual for the mayor’s office, or the police board, holds the chief constable to account. In the case that he mentions, it is arguable that that did not happen to the extent that it should have done. There is an important distinction between budget, holding to account and agreeing a plan versus day-to-day operational activity. Improving the quality of staff is absolutely important, and that is what our new proposals in the Crime and Policing Bill are designed to do.
Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)
My Lords, the Government have done the right thing in removing PCCs. That said, some of them were very good and they sometimes made some good decisions. However, interestingly, as PCCs came along, we ended up with selections for chief constables with one applicant: the home candidate. Unsurprisingly, they ended up with people who agreed with them. So, I am afraid that some change was necessary, and that is a good idea.
I am less convinced by the Government’s solution in other respects. First, the move to mayors may be a good idea, but I worry about the rest. The Minister said that, at the moment, it is a patchwork. I am afraid that the alternative solution to a mayor looks like a hodge-podge. I include in that the City of London, which appears to be keeping its own committee, for reasons entirely beyond me. Why does the City of London, the smallest force in the country, need a committee that nobody else can manage?
Finally, I am not sure about these savings. I can almost guarantee that the council leaders who take on this responsibility will want their own people to support them, so will absorb that saving immediately. The Government may want to look at what arrangements will be in place and whether there will be any cap on the expenditure for the new governance, which frankly has gone through the roof. As the Minister has just explained, that saving will be gained by the new arrangements.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I first echo what the noble Lord has said. This is not in any way directed at the performance of individual police and crime commissioners. There are many good people who have given a lot of commitment and time and, in many cases, have made significant changes. However, at the end of the day, we are looking at the governance model. In my view, it needs to move towards the mayoral model. Where we can do that, we will.
The genuine problem is that not every area is seeking to have a mayor at the moment and not all police authorities are coterminous with mayoral authorities. Those are issues that we will have to look at downstream, but the general presumption is to build on the models we have now, in London, Greater Manchester and the Yorkshires, to ensure that we firm up that mayoral accountability.
The police White Paper—which, as I have just confirmed to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, will be published before Christmas—will look at issues such as efficiency, a range of matters to do with the improvement of training, going back to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Swire, and how we can improve performance outputs in policing. I will bring that back to the House before Christmas but, at the moment, I cannot stray too much into that area.
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate (Non-Afl)
My Lords, as a superintendent some years ago, I spent some time at the FBI academy in Quantico, studying the criminal justice system in the USA. This is where the idea of police and crime commissioners emanated from. Judges and district attorneys, not to mention county sheriffs, are elected by political parties. This goes right up the ladder, and we see today the FBI director being sacked by President Trump because he did not carry out his wishes. Incidentally, he also appoints the members of the Supreme Court. The Department of Justice is directed to carry out the President’s wishes.
Does the Minister agree that the rule of law is a precious thing to have been born out of Magna Carta, which places legal limits on government power? It evolved the idea of fair trials, habeas corpus and universal legal rights, and political parties should not be involved in political governance, which is evidenced by the low turnout in police and crime commissioner elections. Chief officers should be independent of party politics. I opposed the PCCs as president of the Police Superintendents’ Association and still do. I whole- heartedly welcome these changes.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I can take my noble friend back to 2010-11, when the Labour Party, then in opposition, opposed police and crime commissioners in principle but fought the elections because when there is an elected position, you have to try to fight to fill it. We have looked at the issues of governance and at the issues that my noble friend mentioned. We think it is important that we have independence of policing, but we still believe that there has to be some oversight of that policing, of the budget and of the chief constable to make them accountable. That is why the directly elected mayor will have the responsibility, among many others, to appoint a deputy mayor, potentially, to run policing. In areas that do not have directly elected mayors, we will look to have an indirectly elected policing board comprising senior people from the council, but it is absolutely important that the integrity of that independence is maintained.
The Lord Bishop of Guildford
My Lords, I welcome this Statement and agree with its direction of travel. Fellow bishops serving in more urban contexts where elected mayors now hold policing functions speak positively about the clarity and democratic accountability that the new approach has engendered. Other communities, such as my own, have had to work extremely hard to interest the electorate in voting for a police and crime commissioner. I think we have done slightly better than average in that regard, but even then the turnout is comparatively low. Will the new policing and crime boards lead to tensions in communities where so-called upper-tier leaders, who are often not used to working together, take very different perspectives on policing priorities? What might be done at this stage to lessen the potential of stalemate in such situations?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
That is an important point, because in areas such as the right reverend Prelate’s there are always going to be tensions between rural councils and the urban council. There are going to be tensions in any authority between high crime levels and lower crime levels. Again, I hope that the policing board model—which I think will be the minority, because of the numbers of mayors that are either in place or coming on stream before the election in 2028—will be one of serious grown-ups having to set a rate for police funding, set a plan for police funding and then hold the chief constable to account for delivering it. Those are their three essential roles. With due respect to the police and crime commissioners, those three roles can be managed in addition to what council leaders are doing. It is no different from council leaders contributing to a wider district plan on environment, transport or housing issues, which happens in every other field of local government responsibility now.
Lord Paddick (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a paid but fiercely independent adviser to the Metropolitan Police. The Statement says that the PCC model has drawn policing more into politics and
“had perverse impacts on the recruitment of chief constables”.
Are these problems not the result of concentrating the power to hire and fire chief constables in the hands of one party-politically aligned individual? How does moving to elected mayors address this problem?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The power to appoint the chief constable will reside with the appointed person who has responsibility for policing. That could well be the mayor, the person appointed by the mayor as the deputy mayor, or the lead councillor in a policing and crime board. The dilemma that the noble Lord mentioned will still be there, but it is important, given their wider responsibilities, for the chief constable to be appointed by the person to whom they will ultimately be accountable. That is the same as for any chief executive. Political interference on the day-to-day business of the chief constable is an absolute red line that we want to strengthen.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
My Lords, I strongly support the Statement to which my noble friend the Minister is responding. He was right to remind us of the history, which is that the Labour Party opposed the creation of these positions. We were 100% right in doing so, because they failed in their central objective to make policing more accountable. The abysmal turnout for the elections shows that that has not worked. Added to that is the recognition figure in the Statement, whereby only 16% of people can say who the police commissioner is in their area. I have only one rather nosy question to ask my noble friend. With his insight and information, and bearing in mind that this was a decision by the coalition Government, who do we primarily blame for this: the Tories or the Liberal Democrats?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
As a believer in collective government responsibility, which I have to be at this stage, I say that there was joint and several responsibility for the policy. I am very sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady May, cannot be with us today; as Home Secretary at the time, she was the prime deliverer of the policy. I wrote to her to give her advance notice of the Statement. To answer my noble friend, it is a shared responsibility.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, does the Minister understand that those of us who live in Lincolnshire are not seeking the removal of Marc Jones, who is a rather good police commissioner? We are seeking a recognition of the difficult circumstances that face rural counties, such as Lincolnshire, which are sparsely populated and where policing costs are very great. Does he understand that we seek a further adjustment in the funding mechanism to recognise the sparsity factor? To be fair, I have been making this point since 1979, when I first became a Member of Parliament for a Lincolnshire seat.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
If the noble Viscount cannot persuade Mrs Thatcher, I do not know who he can persuade. The issue with Lincolnshire is interesting, because Humberside Police includes parts of the mayoralty of Greater Lincolnshire, such as Grimsby and Scunthorpe, but the rest of Lincolnshire is separate. Some discussion must be had about what we settle on and how.
A police settlement will appear in draft form before Christmas, following which the noble Lord can again make representations around the police settlement for his county. We are trying to make sure that we deal with rural as well as urban policing. Tremendous effort has been put in place to look at rural crime, and some of the measures we have in the Crime and Policing Bill deal specifically with that. Issues on the Government’s agenda include livestock worrying, equipment theft, and small villages being subject to a great deal of shop theft and intimidation. However, we will have to look at the circumstances around Lincolnshire specifically, given the model that we are trying to drive forward: there is a mayor in Hull and a mayor in Lincolnshire, but the police forces currently overlap both. That subject is for another day.
Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (PC)
My Lords, the Statement describes policing in Wales as “unique”. Perhaps that actually furthers and strengthens the case for the devolution of policing to Wales. I welcome the news that discussions are to take place with the Welsh Government on new arrangements to replace PCCs in Wales. We do not have mayors in Wales, so that is not an option. May I ask the Minister how much better off Wales would be if police funding was devolved and funded through Barnett?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The issue of devolution is not part of this Statement. We are looking at the governance of policing, not the devolution of policing. There are no mayors in Wales—that is a vital point to make. The Policing Minister and I have had discussions with Jane Hutt, the Minister in the Welsh Government responsible for this area. We want to look at how we can build a better model of policing boards in Wales. That is a matter for discussion, but there is general agreement that police and crime commissioners will not happen in Wales. There will continue to be different political views from different political parties on devolution, but it is not on the agenda in this Statement.
Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)
My Lords, bearing in mind the last question regarding Wales—my noble friend the Minister was a Welsh MP and Minister and is now a Welsh Peer—I assume that the police and crime commissioners in England will be abolished and that the Welsh commissioners will be abolished at exactly the same time. I do not know what that exact timescale will be, but of course there are elections next year to the Welsh Senedd. A new Government, of what political sort we do not yet know, will be formed.
Presumably, the negotiations that the Minister has been having with Jane Hutt are on what will replace the police commissioners in Wales, bearing in mind— as has been said—that we have no mayors and are very unlikely to have any mayors. Perhaps the Minister could give a little more detail on the negotiations.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
Police and crime commissioners across England and Wales will be abolished at what would have been their next election. There will not be another election for police and crime commissioners, which means that they will serve out their term of office until early May 2028, when the election would have been held. In the meantime, we will be establishing further discussions. That abolition requires legislation in this House, which will be brought forward at a suitable time. In the meantime, we will discuss with this Administration in the Senedd and whoever forms the Administration after the election in May how we manage a policing board and local government involvement in the management of police forces in Wales.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, I very much welcome the introduction of powers going to mayors where there are mayors. That remains the democratic accountability. Can I ask the Minister to think again about policing boards, though? That did not work in the past. It is very important that there is proper democratic accountability for priorities and budget setting. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Government just want to get rid of a set of difficult elections ahead of the next general election.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I take issue with the noble Lord’s last point. This is a very difficult decision. Remember, we are abolishing 17 Labour police and crime commissioners who are doing a good job and would have been seeking re-election in that year, along with a number of other party-political and independent PCCs.
We are trying to support the mayoral model. As I mentioned earlier, there will be a list of new mayors in 2027. There are existing mayors in place who do not have police powers, and there are existing mayors in place who do have police powers. I intend to ensure that we minimise the number of boards by maximising, wherever possible, the mayoralties. That has to be done in conjunction with discussions over time. This House will have an opportunity to discuss this, because it has to be facilitated by legislation.