Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Lords Chamber

Should we put this to the vote today? The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, raised that point right at the beginning. I would refer him to my experience with the Mental Health Bill back in January 2007. A week after my appointment, I found myself on the Floor of the House faced with an amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, which was supported by the Conservative Benches. Many of the Cross-Benchers also went into the Lobby with them. We had a vote and I lost it by 225 to 119. It is entirely appropriate for this House to vote on the first day in Committee, and I hope that it will do so.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Browning)]

My Lords, I thank your Lordships for such a warm welcome from across the Committee. I would appreciate it in any circumstances, but I have been in this post for only 48 hours, and the very last thing I was told was, “Oh, by the way, there is a Committee stage to take on Wednesday”, so I have particularly appreciated your kindness and generosity this afternoon.

I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Harris of Richmond and to the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, for tabling this amendment as they have given us an opportunity to discuss other models of accountability. Indeed, our debate today has been wide ranging, so wide ranging that I believe it would be a great pity if we were denied through a vote any chance of discussing what are clearly matters that many noble Lords consider to be very important that will follow from the first group of amendments.

In winding up this debate, I will not be able to cover every point that has been made. Not only have they been wide ranging, but there is clearly common cause in many areas of policy. I cannot go out on a limb as a new Minister and say, “Okay, I’ll go along with that”, but I will take away from this debate and subsequent debates where I feel we might improve the Bill with the contributions of noble Lords. I stand in great awe of the vast experience in this House, whether noble Lords are in favour of the Bill or not. This is your Lordships' House at its best. This is what this House is about. It is where that experience and expertise come together. I may not always appreciate it, but I am sure I am going to be very grateful for the opportunity to hear first-hand.

I am new to the role, and I have had to ask myself some searching questions in taking on these new responsibilities, but I hope to set that out. I shall begin by dealing with one or two areas that your Lordships have raised that perhaps have common cause and where it might be helpful if I respond specifically to points raised.

The first was raised by my noble friend Lady Harris who was very concerned that commissioners will have fewer powers than police authorities. Police and crime commissioners will not have fewer powers than the authority. However, they will be subject to checks and balances. I hope we can go into more detail on that because it is clearly a matter that we have to get right. They have got to be there. The police and crime panels have been mentioned, and we will come on to them later in the Bill. They will have the power of veto over the proposed precept, and there will be other measures that we will perhaps want to discuss in more detail.

The noble Baroness, Lady Henig, who has put her name to this amendment, spoke about how PCCs will work with local partnerships, which is very important. They will be able to bring community partnerships at force level better to tackle areas of concern. They will also be able to make grants to partnerships to respond to local needs, rather than responding to centrally imposed initiatives. Getting this right and targeted at local level is extremely important.

Many noble Lords referred to the protocol which was published yesterday and which I hope your Lordships have been able to access in the Printed Paper Office. I clarify that it has “final draft” printed on it. In other words, the draft is final, but it is still a work in progress. Some noble Lords have expressed concern about the protocol and others were perhaps not aware that a lot of work has gone into it. The work in it has been contributed to by many bodies, including the Association of Police Authorities, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Local Authority Chief Executives.

When we see the final version of the protocol, which people will now have an opportunity to contribute to, it is important that it gets right the balance between the commissioner and the chief constable. We all recognise the sensitivity of this, and I was very encouraged, for example, that on publication today the Metropolitan Police put out a statement which welcomed the publication of the protocol. It said that it provides clear direction on the roles of chief constables, PCCs and the Home Secretary, ensuring the balance between operational independence and appropriate public accountability. I emphasise that this is not the final version of the protocol but the final draft, so there will be an opportunity for a lot more input on this. The MPS specifically welcomes the inclusion of the fact that the PCC must set the strategic direction and objectives of the force and decide the budget of the force while the chief constable will remain operationally independent. That is something that has been focused on by all sides of the Committee during today’s debate.

Many people have raised issues that come up in later amendments. If your Lordships will forgive me, I shall not go into them in too much detail, although I have copious notes. I hope that you will instead indulge me while I share with the Committee my personal view on the amendments in this group. I am pleased to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, that I quite take the point that she raised about Wales, but there will be a meeting on Friday between Home Office officials and the Assembly. We recognise that that matter needs to be addressed rapidly.

The noble Lord, Lord Dear, who made a compelling contribution today, wrote in the Times last week that he has seen this reform evolve into the Bill and that he firmly believed that the introduction of police and crime commissioners will lead to better policing in our country and a better, more responsive public service, something that any public service reform should aim to achieve. I am very grateful to the noble Lord for that, and for his contribution today. Many people have spoken in support of the principle, and it is to the principle of the amendments that I want to address my remarks rather than drill down to the detail, which I hope we will do in later amendments.

I have no doubt that your Lordships will want to continue in the true spirit of this House and seek to review, revise and improve the Bill in the days ahead. However, I am clear that, once the case for reform is considered and a model is set out in its entirety, review and improvement are precisely the tasks in hand here, rather than dismissal or fundamental alteration of the PCC model.

Perhaps I may share with your Lordships the reason why I agree with the principle of the Bill. This was touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss and my noble friend Lord Hamilton—my noble friend used the term the “middle classes”; I think that I know what he means by that. I was a Member of Parliament for nearly 20 years in rural Devonshire. As my noble friend said, I had a lot of dealings with police authorities and the excellent Devon and Cornwall force. I think that any of us who have observed, worked and had ongoing communication at close quarters with both police authorities and police forces, including chief constables, recognise that they are excellent people who achieve a lot and work very hard.

However, I have in recent years expressed to police authorities and chief constables my worry that a serious disconnect has grown up between them and the public. I shall not call them the middle classes, but what I will call them is that great body of the British people who live their lives by the law, who seek to keep the law, who respect the law and who bring up their children to respect the law. When that group of people—label them however you will—starts to believe that the police are not on their side nor are there for them, we should regard it as a dangerous slippery slope.

That was my experience as a Member of Parliament. It is no reflection on the Devon and Cornwall force, which I regard very highly; my concern came about because of the way policing changed, because of directives that came from on high, and because we did not look at how we might keep that connection with the public.