Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, this group of amendments includes provision for ensuring that the mayor appoints a Member of the London Assembly as the deputy mayor for policing and crime and not just, as the Bill provides, for “a person”. The amendments also provide for the deputy mayor of policing to arrange for,

“another member of the London Assembly”,

rather than any other person,

“to exercise any function of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime”,

that is exercisable by the deputy mayor.

The Government have also tabled amendments on the London Assembly’s veto power over,

“the appointment of the candidate as deputy mayor for policing and crime if the candidate is not a member of the London Assembly”.

That may act as a small incentive to appoint a London Assembly Member. However, those veto powers requiring a two-thirds majority of votes cast would not be necessary if some of the other amendments in the group that provide that the deputy mayor has to be,

“another member of the London Assembly”,

were accepted. The Government have rejected the idea of an elected deputy mayor for policing and crime in London, but if that is a step too far for them surely they can accept the amendments that provide for that deputy mayor to be a Member of the London Assembly and thus ensure that the occupant of the post has at least successfully stood for election.

In reality, the deputy mayor for policing and crime is the one who has responsibility for policing in London rather than the mayor, who has many other duties and does not have the time to give the post his undivided attention. It is only right that the occupant of the post should be a Member of the London Assembly, not simply “a person” known to the mayor and whose appointment—with a two-thirds majority required in the London Assembly to veto it—the mayor can almost certainly secure. I hope that the Minister will recognise the strength of the argument for these amendments and indicate that when she responds.

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

My Lords, I will first address government Amendments 89 and 90 in this group. The Government have given this matter a great deal of consideration and I discussed it in some detail in meetings across the House with noble Lords following Committee. There are already some safeguards in the Bill as to the appointment of the deputy mayor in the form of strong disqualification criteria and the requirement for non-binding confirmation hearings. However, it was clear in Committee that noble Lords did not consider this sufficient, so we have given this further consideration, including considering the option of limiting the mayor to appointing Assembly Members. On this specific point, the Government accepted that there were arguments in favour, but we were concerned at the relatively small pool from which the mayor would be able to select the holder of this important post. Instead, the Government have brought forward amendments that would still allow the mayor to appoint a non-Assembly Member but would make the confirmation hearing binding in such a case, giving the Assembly the power to veto the appointment by a two-thirds majority.

Any Assembly Member the Mayor wished to appoint would be subject to a non-binding confirmation, as already set out in the Bill. I hope this will go to the core of the concerns that my noble friend Lady Doocey expressed in Committee. I also hope that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, will feel reassured that the mayor cannot simply appoint one of his or her friends to that position. In saying that, I thank the noble Lord for his kind remarks. I, too, enjoyed working with him on the Electoral Commission and I look forward to working with him in this Chamber as well. I had better not say more than that because it will not do his reputation on the opposition Benches any good if I say that we are going to work closely in the future. I do not think his Whips would like that too much, but he knows what I mean.

We suggest adding new powers to this part of the legislation because we understand the unique role the deputy mayor will have, if appointed. Of course, it is still for the mayor to decide whether to make such an appointment. We have tried to listen to the concerns expressed in Committee, and I hope that noble Lords who have tabled amendments in this group will be reassured that the deputy will either need to be an Assembly Member or to have the confidence of the London Assembly.

Amendments 75, 78 and 88, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, and my noble friend Baroness Doocey, would prevent the mayor from appointing anyone but an Assembly Member to be the deputy mayor for policing and crime. Several other Peers, not least my noble friends Lord Shipley and Lady Hamwee, were also concerned that the mayor could appoint a non-Assembly Member to be deputy mayor and that this would cut across the democratic principles that this Bill seeks to establish.

The Bill allows the Mayor of London, operating through the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, to delegate the day-to-day handling of policing governance to a deputy. However, in accordance with general legal principles, the mayor will not be able to pass on the responsibility for any delegated work. The mayor will still be answerable and responsible. It is essential to this new governance model that the mayor is always held responsible for the way his or her functions are carried out, whether delegated or not. Clause 20 establishes that the selection must be in line with existing provisions for mayoral appointments. Further essential details, such as the eligibility criteria and terms and conditions for the post, are set out in Schedule 3. The Government agree that more is needed, but we do not think that the solution suggested by these amendments is the right approach. As such, I hope noble Lords will not press their amendments and will support the government amendments.

On Amendments 76, 77 and 81, Amendment 76, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, would prevent the delegation of functions to individuals other than the deputy mayor. That is a little concerning, first because it would prevent the mayor from being able to split responsibilities as he or she see fit, as everything from typing a letter to paying funds would have to be done by the mayor or delegated to the deputy mayor. Secondly, it would in effect require the mayor to have a deputy. At the moment it is for the mayor to choose whether to delegate to anyone else.

It is important that the mayor, as the elected person with a mandate to make decisions, has the discretion to decide how their office will function. As such, I ask that the amendments not be pressed.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her response, and I of course thank my noble friend Lord Rosser. I accept that the Government have moved some way on this, although I am disappointed that they have not moved as far as I would like. However, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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Moved by

[Baroness Browning]

82: Clause 20, page 15, line 20, leave out from “(2)” to end of line 23 and insert “(1)(b), exercisable by the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime.
(5) But the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime may not arrange for a person to exercise a function if—
(a) the person is listed in subsection (6), or(b) the function is listed in subsection (7).”

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Moved by

[Baroness Browning]

86: Clause 20, page 15, line 29, at end insert—
“(f) a member of the staff of a person falling within any of paragraphs (a) to (e).”

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Moved by

[Baroness Browning]

89: Clause 21, page 16, line 33, after “etc)” insert “—
(a) ”

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[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate with slightly curious groupings. I think I should take out my Amendment 109A, which relates to a review by the panel of the police and crime commissioner’s human resources policy. I do not think it belongs here. It might be better taken when we reach Schedule 15.

There is a theme in relation to most of the other amendments in this grouping around the role of the panel in relation both to the public and to the precept. My noble friend Lord Beecham is absolutely right. The precept is a significant proportion—between about 11 and 13 per cent—of the total council tax. We debated this in Committee and I know that when we get our council tax information, we have different leaflets in relation to different bodies. However, my noble friend is right: because of the significance and the fact that this is made by one person, it should be completely separate and completely separately identified. That would discharge more effective public accountability.

In previous amendments, we have debated the role of the PCC, and noble Lords on the government Front Bench have rejected many amendments because, for instance, when it comes to requiring chief constables to appear before the police and crime panel or the equivalent in London, it is argued that that blurs the line of accountability. I think that unless you have completely separate precepts, that also blurs the line of accountability when it comes to raising resources from council tax payers.

My Amendment 96A reinforces the requirement for openness in relation to the precept. I think it quite extraordinary that local authorities are not going to be consulted formally on the precept that the police and crime commissioner proposes to make. The Minister will no doubt say that that can be done through the panel. Of course the panel exists to provide scrutiny, but given the importance of the precept, I think there is a strong argument that each individual authority ought to be consulted as well. I hope the Minister will be sympathetic to that.

My noble friend Lady Henig made some very important points in relation to the panels and the question of public meetings. Her amendments link the panel to local areas. West Midlands Police force, which covers the area from Coventry to Wolverhampton, will have one person to be elected the PCC. There is a risk that some of the great work that has recently been undertaken by the police force to develop links at the local level will be dissipated, and the role of the panel to reinforce those links would be very valuable indeed.

The government amendment essentially states that the responsibilities of the panels must be exercised with a view to supporting the effective exercise of the functions of PCCs. It is a tribute to the draftsmanship of parliamentary counsel that such an anodyne amendment could be put forward. It is, of course, completely meaningless because who is to say whether what a PCP does is exercised with a view to supporting the effective exercise of the functions of PCCs? Unless we find ourselves in judicial review territory, I presume that this will never be tested. If I were a panel chair, I would, of course, always argue that everything I did was about ensuring the effective exercise of the functions of the PCC. I think we should congratulate the Government on their ingenuity, but I hope the Minister will confirm that it is meaningless.

[Baroness Browning]

My Lords, if I may deal with that last point first, it is certainly not meaningless. I will come later in my remarks to why I think it is an important addition to the Bill.

In resisting these amendments before the House tonight, I note that many are addressed through proposed government amendments to which I will speak later. I shall begin with Amendments 92, 93 and 95, which were tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, in relation to precepts. Amendment 92 would compel the PCC to bill the public separately from the precept of the local council. I thank the noble Lord for tabling this amendment because I think the effect would be positive. In essence, it would provide clarity to the public about exactly where their money is going and how much they are paying for policing services. However, this is also a matter of proportionality. The debate about hypothecating the local authority’s bill is quite an old debate. I recall having discussions about it on many occasions in the other place. Everybody thought it would be a good thing because there would be more clarity, but nobody has taken it forward, including the former Government, I have to say. To issue separate bills would increase costs, not just in the production of the bill itself but because, if it were separately sent, there would be questions about collection and payment on time which would add cost to collecting the money for the precept.

PCCs will be high-profile figures, and part of the point of these reforms is that nobody should be in any doubt as to who is responsible for the policing precept, strategy and budget. The council tax bill will, as now, clearly set out where the money is going. With that in mind, and looking at the balance of the proportionality of what the noble Lord has put before the House tonight, I feel that the current arrangements will be sufficient. For that reason, I ask him to consider withdrawing his amendment.

Amendments 93 and 95 would require the police and crime commissioner to notify the local authorities in the police area of the proposed precept, and the commissioner would be required to consult with the police and crime panel and the local authorities. The panel already has the power to review the precept, and will be able to reflect the views of the local authorities in doing this. We have already had this discussion with regard to an earlier amendment. Although not exclusively made up of local authority members, the panel will represent every local authority in the police authority area and therefore will be able to reflect the view of the local authorities. For that reason, I see no need for further prescription on this issue.

In addressing the precept, I also refer to Amendment 96A, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, Lord Beecham and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara. I understand your Lordships’ view that the views of local authorities should be heard on this issue. However, the police and crime panel membership, with its strong link to local authorities, will be able to make sure that those views are represented in considering the precept. Indeed, this access to local knowledge is one of their strengths. We have not touched on this very much but the representation of local authorities will bring that specific local knowledge to the table. Therefore, I do not feel that this provision is necessary.

The next series of amendments seeks to give the panel a greater role in relation to the budget and the police and crime plan. I reiterate that the Government are fully committed to the model of directly elected police and crime commissioners and it is they who will have the public mandate to develop the police and crime plan and the associated budget. It is imperative that the lines of accountability that run through this reform are clear and that the public know whom they can hold to account for the performance of their police force.

I turn now to Amendments 94, 96 to 100, 146 and 147. First, I will address those amendments tabled by my noble friends Lady Hamwee and Lord Shipley, which seek to give the panel a direct role in the setting of the budget and heads of expenditure. We have already set out provision for the panel to review and to produce a report and recommendations on the precept level set by the commissioner, and in extreme cases, to veto it. This already gives the panel considerable power in relation to the budget that the Government consider proportionate to its role.

Amendment 109, tabled by my noble friends Lady Hamwee and Lord Shipley, concerns the power of a police and crime panel to veto the police and crime plan of a police and crime commissioner outside London. I am clear that setting the strategy for the force must be an unfettered decision of the PCC. This is precisely where its electoral mandate will come into play, and where the public will most visibly see their views and opinions reflected. There is provision in the Bill for the panel to provide recommendations on the plan, which is in line with its scrutiny role. However, the final decision on the plan must rest with the commissioner.

My noble friend Lady Hamwee has tabled Amendments 112, 113 and 114. In relation to Amendments 112 and 113, I note that the police and crime panels already have powers appropriate to the scrutiny role that they will perform. Therefore, I do not see what further value these amendments would bring. In addressing Amendment 114, I am pleased to note that my noble friend’s amendment is in the same vein as the government amendment to which I shall speak now.

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[Baroness Henig]

I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for those remarks. At the end of the day we are doing all this for the public; it is for local communities. The reason I put forward my suggestions is not simply to make for better working with the commissioner, but to benefit the public. It seems to me that that is what all this is about. If I have differences with the noble Baroness, it is because I feel that the public will be better served by local councillors who have a constructive role in representing the local community to the commissioner and vice versa and who can play an active and collaborative role. It is in that spirit that I have been putting forward my amendments, not for any other reason than to benefit the public. I am sure that the noble Baroness will appreciate that sentiment.

[Baroness Browning]

I do indeed and although we have not been able to agree on everything, I have appreciated the constructive way in which the noble Baroness has brought forward her suggestions, both in Committee and on Report. I know that I have disappointed her in many of my responses, but I hope she will accept that in this change to the Bill I have listened carefully across the House, but particularly to her words. She has chosen her words very carefully, she has had a good point to make and I have tried to encapsulate that in this amendment. Therefore, I propose an amendment to the general provisions in relation to police and crime panels at Clause 29 to reflect the need for the PCP to exercise its powers with a view to supporting the PCC in its duties. The police and crime commissioner will be solely responsible for holding the chief constable to account. However, I accept the noble Lord’s premise that the relationship between the commission and the panel would be one of support as well as challenge.

The noble Baroness, Lady Henig, used the word collaborative to describe the proposed relationship between the commissioner and the panel. My concern with this is that it would ultimately create confusion over who holds the police to account. Therefore, the Government propose to place a duty on the panel to exercise its functions in support of the commissioner. This will mitigate the risk of conflict between the commissioner and the panel without diluting the accountability of the commissioner.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, as regards the final point, I can only agree with my noble friend Lord Hunt. Amendment 107 is the absolute embodiment of a platitude. It is wholly unnecessary and almost insulting to prospective members of police and crime panels as it appears to assume that there may be a case where their purpose will not be to support the effective exercise of the functions of the commissioner. In the real world, that cannot be the case.

I am very disappointed with the Minister’s response in relation to how the precept is arrived at, although less so in connection with the question of the separate precept. Perhaps I may say that she has a monocular and wholly unrealistic view of how these processes are likely to work. As she did in the earlier debate, she is viewing it from the perspective that all we are concerned about is the budget of the police authority, however constituted, and its precept, as if that were something discrete, separate and completely detached from what is going on in local government in the area in terms of the service aspect where collaboration is clearly essential, the totality of the expenditure and the cost to the local taxpayer. That simply is not the case. If it were to be the case, it would be very much for the worse in terms of effective policing and local government. That collaboration clearly has to be facilitated and the arrangements in the Bill do not effectively facilitate it.

The noble Baroness says that it will be important to have access to local knowledge through the members of the crime panels. But that local knowledge in the case particularly of district council members in two-tier areas will be confined to relatively small parts of the force area. In those areas, there will be perhaps one or two county members and many more from district councils. That will not give the police commissioner a realistic view of what is necessary to be done for the whole force area. It is also asking too much in the case of metropolitan areas for a single individual or perhaps two to speak for the whole authority, which in Birmingham’s case runs into hundreds of thousands and sometimes to very many more than that. The West Midlands has 2 million to 3 million people. Even the slightly expanded number to be proposed later in a government amendment as regards the constitution of the police power will leave people representing very large areas. They will not have the authority of leaders of councils. Given the pressures on them, leaders of councils or elected mayors—I see that the Government will move an amendment for elected mayors to serve on police authorities—will not have the time to devote to what is effectively a scrutiny exercise for most of the year.

In my experience as leader of Newcastle City Council years ago, the leaders met the police authority to discuss the budget in some detail. We had a proper discussion, and the authority and the back-up to do that, which is what is required under the new dispensation. You will not get that, with the best will in the world, from panel members. They will not have the authority to speak for the whole council. They will probably not get the back-up that will be required particularly in the case, if I may say so, of district councils whose resources can be very stretched. We will simply not have an effective relationship between the local authority in an area and its police force. For the life of me, I cannot see what the Government have to lose by accepting the amendments, at least in respect of this obligation to consult with the authorities, as opposed to a handful of members from those authorities who will not have themselves any authority effectively to speak for the authorities which send them there.

This will be a missed opportunity. It will weaken the effectiveness of the panel and it will therefore weaken the effectiveness of the whole police authority. It is ironic therefore that Amendment 107, that the Minister moved, which talks about supporting the effective exercise of the functions of the police and crime commissioner, in fact, by the attitude that the Government are taking to the amendments, will achieve precisely the opposite. An opportunity is being missed to cement a productive relationship in the interests of the whole area and I urge the Minister to take this back, to talk to her colleagues in the other place and see whether she cannot induce them to see some sense. I beg leave to withdraw.