Police: Independent Police Commission Report

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, for giving the House the opportunity to discuss policing again today. This is the second debate that we have had in a week, which is to be welcomed.

I very much regret that the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, is not in his place today, because my first point is something that specifically affects him. I will make a point of writing him a note. On the day that the report was published, he gave an interview on the “Today” programme in which he talked specifically about police and crime commissioners, which we have just heard about. He said quite categorically that they would not be abolished, but throughout the document he says otherwise—the noble Lord referred to that. For example, on page 84—and that is not the only place—he rightly says why the commission does not believe that police and crime commissioners have been a success. However, the report goes on to say that,

“the Commission believes that the office of PCC ought to be abolished in its present form with effect from the end of the current term of office”.

Of course, the difficulty is that the report gives no categorical recommendations about what should replace them or what the finances involved in that would be. I am therefore disappointed that although the report is critical of police and crime commissioners, it does not offer an alternative. That, of course, does not solve any of the problems that he has mentioned.

The commission’s whole approach to police and crime commissioners, notwithstanding some of the individual problems that the noble Lord mentioned, is premature. I use that word quite deliberately; I have not just conjured it up. It was used by Tony Lloyd, the former Labour Minister, who is now the police and crime commissioner for Greater Manchester. He believes that the report is premature in what it says about police and crime commissioners. I would hope that those who sat on this commission would have recognised that it is still early days. Looking around the Chamber, I see some of the usual suspects who voted against police and crime commissioners when the House considered the matter only a short time ago, so I am somewhat suspicious that it is not quite as impartial on this particular aspect of the report as perhaps it should have been.

I want to move on to the question of trust in the police. That is something that we debated in this Chamber quite a lot. During my 18 years as a Member of Parliament, I worked with police forces, particularly the Devon and Cornwall Police, and I have a high regard for them. However, I am concerned, as are many other people in this country, at the way in which the public generally voice their reservations about many aspects of the police. It is a very dangerous thing. The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, quoted Peel who said that policing in this country is policing by consent. We do not have a military police, or a military police answerable to the Government; rather, we have,

“policing of the people, by the people”.

That is absolutely right. That is the gold standard of policing, and many other countries have copied it. Yet there is a lack of confidence, even mistrust, in police forces around the country. This is something that we need to address quickly. When it was expressed to me, as a Member of Parliament, by members of the public, I sometimes feared that that is what precipitates the public to feel that they need to take the law into their own hands. I am not talking about people who you might think of as being on the other side of the law. These were people who had kept the law all their lives and respected the police but had somehow felt that, when they needed the protection of the law through the police service, they were let down and the police were not there for them.

I turn to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, raised, particularly in relation to the Home Secretary’s comments and the changes that she has introduced. I think that he is misinterpreting her words when he says she has not taken account of the need for community policing. The front line of the police has increased since 2010, since this Government came to office. From March 2010 to March 2013, the front line increased from 88.9% to 90.6%. One of the big changes that this Government have made is that Theresa May, as Home Secretary, personally drove through very quickly the need to cut out a lot of the box-ticking and the form-filling that had previously kept police officers tied behind their desks in police stations, when what they and the public wanted was that they should be out on that front line. I believe that this has contributed to it.

I am very conscious that we are making those announcements. Speaking to the police themselves, the Home Secretary said,

“I am also scrapping the confidence target and the policing pledge with immediate effect. I know that some officers like the policing pledge, and some, I’m sure, like the comfort of knowing they’ve ticked boxes. But targets don’t fight crime”—

and I believe that that is the case—

“targets hinder the fight against crime. In scrapping the confidence target and the policing pledge, I couldn’t be any clearer about your mission: it isn’t a 30-point plan; it is to cut crime. No more, and no less”.

That was a very clear message. She cut out a lot of the bureaucracy that has hindered not only the police service. Bureaucracy has hindered all our public services. We see it in the health service; we see how targets have driven down standards in health. We see how targets have driven down the opportunity for the police to be out there fighting crime. It is endemic across the whole of our public sector. It is right that this Government have grasped that nettle.

It is true that certain types of target are needed. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, though, that targets are all very well but outcomes are far more important. Targets are the receptacles of those people who like to process things; outcomes are the receptacles of people who like to achieve things. In getting rid of a lot of these targets, the Home Secretary has freed up police officers not just to fight crime at the front end, but to do all those things that lead to a reduction in crime. That, of course, involves crime prevention, awareness of crime and building on community relationships.

I disagree entirely with the noble Lord and perhaps the commission in their interpretation that the Home Secretary’s words on reducing bureaucracy and getting more people out on to the front line were made because she is concerned only about cutting crime and is not interested in the society that lies behind those criminals. I would say that this Home Secretary has addressed both in the policies that she has bravely implemented since she took office. What I think will be shared by the commission is her recognition that police officers, rather like doctors, should be professionals. She has introduced a consultation which is going on at the moment through the College of Policing to ensure that there is a code of ethics that police officers will abide by, while raising the professionalism of the police force in general.