Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Wednesday 14th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, begging the pardon of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for the term that I am about to use, I do not think that the choice today is “reform or no reform”. I use that term in the current context; I understand the point that the noble Lord makes. Nor even is it a choice between alternative models of reform, to which I shall come back in a moment.

Given both a free hand and the benefit of the expertise on this subject around this House, which has impressed me increasingly day by day, I do not pretend that I would have designed the model that we have in the Bill, but I have always said that the proposal for directly elected police and crime commissioners is in the coalition’s programme for government, subject to strict checks and balances. Although the Whips may not agree, the scrutiny which this House gave to the checks and balances is what the House is here for. The outcomes of those debates were not always as I would have wished—I argued for several tougher checks and balances, although I acknowledge now, which I did not at the time, that some would have undermined the direct accountability of the police and crime commissioners. But now we know what the elected House wishes, and we know what is before us.

My noble and, if I may say so, good friend Lady Harris of Richmond has pursued her amendment with terrier-like energy. I am sadder than I can say that I cannot support her today, and that is not because I disagree with so many of her arguments. It is an inevitable outcome of our procedures and the way in which we undertake our business that her model is insufficiently developed. That is not her fault. After the surprise vote, she and other noble Lords put enormous effort and ingenuity into consequential amendments—if I may use that term in the widest sense. They were not successful and therefore my noble friend’s model is left without the infrastructure within the Bill that would make it work. That is what I mean by not having a choice of models today.

With regard to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Condon, as has been said, at the root of many of the concerns that have been expressed is the possible politicisation of policing. We do not know whether independent candidates will be tempted to stand for the position. It is hardly possible that under my noble friend Lady Harris’s model independents could stand, because almost the whole of the panel from which she is proposing that a commissioner should come would have been elected on a party-political basis as local councillors would make up that panel.

We do know that the more different sets of elections are aligned, the more the focus on each is distorted, often to the basis of the lowest common denominator. There may be mayoral elections in November 2013, but they would be fairly limited geographically, so that date at least reduces that risk, if I can put it that way. I am thinking now not just of the elections for police and crime commissioners but about the local elections that will take place in May—pretty much every May.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is making an interesting speech, but if the case is so persuasive for having separate elections—separate from any other elections—why do we not have a proposal to always have these in November?

[Baroness Hamwee]

I will come to that if the noble Lord can contain his patience.

Local elections should be about local issues and very often they are not. What I wrote down without having to be prompted by the noble Lord is that the first elections for anything tend to set the tone. There could be a debate about having elections every four or six months for different things throughout the year, although that might be going a little far.

This debate has referred quite a lot to the convenience of campaigners. I am sure that many noble Lords have gritted their teeth and hung their canvass sheets on radiators to dry throughout the year. The convenience of campaigners is the least of the factors in this. But decoupling the elections should help avoid the diversion.

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

The noble Baroness said that the first elections in November will set the tone. Why and how?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hamwee]

I thought that I had actually explained about decoupling them and I do not want to try the patience of the House by going over the whole thing again. Separate issues have been raised. We would have the same problem with May 2013 because there are county elections then. Other arguments have been made about November and I am not necessarily following them. This is a very particular argument.

I remain intensely concerned that candidates may stand on a simplistic platform of an officer on every street corner. I do not know whether that was in my noble friend's manifesto. It was a very telling manifesto. She left out of her critique of it that probably every crime has a victim: there is no victimless crime.

The issue of additional cost has been raised. To put it at its bluntest, we could probably wipe out the national deficit if we wiped out democracy.

It is a great pity that the opportunity has not been taken to defer the rearrangement in London to beyond the Olympics, because that will be a diversion.

With regard to the proposal for postponement until after a royal commission, there is of course a need for a continuing debate; but however straight the noble Lord’s face is—and he is very good at keeping a straight face—we all know how disingenuous this is. I have been among those who have used an argument for a review when it is really a euphemism for delay, which amounts to opposition. I agree with him of course on pre-legislative scrutiny, but we are rather beyond that on this Bill sadly.

Finally, with regard to amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, he knows that I have agreed with an enormous amount of what he has said about propriety and governance throughout the debates on this Bill. I am not sure whether four non-executive members is the right number or not; I am sure that I agree with him that it is those individuals who need that support who may be the least likely to want it. He talks in this amendment of a code of practice requiring something more than can be contained in his amendment. I trust—and I hope the Minister can respond to this—that the Government will consult on the code, and not just lay it before Parliament in its finished form. I think that the noble Lord has raised important points, but they have not quite worked in this form. We are at a point when we have to take a decision on what is before us, not something as we would like it to be.

I have to say to the House that I really did not expect to find myself in this position today. I have resisted so many blandishments for so long; but, as I said to my own party group about three hours ago, I persuaded myself overnight, given what we have before us to determine today. The basis of the decision, and the underlying proposals, may not be ones that I am hugely enthusiastic about, but we have to take a decision on what is before us today, and I can now see what my decision needs to be.

[Lord Goldsmith]

Before the noble Baroness sits down, I wonder if she can help me. I am somewhat confused by what she has said. I had understood from many of her remarks that she was very sympathetic to the points made by her noble friend Lady Harris of Richmond and that she found force in them, but ultimately was not happy because, in the end, not enough people supported other amendments proposed by the noble Baroness to make her proposal workable. We all know and respect the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, very much indeed, and she has huge experience. She has described this Bill as defective and dangerous, and something which will cause lasting damage to our policing. Does the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, agree with that assessment, and if so, what does she propose that we do about it?

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I hoped that I had made clear that it would not be to the benefit of our communities to seek to pass legislation today which does not have what I described as the “supporting infrastructure”. The debate will not finish today. Of course, hugely important points have arisen in minds which might not have addressed them at all until the August disturbances. Those debates have got to continue. I wish I thought that legislation was the answer to everything. I am afraid that I do not. It is the way it is done, and the way that we all conduct ourselves, that matters—the way in which this legislation is implemented, not just the words on paper. I have criticised every Government who I have had anything to do with since I have been in this House for thinking and saying that the latest Bill was going to be the panacea.