Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill
Baroness Henig Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Henig
“Amendments to the licensing regime for private security businesses
(1) Sections 42 and 43 of, and Schedule 1 to, the Crime and Security Act 2010 are repealed.
(2) The Private Security Industry Act 2001 is amended as follows.
(3) After section 4 there is inserted—
“4A Requirement to license businesses undertaking work for or on behalf of public authorities
(1) It shall be an offence for a business to engage in any licensable conduct except under and in accordance with a license.
(2) A business engages in licensable conduct if it—
(a) is contracted with a public authority, or(b) seeks contracts with a public authority,to undertake any of the activities contained in Schedule 2, or acts as a sub-contractor to another business which meets the criteria in paragraph (b) or (c).(3) In this section—
“a business” is defined as any body corporate, Scottish partnership or unincorporated association;
“public authority” is any person certain whose functions are functions of a public nature.
(4) The Authority may publish, under section 7(1), different criteria for businesses as to those it applies to individuals.
(5) The Authority shall—
(a) publish a code of conduct for licensed businesses to which licensed businesses shall be expected to adhere;(b) publish a list of sanctions for non-adherence by a licensed business to the code produced under subsection (5)(a) which may include, but is not limited to, fines, suspension of licence, withdrawal of licence and criminal prosecution;(c) impose sanctions from the list prepared under subsection (5)(b) to any business it deems to have breached or failed to comply with the code produced under subsection (5)(a).” (4) In section 11 (appeals in licensing matters), in subsection (1)—
(a) at the end of paragraph (b), delete “or”, and (b) at the end of paragraph (c), insert “or(d) sanctions are imposed on a licensed business under section 4C(5)(c).”(5) After section 22 there is inserted—
“22A Information relating to license holders
(1) Information held by any person for the purposes of, or for any purpose connected with, the exercise of functions under this Act—
(a) may be supplied to any other person for use for any such purpose, and (b) may be supplied to any person having functions in relation to—for use for the purposes of, or for any purpose connected with, those functions.(i) the enforcement of any other enactment applying to the operations of a licensed person or licensed business,(ii) offences committed by any person in connection with or by reason of their doing work to which this Act applies,for use for the purposes of, or for any purpose connected with, those functions.(2) Information relating to the operations or licensing of a licensed person or licensed business which is held by any person for the purposes of, or for any purpose connected with, such functions as are mentioned in subsection (1)(b) may be supplied to any person having functions under this Act for the purposes of, or for any purpose connected with, the exercise of those functions.
(3) Information supplied under subsection (2) by or on behalf of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue or the Commissioners of Customs and Excise must not be supplied by the recipient to any other person without the consent of the Commissioners concerned.
(4) This section—
(a) has effect notwithstanding any restriction on the disclosure of information imposed by any enactment or rule of law, and(b) does not limit the circumstances in which information may be used or supplied apart from this section.(5) In this section “enactment” means and Act of Parliament, an Act of the Scottish Parliament or any Northern Ireland legislation or any instrument made under or having effect by virtue of an Act of Parliament, an Act of the Scottish Parliament or any Northern Ireland legislation.
(6) References in this section to a person having functions of any description include references to any person providing, or employed in the provision of, services for that person in connection with those functions.””
Baroness Henig (Lab)
My Lords, in moving this amendment, I draw attention to my interests in policing and private security as set out in the Register of Lords’ Interests.
The Minister will no doubt be pleased to hear that this amendment represents my final attempt to introduce business licensing of companies engaged in the private security sector within the framework of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill. As he will be aware, the Bill constrains the form in which my amendment can be framed. As I will explain, however, it is still my belief that the goal of business licensing of companies working in the private security sector can be achieved more effectively in this way than by the alternative routes the Government are proposing.
There is almost complete agreement across the industry, and certainly in the Home Office, that the licensing of individuals working in private security has had a beneficial effect in driving up standards and increasing public confidence. Regulation has been a force for good, as the industry has argued, by marginalising criminality and giving confidence to the purchasers of security and to the general public that they will be contracting with properly vetted and properly trained workforces.
This is increasingly important as private security firms take on more and more responsibility for safeguarding public space and looking after sensitive national infrastructure. For three years now the industry has been arguing for business licensing to build on what has been achieved in the past decade and to provide effective regulation of a sector that plays such a vital role—and a rapidly expanding one—working alongside the police, in counterterrorism activities, and with a wide range of public agencies.
The reason that no progress has been made since 2010 is clear. Within the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Cabinet Office there is a determination—one might say almost an ideological fixation—that no new undue burdens should be placed on businesses, regardless of considerations of public safety and public confidence, and of the benefits of combating the criminality that still lurks in the industry. Any regulatory changes, they insist, must be proportionate and targeted; and this part of the Government has yet to be convinced that the benefits of business licensing of private security companies will outweigh the costs and that it is really necessary.
This, I believe, is why the Home Office is proposing two possible alternative routes for progress in this matter; both, in my view, profoundly unsatisfactory. The first suggestion of the Home Office is to introduce business licensing of private security companies through secondary legislation. The disadvantage of this approach is that it cannot be enforced by a range of appropriate and effective sanctions. Regulation without enforcement is worse than the existing situation, because it plays into the hands of the unscrupulous and the downright criminal, and penalises conscientious and law-abiding businesses. The essential feature of regulation is that it must be effective. The industry has legitimate concerns, and has made its view clear, that business licensing introduced through secondary legislation cannot be effectively enforced.
The second Home Office proposal is to find an MP who comes high up in the annual ballot for Private Members’ Bills in 2014 to agree to introduce business licensing by this route. The cynicism of this suggestion takes my breath away. How many Private Members’ Bills ever make it over the many hurdles put in their way to the statute book? Is this the way to engage with an important industry that turns over up to £6 billion annually? The Home Office must know that without government support this route is extremely unlikely to yield any concrete result, yet blithely suggests that this is a credible option owing to its own inability to overcome the objections of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Cabinet Office and bring in primary legislation.
This is the dilemma that my amendment is aimed at resolving. What it seeks to do is to license, in the first instance, companies with contracts, or that are seeking contracts, to work alongside or with public authorities. That would almost certainly include all approved contractor scheme companies, which covers around 70% of those working in the sector. My amendment backs this up with a full range of enforcement powers and the ability to exchange information about those companies licensed across government and public agencies. The remainder of companies working in the private security sector—almost certainly the smaller companies and the one-man businesses the Government are so concerned to protect—could then be dealt with in a few months’ time by a second set of provisions. Indeed, secondary legislation might well be utilised here. I ask the Minister: would secondary legislation be possible to complete this process? If not, a small targeted Bill in the next Session could easily be taken through to license those companies that did not come into this first tranche of my proposals.
I can see merits in this two-stage approach, but I am aware—and I have to say this—that some industry leaders are worried about it on the grounds that it adds a layer of complexity to an already complex set of industry regulations. But all private security industry leaders want an effective range of sanctions to underpin regulation, and they also all want the effective exchange of information, which will not be secured by the routes the Government currently have in mind. If the Minister could give an assurance that a second stage of business licensing to cover those companies not covered by this amendment will follow relatively quickly, this would achieve the goal of business licensing of the private security sector more effectively than the alternatives the Home Office is proposing. Therefore, I hope the Minister will accept that I am trying to be extremely helpful.
Finally, subsection (1) of the proposed new clause repeals the clauses that have been on the statute book since 2010 and that were brought in to deal with the licensing of wheel-clamping businesses. They were dealt with by the coalition Government in a different way. Since that time the provisions have remained on the statute book, giving the confusing impression that business licensing is already in train. For the sake of clarity, therefore, these provisions need to be repealed. I beg to move.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
My Lords, your Lordships’ House should be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, not only for the expertise that she brings to this issue—and she declares her interests in that—but for her commitment in ensuring that we get some proper regulation of the private security industry. It is something that the public want and it is something that the industry itself is looking for. I would hope that the Minister would accept this or bring something back.
I would be surprised if the Government are at all reluctant to have such regulation, given that the groundwork has already been done. Back in 2010, during the public bodies review, the Government announced their intention to have a,
“phased transition to a new regulatory regime”.
The work has been done by many of those bodies involved in this sector. I am told by the International Professional Security Association that despite,
“positive engagements between all parties and three years of hard work on all sides we remain disappointed that there is still no primary legislative vehicle confirmed as the most appropriate means to reform the regulator, introduce a scale of proportionate enforcement sanctions and establish a working gateway for information sharing between the regulator and HMRC”.
As my noble friend Lady Henig explained, there is confusion about the measures taken in the Crime and Security Act, particularly around wheel clamping. People think there is regulation when there is not.
I was quite surprised to receive information from the Security Industry Authority showing how vast the private security industry is. The scale is changing rapidly. The Government have a responsibility, given that the level of state reliance on private security services is very high. The public rightly expect high standards, but they perhaps also expect that, if standards fall below the required standard or if something goes wrong, something can be done and action can be taken to deal with that.
If we look at the scope of the private security industry, most days Members of your Lordships’ House will see members of the private security industry if we go shopping, fly from an airport or use public transport. They also support police activity and guard elements of our national infrastructure. The private security is also involved in magistrates’ courts and prisoner transfers. The Security Industry Authority now licenses more than 330,000 individuals. That does not cover all those working in the industry, but that is still about twice the number of police officers in the UK. It is clearly an area where there has to be efficient and effective regulation.
We are seeing the public increasingly coming into contact with the private security industry. They have a right to expect high standards from the industry, but they also expect government to take some responsibility, particularly when the private security industry is carrying out government functions. I mentioned the transfer of prisoners, and custody is another example. The consequences of a mistake—and mistakes happen in any environment—can be extremely serious and extremely high profile. I urge the Minister to accept this amendment. I think my noble friend has given us an opportunity and a way forward, and the Minister and the Government should perhaps consider the mix of primary legislation followed by secondary legislation in order to give the same effect.
My noble friend is quite right to reject the route of a Private Member’s Bill. I know that practically the only Private Member’s Bill we will be discussing in your Lordships’ House in the next year will be the European Union (Referendum) Bill. There are more Fridays put aside for that than I have ever known in your Lordships’ House. I am an admirer of Private Members’ Bills. I got my own Private Member’s Bill on to the statute book back in 1998 in the other place, but I recognise how unusual that is, and it was not as detailed or as comprehensive as the legislation we need for this.
Clearly, legislation is essential. I think my noble friend Lady Henig has given the Minister an opportunity to take this away, look at it and see what can be done in primary legislation and what can be followed up in secondary legislation, unless the Government can come back with some way of doing this very quickly in primary legislation. I know the work has been done, but I have to say to the Minister that if something were to go wrong because of a failure of regulation, it would be dreadful when we have the opportunity here and now to do something about it.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
My Lords, I join the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, in her tributes to the security industry and to the Security Industry Authority. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said, the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, brings expertise of this industry, but she also brings enthusiasm for its development, and I pay tribute to her for that.
As I said when we debated this issue in Committee, the Government are committed to reforming how the private security industry is regulated. In the future, the Security Industry Authority will regulate businesses undertaking prescribed activities before they are able to work in the security sector. This is an important measure as it will provide the SIA with a more efficient and effective means for regulating the security sector, improving standards and, most importantly, providing better tools for combating organised and serious criminal behaviour at corporate level.
The Government’s proposals have received strong industry support. Indeed, they have been supported by the noble Baronesses, Lady Henig and Lady Smith, this evening. While significant parts of the reforms can be delivered through secondary legislation, other aspects require primary legislation. The secondary legislation will be introduced as soon as possible, and the remaining proposals will be further refined once that work has been completed.
While I agree with the noble Baroness’s desire to see reform in this area, I do not believe that the amendment she has proposed for debate this evening takes the right approach. The scope of this proposed business regulation would be significantly narrower than either of the current provisions which would be removed by her amendment. This would reduce protection of the public by preventing the regulation of security provided in the private sector and would also remove the potential to extend to businesses providing their own in-house security eligibility for membership of the successful approved contractor scheme, which has around 760 member businesses.
The new business regulation regime that we are developing is designed around the use of Section 17 of the Private Security Industry Act 2001, which was amended by Section 43 of the Policing and Crime Act 2010. Amendment 94 would remove Section 43 of the 2010 Act and, in so doing, prevent the introduction of business regulation as currently envisaged. It is not our intention to undo the work that has been done to date, including during the noble Baroness’s tenure as chair of the SIA, and therefore we intend to retain the ability to establish a mandatory business approval scheme under Section 17.
It is not desirable to have a narrower scheme focused only on those private security firms delivering under contract to the public sector, because the private sector clients of such companies have just as much need for the protection which the Government’s proposals would afford. In addition, the existing individual licensing regime does not exclude the private sector, and it is our intention to reduce burdens and costs on those individuals through the introduction of business regulation across the industry.
The amendment would also insert a new Section 22A into the Private Security Industry Act. As the noble Baroness has explained, the intention is to enable the sharing of information for any purpose connected with the Act. While I agree with the intention of enabling information sharing, this must be considered as part of the overall reforms we are taking forward to ensure any provisions achieve this intention. So while I have some sympathy with this element of the amendment, I do not believe that this is the right way to go about it.
In conclusion, while I fully share the noble Baroness’s desire to make progress with the reforms to the security industry regulatory regime, I hope that, on reflection, she will agree that her scheme is not the most appropriate way forward—it is only a partial scheme—and that, accordingly, she will be prepared to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Henig
My Lords, I have listened carefully to what the Minister has said. The first point I want to make is that, clearly, the Minister and those of us who are arguing for this are not divided on the end. We share the same goals; we are divided on the means to achieve those goals. The thing that has worried me particularly is the speed, or rather the lack of speed, with which the Government are moving forward on this. We have waited since 2010; we are now into 2014. This was all supposed to have been completed, I remind the Minister, by the end of 2013. I remember that he gave a pledge that it would all be completed by the end of 2013. We are now in January 2014 and the Minister is still using phrases such as, “as soon as possible”, “once completed” and “we aim to do this”. He has to acknowledge that the speed has been somewhat less than he would have liked. We know where the problems lie but it is this lack of speed that motivated me to put the focus on moving with urgency. What is actually happening is that, because of the slowness and what appears to be lack of action by the Government, we are losing the support of the industry.
The Minister will be aware that industry leaders are becoming increasingly frustrated by the lack of progress. Their concern is that if this is introduced through secondary legislation the situation could even be worse for companies than it is at present, because of the difficulty of enforcement under secondary legislation. I am concerned not to lose the support of the industry. It is so unusual to have nearly all the leaders of a big industry such as the private security industry united in wanting business licensing of companies that I do not want to lose that momentum. That is one reason I have brought forward a series of amendments to try to focus attention on this issue, and to explain why the industry is so concerned about it and why we need business licensing. However, I have listened to what the Minister has said and in the light of that, all we can do is wait. If he is not prepared to bring something back at the next stage, all I can do is hope that the primary legislation to which he referred will be with us sooner rather than later. On that note. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill
Baroness Henig Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Henig
Baroness Henig (Lab)
My Lords, in moving this amendment I must first declare interests as a former chair of the Security Industry Authority, and as a current adviser to the British Security Industry Association and a Scottish private security company.
At this stage these are probing amendments to try to find out to what extent the Government are retreating from their commitments to the private security industry, first made three years ago by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, in this House, and again last autumn by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, at a Security Industry Authority conference, when he pledged that the Government would introduce business licensing of companies in the private security sector along with individual registration by the end of this calendar year—which is to say, in the next three weeks. The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, also promised appropriate enforcement powers to back up the new arrangements.
We are in quite a novel situation. An industry is begging the Government to regulate its businesses with a range of proportionate penalties for non-compliance, and despite the promises and the Home Office consultation, which shows that the great majority of representative bodies and companies support that, nothing is happening. How strange, then, that in other arenas the Government are rushing to regulate: trade union activity, to give one example.
In the context of these amendments I must spell out why business licensing of private security companies that work alongside the police and of those that carry out extradition escort duties is so necessary and so important. It is because we need to continue to drive up standards across the industry. That started with individual licensing, which was introduced 10 years ago but which must continue, to protect the public and to win both their confidence and that of the strategic partners with whom private security companies work, such as the Government and the police.
We also need to tackle the continuing influence of organised crime gangs in this important sector and to focus regulation on companies while reducing the burden on individuals. The public need to be able to hold companies to account for failures and wrongdoing, not just individuals. Thus far, the Government have proposed only secondary legislation to introduce a form of mandatory approvals for businesses under existing legislation. They have not, they told industry representatives, identified the opportunity for the necessary primary legislation. Given the wide-ranging nature of this Bill, I am surprised that it has not proved possible to insert into it somewhere along the line business licensing for private security companies.
The need for primary legislation is urgent; the benefits that the change would bring are significant for legitimate businesses and for public safety. Furthermore, the uncertainty created by the failure to bring forward this legislation is having an adverse impact on businesses and industry leaders, because they have to cope with continuing lack of information as to how their industry will be regulated, if and when changes will be made, and how much it will cost. My amendments at this stage seek to ensure that companies working alongside the police, and those involved in extradition escorting must be regulated by the Security Industry Authority. My objective is to ensure that all businesses providing security services in the areas covered by the Private Security Industry Act are licensed and that there are powers available to the regulator to allow effective and proportionate enforcement of the regime.
The question that I want to put to the Minister and the coalition Government is this. Are you still intending to carry through the changes you promised in 2011 and said were so urgent that they had to be implemented by the end of this year, or have you decided to abandon them? If the latter is the case, can you please tell the industry and the regulator, so that we can decide how to respond? If you are still going ahead, please could you come back at Report with some appropriate amendments? If you are not able to do that, I and colleagues will be happy to draft some new clauses for you to adopt. But please make up your minds on this issue, which is very important, not just for the industry but for public protection. I beg to move.
Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD)
I have added my name to this amendment, and refer Members to my former policing interests in the register. I have long felt that it was important to ensure that adequate training was given to anyone from the private security sector who would be working with the general public and, especially, the police.
Many years ago, when I was a member of my police authority in North Yorkshire, we pioneered doorkeepers, who were specially trained and motivated to work in a range of areas, in particular in nightclubs. Up until that time, it was customary to employ hefty and largely untrained men who would quickly get involved in any scuffles that were going on in the nightclub, or outside it, and who escalated the incident more often than not. Eventually, the police felt that they needed to do something about this and proposed that they trained the doorkeepers. They received a certificate at the end of their training, which became the basis of our having properly trained people dealing with potentially difficult situations, with the help and support of police officers who knew their abilities and limitations.
Fast forward a lot of years to the introduction of the Security Industry Authority, which regulated the private security industry and introduced individual licensing, which has proved to be an enormous success and gained, as we have heard, much support from both the public and police, who saw their registration as being a sign that they had been properly trained and accredited. But it should not end there, and this is the purpose of bringing this probing amendment to your Lordships’ attention. Accountability for actions must not be simply laid at the door of individuals. Companies have a great deal of responsibility in this area and they, too, need to be held accountable if they have been lax about ensuring the proper training and professionalism of their operatives.
We have, I hope, gone long past the time when we saw rogue companies getting away with questionable practices, and unless proper regulation is undertaken we may find ourselves once again in a position of trying to fend off organised crime, which will impact on legitimate businesses. You can be sure that the rogue operators will be looking carefully at what is proposed in the Bill so that they can bypass having to regulate their staff and businesses, especially those who will be working with the police.
However, the words in the briefing note—which was kindly sent to me by the Home Office and I thank it for that—do not really give me much comfort. The consultation proposed,
“a phased transition to a new regulatory regime of business licensing, together with some changes to how individuals are licensed to work within the industry. Following the consultation, the Home Office is enacting reforms in two stages, with provisions that require primary legislation being implemented later, so that the industry can begin to benefit from business regulation introduced by secondary legislation as soon as possible. We are working towards businesses being able to apply for a licence from April 2014”.
In the mean time, what has happened? Businesses do not need to bother ensuring that they will be able to comply with the spirit of regulation. The police need to have confidence in the people they are operating alongside. The public also need to be confident that private security personnel are properly registered and accredited and that companies which make a lot of money out of guarding, escorting and handling extremely important items and persons can be held to account for their actions. This was promised and I hope my noble friend the Minister will be able to reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, who has an enormous amount of experience in these matters, that the proposals given to this House previously have not been abandoned.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Taylor of Holbeach) (Con)
I thank noble Lords for their contributions and for the concise way in which they have addressed this important issue. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, for presenting these amendments—not that I am going to accept them—as the SIA is one of my departmental responsibilities within the Home Office. She mentioned commitments that I made last year at the annual general meeting of the SIA. I made similar commitments by video link; unfortunately, I could not be there as I was dealing with a Bill and could not be in two places at the same time.
I reiterate our commitment to the SIA. No one knows more than the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, how important that body is, given her distinguished service as its chairman. We also appreciate the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, on the importance of business licensing for the development of the industry. We are at one in that aim and we have not been idle on this issue. There has been a public consultation on the process and we have published the Government’s response to it. As the noble Baroness may know, we do not need primary legislation —we do not need to put anything in the Bill—to introduce business licensing. It would be introduced by secondary legislation and would cover issues such as door supervision, security guarding, cash and valuables in transit, close protection, CCTV and public surveillance, and key holding—the traditional areas. However, noble Lords will be aware that one of the consequences of the Leveson report is that private investigators should also come within the ambit of the regulatory body—the SIA. Therefore, there is a lot to do. I reassure my noble friend Lady Harris of Richmond that we are still very much on target.
I turn to the amendments. Amendment 56QA seeks to link the application of the complaints and misconduct framework overseen by the IPCC to SIA-regulated businesses. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, said, the police work with the private sector on many different aspects of their work, many of which are outside the security industry and, as such, it was never the intention that the provisions of the Private Security Industry Act would apply. I shall describe the sorts of thing that I am talking about. These include, for example, call handlers in police control rooms or inquiry office staff. In addition, forensic science work, which is, of course, integral to the police service, is regulated by the forensic science regulator, and would be excluded.
The intention behind Clause 121 is to ensure that the oversight of complaints and conduct matters by the IPCC extends to all private contractors, subcontractors and their employees carrying out functions for the police where those functions have been traditionally carried out by police officers and police staff, so that where there has been a move towards the civilianisation of police functions, these should be covered. Police forces are increasingly entering into contracts with private sector organisations—I come from Lincolnshire, a county which probably pioneered that—many of which fall outside the SIA-regulated regime, but which should, none the less, be subject to investigation by the IPCC for wrongdoing. I think that the public would rightly expect this to be the case.
Amendment 95ZA raises similar issues in the context of the transit through the UK of people being extradited from one country to another. Again, I understand the noble Baroness’s concern to prevent untrained and potentially unsuitable individuals being given delegated authority for facilitating these transits.
Although I agree with the intention behind the amendment, I believe that we can achieve all this through other, more workable means. I say that because the Government plan to amend this clause in recognition of similar concerns raised by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee—namely, that the power to specify descriptions of those who might in future facilitate the transit through the UK of persons being extradited from and to another country is cast in wide terms. The committee felt that this should be seen in the context of the powers of authorised officers, which include the power to detain persons in custody, and therefore that the delegated power should either be circumscribed in the Bill or subject to the affirmative procedure.
We have listened to the views of the committee and, in response, have tabled an amendment which will apply the affirmative resolution procedure to this order-making power. This will mean that the only categories of persons able to undertake escort duties will be those approved by both Houses. An example of the type of persons who might undertake this escort role is Border Force officials. Whoever is empowered to carry out the role will be subject to the extradition codes of practice, which are based on the equivalent PACE provisions. I hope that the noble Baroness will be reassured that there will be proper oversight and scrutiny of those who undertake quasi-police functions and exercise police powers, and that she will be content to withdraw her amendment.
In relation to the SIA, the Private Security Industry Act 2001, which underpins the SIA’s regulatory activities, specifically states that licensing requirements do not apply to activities carried out by a detainee custody officer and a prison custody officer, both as defined by the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. Therefore, the effect of this amendment would be to create conflicting legislation, with a question as to which Act was supposed to apply to these people. The SIA currently has no remit for regulating this type of activity; nor is it the Government’s intention for it to do so in the future.
I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Henig—I keep thinking of her as “my noble friend”, although, according to the traditions of the House, I should not call her that—will accept my commitment on business licensing and on the determination of the Government to continue their policy objective of advancing the interests of the SIA. We see it as developing an increasingly important role in public protection in this country.
Baroness Henig
I thank the Minister for his response. I listened very carefully and particularly took note of the points that he made about escorting for extradition proceedings. However, I am somewhat disappointed with some of the general points that he made. He said that the Government had not been idle. Three years have passed and nothing has happened. I do not know what definition of “idleness” the Minister is using but in my book three years is quite a long time for nothing to happen. He assured the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, that the Government were very much on target. However, they clearly are not on target, because both the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, said that this whole process was going to be completed by the end of this year. Therefore, how can he say that the Government are very much on target when they patently are not? I am sorry but that is not very reassuring.
There was mention of secondary legislation. I have to say to the Minister that the problem with secondary legislation is that there cannot be a range of enforcement mechanisms; nor can there be appropriate sanctions. The industry has made it clear that to have business licensing without appropriate enforcement mechanisms is a recipe for disaster. It means that the good companies will go along with things and the bad companies will not face any sanctions. To businesses, that is a worse prospect than no legislation. They are very alarmed about that secondary legislation.
I know that businesses will be very disappointed with the Minister’s response. He has offered nothing. He has offered no assurances and has not said that the Government will bring anything back. We have here very appropriate legislation for something far more substantive. I have some sympathy for the Minister who I think would like to move further. I am quite sure that the problems are not necessarily in the Home Office but in other parts of government. None the less, the industry is disappointed because the opportunity is here to take a big step towards what it wants and what obviously would be of benefit to the public, but it is not being taken. I understand, and I sympathise with the fact, that industry leaders, probably even today, have made it clear that they will withdraw from a lot of co-operation with the Home Office because of the disappointment and frustration that they feel at the Government’s inability to take this forward. For the life of me, I cannot understand the problem with going ahead with business licensing in a proper manner through primary legislation.
At this stage, I am happy to withdraw this probing amendment but some of us may want to look at this issue again to see whether there are amendments that we could table on Report, which perhaps might find a more favourable response. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Queen’s Speech
Baroness Henig Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Henig
My Lords, I will speak on an issue that I very much hope we will see included in the coming Session’s legislative programme. In doing so, I declare my interests as recorded in the Register of Lords’ Interests, my chairmanship of the Security Industry Authority until January of this year, and my membership of the Independent Police Commission.
The measure I wish to raise relates to the way in which the private security sector, which is increasingly important in policing and safeguarding considerable amounts of public and private space, is regulated in the future. Regulation of the private security industry over the past eight years has been very successful. Do not take my word for it; ask those who work in the industry. That is why there was such an uproar in 2010 when, as part of the now infamous bonfire of the quangos, the coalition Government proposed to deregulate the sector and abolish the regulator. This was fiercely opposed, not just by most of the industry through its major professional bodies but by the Scottish Government and by the Northern Ireland Office. In the end, the Government agreed that although they would abolish the Security Industry Authority in its current form, this would be as part of a transition to a new regulatory regime in which businesses would play a more active role. This was something I had been advocating for some time.
We were told that this would be a speedy transition. Indeed, I was told in no uncertain terms by the Home Secretary herself in early 2011 that this change was regarded by the Government as urgent and had to be completed by the end of 2013 at the latest. When I protested that this was a very demanding and possibly unrealistic time scale, I was firmly told that completion by the end of 2013 had to be the target. Now here we are in May 2013, and how far have we got in the transition process? We have seen no legislation thus far, and nothing definite has been promised in the Queen’s Speech. Not surprisingly, private security companies are clamouring for progress, particularly in regard to what they and the Security Industry Authority wanted in 2010—namely, a move to licensing businesses rather than individuals. It has repeatedly been promised by the Home Office, and may indeed be brought about through secondary legislation in the autumn, but the problem is that secondary legislation would not enable a new regulatory body to be established or allow for a full and effective range of sanctions and penalties to enforce the move to business licensing.
I fear that the Government have impaled themselves on a hook of their own making. There is an obsession with deregulation, and we are promised a Bill to reduce what is perceived to be the excessive regulation on businesses. This is no doubt making it extremely difficult for the Home Office to sell the move from individual to business licensing to the Cabinet Office and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, since this could be seen as increasing the regulatory burden on industry rather than reducing it. But to move to business licensing in the private security industry through secondary legislation without the capacity for enforcement of the new regime through appropriate penalties and sanctions will not be effective, which is why private security businesses are so anxious to see primary legislation deliver the transition to the regime that was promised in 2010. Recent research reveals why they see this as so important. A group of businesses that were surveyed about regulation, including small private security companies, said that they wanted not less but better regulation, to ensure that higher quality, compliant firms were not undercut by cheaper, unscrupulous operators. Business licensing without proper sanctions to enforce the regime will not avoid this danger, so instead of obsessing about deregulation, the Government should commit themselves to introduce the necessary primary legislation to underpin the licensing of private security businesses. In addition to an appropriate and effective range of penalties and sanctions, the new regulatory body that is established will also need to be equipped with effective gateways to national bodies, such as Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the National Crime Agency and the Home Office with regard to the right to work, to enable it to work effectively with major partners in the fight against fraud and crime. I hope that the Minister will be able to give an indication at the end of the debate as to how soon such primary legislation can be introduced.
Another casualty of the new coalition Government in 2010 was the regulation of private investigators. This was ready to be brought in in the spring of 2010, but the incoming coalition Government immediately halted the work. Before too long, of course, the Leveson inquiry showed the folly of the delay. Private security industry regulation was introduced in 2001 to protect the public, and it must be extended to include private investigators as a matter of urgency. The relevant professional bodies want it, the regulator is ready to work on it, and I would be most grateful if the Minister could tell me when this urgent measure will be introduced.
The private security industry clearly recognises the need to raise standards across the industry and has worked hard in recent years to introduce more professionalisation and chartered status for industry bodies and individuals. There are now over 750 approved contractor companies, covering around two-thirds of the workforce in the private security industry. What have the Government done to encourage this trend? In Scotland, to win a contract funded by the public sector, a company has to have approved contractor status. The Scottish Government have insisted on it, but no such provision exists in England. Yet it is absolutely essential that the Government work with the industry to raise standards, because the public increasingly rely for their safety in public places on private security. Whether in shopping precincts, on industrial estates or university campuses, at sports grounds or large outdoor festivals and concerts, or around night clubs and bars, private security companies police and secure the space. What is often an ill informed debate about outsourcing police activities misses the point that significant partnerships between the police and the private security sector already exist, and they already operate effectively in protecting the public. One outstanding example of such collaboration is Project Griffin, pioneered in the City of London but now rolled out nationwide, in which security guards working in urban centres and around sensitive sites are specially trained and briefed by the police on a regular basis to alert them to ongoing security and other threats. This partnership worked extremely effectively during the Olympic Games, and it continues to underpin public safety across the country.
It is because the private security industry already plays such a major role in protecting the public that the Government must play their part by ensuring that the industry is effectively regulated and that public contracts are awarded to high-quality providers and not to those companies that put in the cheapest tenders by making their employees work excessively long hours at minimum rates. We also need an effective complaints mechanism where private security companies are operating in the public arena alongside the police. I was very pleased to hear the Minister, in opening the debate, outline that one provision in the forthcoming crime and anti-social behaviour legislation will extend the remit of the IPCC to deal with complaints relating to private security personnel operating in the public arena alongside the police. It is very important that the public know how they can register a complaint if they feel the need, and I shall certainly be supportive of that change.
In conclusion, I would be most grateful to hear from the Minister at the end of the debate when and how the transition to a new regulatory regime for the private security industry, considered so urgent in 2010, will be completed; when regulation of private investigators will be introduced; and in what ways the Government will work with the private security industry to continue to raise standards and further enhance public safety.
Police and Crime Panels
Baroness Henig Excerpts(12 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Henig
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much money they will make available to each police and crime panel to cover start-up and first-year running costs.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Henley)
My Lords, we are committed to funding police and crime panels to do the job set out for them in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act. We will be providing annual funding of £53,300 per panel as well as an additional £920 per panel member per annum for expenses.
Baroness Henig
I thank the Minister very much for his response. One of the few things we all agreed on when the police and social responsibility Bill was before the House was the need for these panels to be strong and to operate as effectively as possible under the new governance arrangements for the policing landscape. Does the Minister not agree that these panels will want to meet regularly, probably at least once every other month; that they will have extensive legal and financial needs; that they will need good financial and legal advice; that they will certainly have extensive training requirements in the first year to enable them to operate effectively and cohesively; and that, therefore, the sums he mentioned are totally inadequate to get these panels operating as we would like in the first year?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I do not agree with the noble Baroness at all. As the Bill went through, we made the function of the panels quite clear: it should be that of a light-touch approach. We then announced how much money would be available for them, which was £38,300 per year each. We have reviewed that figure in the light of various amendments made to the Bill, particularly some that originated this House. The figure, as I have just announced, has been increased to £53,300. We think that that is enough for the panels to do their job. The noble Baroness ought to remember that these panels are not replacing police authorities; their job is to review the actions of police and crime commissioners.
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Baroness Henig Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Browning
I picked out Glenrothes because it was the most northerly of all the examples. I could have chosen others, but I was trying to make the point to the House that a 56 per cent turnout in Glenrothes in November is not an insubstantial result. I hope I have made my point—I am sure people in the House understand the point I am trying to make.
Coming back to the more salient point, the additional time gained by holding the elections in November will help to ensure that they benefit from the time that will be given to allow good-quality, independent candidates to come forward and establish themselves. They will have time to properly plan and campaign for the elections. The Government have been clear from the outset that they are keen for as many independents as possible to contest these elections. The November date allows for this. The fact that the first elections for PCCs will not be held at the same time as other local elections sets the tone from the beginning—it allows PCC elections to be established and for the electorate to understand the opportunity they will have to elect somebody who will represent them in being involved in local policing and holding the police to account.
I turn now to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who proposes a royal commission. I have a slight sense of déjà vu because I think he and I have discussed this before. I believe that a royal commission would use time and money that we do not have and that could be better spent elsewhere. Reform cannot wait. All parties agree that reform is needed and, more specifically, that it should be in the form of direct democracy. This is not the context for a lengthy and exploratory royal commission.
Ultimately, we all know and accept that police authorities are not the optimal model for police accountability. This has been stated by the Opposition, although I know there are different views about it within the House. But we do know that only four out of 22 inspected police authorities have been assessed by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and the Audit Commission as performing well in their most critical functions.
Local accountability must be both visible and accessible, yet only 8 per cent of wards in England and Wales are represented on a police authority, so it is no surprise that only 7 per cent of the public understand that they can approach their police authority if they have issues with policing.
Baroness Henig
I have heard this example—7 per cent—several times, but what percentage of population does that reflect? The reality is that police authority members represent a far higher percentage of the population than in terms of ward, which is actually a rather meaningless context since a lot of wards have very few people in them.
Baroness Browning
The point is that this is still a very clear minority and in fact the Government’s changes will allow every single council—including district councils, which at the moment do not have the opportunity to put forward people to sit on police authorities, county councils and of course unitary councils—to send a representative to sit on the police and crime panel. So in terms of the broader representation of the public, this is a very much enhanced way of making sure that people will associate with those who sit on that panel and know who they are.
I believe that the Government have set out a clear and comprehensive vision for policing. Direct local accountability and decentralisation are part of this coherent reform agenda to cut crime. We will refocus the Government away from micromanaging local policing. We will ensure the police and PCCs are properly supported on national policing issues. That is why we are also creating a powerful new national crime agency, to improve the fight against serious and organised crime and help protect our borders, and why we are introducing a new strategic policing requirement.
We are dealing with an overcluttered national policing landscape, phasing out the National Policing Improvement Agency and reviewing police leadership, training and skills, as well as examining pay and conditions to ensure we provide the police with the conditions in which they can thrive and continue to be the finest police service in the world.
I move now to the government amendment to re-establish the Secretary of State’s power to issue a financial management code of practice for PCCs. A code of practice is currently issued to police authorities, which are required to have regard to it in the discharge of their financial functions. This enables the Home Office Accounting Officer to assure Parliament that funds given to the department are used appropriately. The Bill as currently drafted repeals the general power to issue codes of practice to police authorities under which the existing financial management code was issued. To ensure that we adhere to the principles of financial regularity, propriety and value for money, we propose that the Bill should be amended to retain the power to issue codes of practice, but restricted to codes relating to financial matters.
I now turn to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, who seeks to ensure that the financial code of practice includes a requirement for the PCC to appoint four non-executives members to his or her team. The noble Lord will know that we have discussed this on several occasions. I commend his resilience and perseverance on this. I know the arguments put forward by the noble Lord and others were that the PCC must benefit from external expertise and challenge. I also recall that my reply when we last discussed this was that the police and crime panel had as its primary purpose the need to challenge constructively and in that way also support the PCC in meeting its statutory duties. This was debated at some length and it was felt that there was a risk that the PCP and the PCC relationship would be solely adversarial. The Government considered this carefully and brought forward an amendment that means the PCP has a responsibility to challenge but also to support the police and crime commissioner in delivering his or her statutory responsibilities.
We have listened to the noble Lord and amended the Bill to ensure that the PCC is able to benefit from constructive external challenge from the police and crime panel. I believe that our amendment does this, but the noble Lord clearly feels we have not achieved his aim. I return to the point that I made on Report: there is nothing in the Bill that prevents the PCC from appointing non-executives if he or she decides that that is what they want to do. We have provided a framework that allows the PCC to establish his support team, for those decisions to be made public and transparent and for the PCC to be challenged by both the PCP and the public on those decisions. With regard to financial governance and management, the auditors and the chief finance officer under law will be there to advice and raise any concerns publically if there is any sign of mismanagement.
I cannot therefore agree to the prescription that the noble Lord wishes to insert into the financial code, as it is unnecessary and has been dealt with by the Bill and the amendment passed by this House and agreed by the other place. I beg to move.
Motion A1 (as an amendment to Motion A)
Lord Imbert
My Lords, I rise to support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Condon to delay the introduction of the elected police and crime commissioners until after the year of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, to be held in London and other parts of the country during the next 12 months. Like my noble friend Lord Condon, I declare an interest. I, too, am a life member of the Association of Chief Police Officers and also have 40 years’ experience as a police officer, from being a bobby on the beat here in London—before many people in the other place were born—to my retirement as commissioner some years ago.
I join the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, in sending good wishes to Bernard Hogan-Howe for the formidable task ahead of him after becoming Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. I know Bernard Hogan-Howe. He is a physically fit man—as he must be for that job. Indeed, until very recently, he played football for my son’s team, which is appropriately called Mid-Life Crisis. I am sure that all Members of the House would wish Bernard H-H well in his task.
I make no secret of the fact that I believe that to have elected party-political devotees given the awesome power to appoint, dismiss and suspend their chief constables, to set the budget, and, in fact, by definition, therefore to decide what police do or do not do and how they do it, is a dangerous move towards politicising the British police service. To disrupt the government of policing, and thereby the policing task as a whole, at a time when the pressures on the service will be unprecedented, is not simply unwise to the point where ordinary, daily policing would cease to exist at all but is a madness that would put at risk the safety and security of the Games themselves and the well-being of the athletes and many thousands of spectators and officials. To insist that the proposals in this unnecessary Bill should go ahead during 2012, when police numbers will have been reduced to a minimum, is, frankly, dangerous. However, even with greatly reduced strengths, we will still expect police to carry out their regular policing duties, whether policing riots, dealing with thefts, child abuse or physical abuse not only in Greater London but in towns and cities across the country. I plead with the Government to see sense and have the courage to change this unwise and enormously expensive plan for these elections.
To return to the Bill before us, I find it interesting, but frightening, that we have been consistently and firmly assured by the Government that we have no need to worry about the provisions for the election of police and crime commissioners; and that our fears that a holder of extremist views would be able to interfere with the proper administration of policing, or hinder the impartial service the police have been required to give since Sir Robert Peel—a Tory Home Secretary—laid down his strict principles for efficient, effective and impartial policing in 1829, are groundless. The Government have insisted that those fears are imaginary, but, after those verbal guarantees, we see them experiencing a distinct shiver of apprehension and doubt—I could describe it as a touch of the trembles. They are quickly shoring up the defences by publishing a draft protocol governing the respective responsibilities of, and the relationships between, the chief constable and the elected commissar. They have also discussed—as we have heard this afternoon from the Minister—making that protocol statutory. If those proposals in the Bill were, as we were assured, impregnable, why do we need a protocol at all; let alone to consider making it statutory? This can surely only be an admission that they have now realised that the boat was not so watertight after all and could have been in danger of capsizing. However, it seems that government Ministers have been prepared to take that risk. Will they be prepared to stand up and take responsibility if it all goes badly pear-shaped? Or will they find it more convenient to blame—dare I say it—the police?
Peel's principles have successfully guided policing in this country for 180 years. The style, accountability and governance arrangements here have been envied, admired, and emulated throughout the Commonwealth and, indeed, the world, for nearly two centuries. I am not a politician and owe no allegiance to any political party, so I hope I can say what I wish this afternoon. Is it not ironic that in order to save the police service and policing as a whole from the dangers of party political influence and likely interference, it seems one has to enter into the political argument? ACPO has commendably refused to be drawn into turbulent political waters, but those of us who have left the service need have no such inhibitions. So let me very briefly, taking no more than two minutes, enter the fray.
Prior to the last general election, I formed the view that a change of Government was urgently required. My Conservative friends—and they include some members of my own family—persuaded me that we needed a Conservative administration. So convincing were they that this would provide what they called intelligent and common-sense government, that I breathed a great sigh of relief when the votes were counted. I thought that we would now have our own John F Kennedy as our leader. I was wrong, of course. A few weeks ago, I received a phone call from an old friend, a former clerk to a police authority, now 80 years of age, who I knew to have been an unwavering Conservative all his adult life. He was clearly unsettled by the latest government reform proposals and we queried whether the new definition of “reform” can be found, in any dictionary, under the verb “to ruin”. No doubt thinking I would share his views, he said to me: “What on earth are they doing to us? They have tried to sell our forests and woodlands; started demoralising the National Health Service and its loyal and highly qualified staff; and now they are trying to politicise the police. What will they do next?”.
I am not going to ring him following the Government’s proposals over the relaxation of building restrictions on the green belt, because he is a country-lover. However, taking all these measures and so-called reforms together, one must ask, “Are this Government deliberately trying to alienate their traditional supporters?”. I would go further and say that I am coming to the conclusion drawn by some of my friends that somewhere in a back office in Whitehall, or nearby, is a small group of politically aspiring kamikaze suicide pilots, who, on a weekly basis, are loading Aircraft UK with self-destruct material. Is the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill the latest self-destruct consignment to be taken on board? It certainly will be if the Government are unbending and insist on going ahead with these proposals in the face of opposition and widespread wise and professional advice not to do so, particularly at a time of public unrest and unease with the government proposals for various so-called reforms and austerity measures—as evidenced by the recent student and trade union demonstrations.
This is not the time for political involvement in, or political direction of, policing. Police must not only be politically neutral; they must be seen and trusted to be so, and not seen as an arm of any particular political party or, indeed, government. We must take time to give greater thought to these proposals. For these many reasons, I support and would encourage noble Lords of all parties, and of none, to support the amendment put forward by my noble friend Lord Condon.
Baroness Henig
My Lords, I will try to be extremely brief because I know the Minister is anxious to move matters forward. But Members of this House will be aware of my deep opposition to this Bill because it fatally undermines the principles on which policing has been delivered in this country for nearly 200 years. So the Minister will not be surprised to learn that I will be supporting the amendments that have been moved.
First and foremost, as we have heard—although the Minister did not acknowledge this—we are politicising policing. It is pointless government Ministers trying to deny this and pointing to the embryonic protocol that will supposedly regulate relations between commissioners and chief constables because the reality is that commissioners will be elected on party-political platforms and chief constables will, of necessity, have to acknowledge this and temper their actions accordingly. If they do not, we know from London experience what will happen; the elected commissioner will cite loss of confidence and, as a result, yet another chief constable will bite the dust.
The Minister argued that it would be key for independent candidates to contest these elections. But independents would have to be extremely wealthy to contest these elections. We are talking about very large, disparate police force areas. For an independent to make an impact across such an area, they would need to spend a lot of money. Inevitably, the reality is that there will be no more than a handful of independents contesting seats. Nor will there be many ethnic minority or female commissioner candidates because all the evidence from across the European Union on direct elections for mayors and similar positions is that the more power these positions carry, the more likely it is that white males between the ages of 35 and 65 will be chosen by their parties to contest winnable seats.
So I must say to this House that this is not a reform that will promote diversity. Quite the contrary because it is a big step back in terms of the fact that in the past few years there have been many female and ethnic minority police authority chairs, who have spent their time not sniffing out cameras at 100 paces or speaking to every available journalist, but establishing close links with their local communities. I want to place on record at this point my thanks to all police authority members who have worked so hard in the past few years because I think they have been unfairly vilified in the course of this Bill. I actually think they have done a very good job and I would like to acknowledge that.
We are taking a giant step towards an American model of policing, where—let us remind ourselves—police chiefs last on average two and a half years in office, where powers are wielded by “machine” party politicians, and where there are far higher levels of local corruption than we have so far experienced in this country. Bill Bratton, much admired by the Prime Minister, was sacked by Mayor Giuliani after two and a half years, not because his policing was a failure, but because it was so successful that it challenged the mayor, whom he was overshadowing in popularity. He had to go and he was sacked. I fear we are seeing the start of that in this country.
The stated aims of reform are to drive down crime and secure value for money, but how can a stand-alone commissioner forge the essential local partnerships that would deliver that? At the moment, partnerships exist and have helped to bring crime down to historically low levels. But the examples of elected mayors we have seen so far in this country indicate the commissioner will want to run his own show, on his own terms, sometimes capriciously, occasionally irresponsibly, but always with an eye to the media and to journalists, and always weighing up what needs to be done to secure re-election.
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Baroness Henig Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Shipley
My Lords, I will speak in a moment on Amendments 2 and 3, but I would like to speak briefly to Amendment 13, which stands in the names of my noble friend Lady Hamwee and myself. This relates to the checks and balances which are, in theory, to be strict; it also relates to the substitution of or deputising for any member who is unable to attend a meeting of the panel, and to the quorum and the need to define the quorum required for a meeting of the panel actually to be held. There are important reasons why this matters.
At Report, my noble friend the Minister said that substitutes would be permitted at meetings of the panel. I seek further clarification as to exactly how this is going to be done, because it matters. In terms of the two-thirds of the membership of the panel having the power to veto appointment of a chief constable or the precept, then who attends the meeting and what the quorum is matter: these points become material. One has to maximise the number of people who can attend, and if a member of the panel cannot attend then the Bill should state who would be permitted to attend that meeting of the panel on behalf of that same local authority. Also, as there will be decisions to be made which do not require a two-thirds majority but nevertheless will be decided after debate on a simple majority basis, how many people are required to attend the meeting to make it valid seems to be highly material. I am looking for further clarification about this matter from my noble friend the Minister because we see it as being very much part of the checks and balances on the police and crime commissioner, without which it is not clear that those checks and balances would function correctly.
I turn to Amendments 2 and 3 briefly, because there has been a very good and helpful debate on this matter. As someone who has listened to that debate, it seems to me that the two amendments are not incompatible, but there are differences between them. It would be very helpful if my noble friend the Minister could take those two amendments away and see if they could be redrafted in a way which would meet the requirements and wishes of all sides of your Lordships’ House. It seems now that there is an opportunity for this to be done.
Baroness Henig
My Lords, I will speak extremely briefly—I realise that we have had a good debate on this. I wish to respond to the noble Lord, Lord Dear. It seems that the difference between these two amendments goes to the heart of the issue of corporate governance.
The first amendment, tabled by the Government, is very much in line with the Government’s model that the panel scrutinises the commissioner and the commissioner scrutinises the police. That is the Government’s model, and I have understood that right the way through. What my noble friend’s amendment tries to do is to develop a more corporate approach to try and give the panel more input, and therefore to have a more corporate approach as between the panel and the commissioner in scrutinising the police. That is the intent of the amendment, and that is a big, fundamental difference. While I accept all the points about the need in the future particularly for chief officers to have more support—and this will come out in later amendments—good governance structures need to be in place: that is fundamental. If we are going to make changes in policing, good governance structures have to underpin those changes. At the moment, those structures are not there. That is one of the problems that we have.
I support all noble Lords who have said, let the Government take the summer to look at this. That is absolutely right, but my point is that it is going to take a fundamental re-look at things. As long as the Government’s model gives one politician on a party political ticket such huge influence over policing—one person, without good governance structures in place—grave concerns are going to remain. That is the fundamental issue. While I therefore support all attempts to try and get the Government to look at this again, unless the model is changed fundamentally those central concerns will remain. That needs to be put on the record, because it is the big difference between these two amendments.
Baroness Browning
My Lords, the Government are clearly reflecting on the events of the past few days—that is what the Statement which will follow Third Reading will seek to address, as of course did the Home Secretary’s Statement which was read in this House on Monday. We have had a detailed analysis of the Bill, but I am not at this stage going to pre-empt what the other place will make of the changes that this House has made.
The noble Baroness, Lady Henig, has just outlined a very potted version of the Government’s plan. It might be helpful at this stage if I reiterate what was said at the beginning of Committee stage; although it was refuted around the House when I said it, I believe that there is greater clarity in this matter now. While we have police forces up and down the country who we all would want to pay tribute to in the work that they do, there has for some time, as our research which I shared with the House in Committee has shown, been a belief among the general public that local police forces should be held to account. We believe that in order for them to be held to account, the public—who have not been mentioned very much so far—should be given the right to elect the person on their behalf who will hold the local police chief constable to account. I give way.
Baroness Henig
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister so early on, but will she not acknowledge that when the public were polled on whether they wanted that accountability to be exercised through a party politically elected individual, they overwhelmingly said they did not? Over 70 per cent said they did not want a party political person having that sort of power. They wanted somebody who was accountable, but not somebody elected on a party political ticket. More than one poll came out with that finding. Will the Minister acknowledge that?
Baroness Browning
The noble Baroness and I have, in the course of our debates and deliberations, exchanged stats on various polls. Certainly, the Bill has sought at all stages to strengthen that accountability of the PCC, and I am very grateful to Members on all sides of the House in this. In particular, we have brought forward amendments at Report stage which strengthen the panel, so that the PCC can be held to account, but in turn the public hold the PCC to account.
I believe that the events of recent weeks go to show how ineffective the present governance system is in robustly holding the police to account. If anything, I believe that it goes to show how important these reforms are—something that I realise from the body language opposite me is not agreed—but none the less I believe that is the case. Of course, the serious events that have been before both Houses in the last week or two were not known at the time that the Bill was drafted, but the Bill itself will seek to restore that public confidence in the police, a confidence that has been rocked to its foundations. Only a police service that is reactive to public concerns and held to account democratically will address the deficit.
I come to some points that have been raised here, and particularly in respect of the Metropolitan Police. Noble Lords will know that I am a Home Office Minister. I cannot, and it would not be appropriate for me to feel I had to, answer for the Mayor of London; I am quite sure that he is robust enough to answer any criticisms for himself. However, it would reflect very badly on the police and crime commissioner—
Baroness Browning
My Lords, I am sure that I do not need to remind the noble Lord and the House that he is a Home Secretary-appointment to the MPA and, as I understand it, at the moment he is in charge. I am not being personal—I am saying this in general terms—but clearly the current system is not working. We have seen that in the seriousness of what happened in the Met and what is continuing to be investigated there.
Having served 20 years as a Member of Parliament, I raised concerns which I knew were shared by many people. I did so not as a reflection on the individual police force that covered the constituency that I represented; the force worked very hard and there were some very good people in it. Over the years, however, there has been what I can only describe as a public perception of creep, whereby law-abiding people who bring up their children to respect the police and the law have increasingly had an underlying feeling that, at times, the police are not on their side. There are lots of reasons for that and we could have a lot of debate about it. I see the noble Lord nodding. It is something that I have raised with chief officers as a Member of Parliament.
It is a very dangerous thing if what I might call middle England, for want of a better expression, start to believe that the police are not on their side, or that when something happens to them, often for the first time in their lives, as far as law and order is concerned, they do not feel that it is even worth picking up the phone to report it because they have a preconceived idea of what the response will be. That sort of creep—and I can only describe it as creep—is something that concerned me for many years as a Member of Parliament. I know from discussions with others that that is not an isolated case. It is very dangerous if, having had policing by consent for generations, we suddenly have an emerging generation—although it goes across the age spectrum—who do not have that confidence in the police. It is not about individual officers or chief officers but is about the way in which structures have been introduced and developed and about governance. That governance needs to change, and this is the Bill that will change it . I give way again to the noble Baroness.
Baroness Henig
I have listened with great care to what the Minister has been saying. However, given that more than 60 per cent of the public still have confidence in the police, as against 18 per cent who have confidence in politicians, is the right answer to have directly elected party politicians bearing down on chief constables?
Baroness Browning
My Lords, there is absolutely no guarantee that PCCs will necessarily be party politicians—although they can be, of course. I think that it would be welcome on all sides of the House to get the best person for the job regardless of party. That is what people have usually looked for in jobs such as this across the public sector. Many people in this House will have had very responsible jobs in public office and I hope that no one in this House would suggest that the only reason why they held those jobs was their party political allegiances. I have to say that this also applies to Members of Parliament—yes, there is a lot of party political cut and thrust, but I hope that all colleagues in this House who have formerly been Members of Parliament would agree with me that once you are elected you represent everyone in your constituency. As a Member of Parliament—apart from when you are actually at the other end of the corridor, and I see a few noble Lords nodding—once the election is over, you put party politics to one side in order to take on your responsibilities for a whole constituency. That applies across the public sector when people are elected or appointed to a post. I would hope that, regardless of party politics, people will step up to the plate to take on a public office of this level of importance.
I turn now to the opposition amendments. Amendment 3, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, seeks to alter the government amendment providing for the panel to exercise its functions in support of the commissioner. Instead, it would give the panel a more direct role in the performance of the force. The Government listened to the concerns of noble Lords across the House in Committee and in meetings which I held outside the Chamber about the panel not doing battle with the commissioner and about the panel having a supportive role in addition to the role set out in the Bill. At Report we tabled an amendment to that effect. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dear, for speaking to this group of amendments and reminding the House of the oath that constables take, which is at the forefront of their minds. That was so well explained—far better than I could have done—and I am grateful to him.
The Government’s amendment sends out a clear message that we expect the relationship between the PCP and the commissioner to be one in which both parties work towards the mutual aim of providing the best service to the public. The amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham—who also spoke to it—would substitute the Government’s provision with one where the panel is responsible directly for the performance of the police force. As already discussed during our debates, the Government’s model provides for direct accountability from the chief constable to the police and crime commissioner for the performance of the force. The commissioner is then, in turn, directly accountable to the public. To give the panel the role that noble Lords suggest would confuse these clear lines of accountability.
Baroness Browning
My Lords, this amendment, as with similar amendments at Report stage, seeks to secure the appointment of an acting PCC from the police and crime panel rather than the PCC staff. I want to make it clear that the Government accept that this is a important area and one that we must get right. I am aware that the Opposition disagree with the Government’s proposals, but I continue to believe that the alternative put forward is not the answer. Our objective is simple—we agree that the acting PCC must be underpinned by a mandate from the people to act. The point is that, true to democratic principles, this mandate must be what the people have voted for in that force area. The opposition amendment would replace one elected mandate—the legitimate one that brought the PCC into power—with another that may be completely different and at odds with that of the PCC.
I accept that a member of the PCC staff does not have a direct mandate. They are there to help deliver the PCC’s police and crime plan. We have ensured that they cannot amend this while doing their caretaker role—this will ensure that the mandate of the PCC and the public’s will is maintained. Maintaining the PCC mandate intact is important—delivering on an elected mandate is what democracy is all about, and there are also practical implications. As I have pointed out at previous stages in the Bill, we do not want another local politician, with possibly a different agenda, to take the reins and take the police force in a different direction. We believe that this is not a good proposal. There is a fundamental difference in our approach to this—we see the acting PCC role as a caretaker role and nothing else; it seems that the Opposition see the acting PCC as more than this. Given the direct mandate of the PCC and the fact that the acting PCC should be a temporary measure, I cannot agree. We cannot hand the office of PCC to somebody who will likely seek to take the force in a different direction without a mandate.
This was debated on Report, when the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, in particular made the point that there are no other examples of an unelected person setting a precept. It is important to note here that the acting PCC is hardly acting completely unchecked. First, the PCP has a veto in this area; and, ultimately, should the precept remain excessive, it will be subject to a referendum.
I will finish on how this is all likely to work in practice—after all, this is what matters. As noble Lords know, the Government introduced an amendment to allow PCCs to establish deputies. In reality, we envisage that the PCP will appoint the deputy as the acting PCC. Given the debate thus far on the need to ensure the PCC has sufficient powers, noble Lords will see that we have left it to the PCP to decide which members of the PCC staff should be appointed in the circumstances and at that time. I believe that this satisfies the democratic need in this area and I ask that the amendment is withdrawn.
Baroness Henig
Before the Minister sits down, I ask her to clarify whether the post of deputy will be a politically restricted post. There was some discussion on this and I did ask a question about it at the last stage, but I do not think it has been clarified.
Baroness Browning
The answer is no. I have also been informed that the relevant provision is paragraph 199 of Schedule 16, if the noble Baroness wishes to look at it.
Baroness Henig
“( ) The policing protocol must, in particular, provide that if a chief constable, Commissioner of the Metropolis, or Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolis resigns or is required to resign before the expiry of his term of appointment, HMIC must conduct a review of the reasons for that resignation and publish a report on that review.
( ) In conducting that review, HMIC may call upon the assistance of IPCC, if the reason for the resignation is or appears to be one which is related to the ethical conduct of any party to whom the protocol applies.
( ) A statutory instrument containing an order under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.”
Baroness Henig
My Lords, Amendment 10 is a very modest amendment, like some of the amendments we have had this morning, but I believe it is a very important amendment in the light of current events. Its purpose is to afford some protection under the proposed protocol to senior officers if they resign prematurely by ensuring that HMIC must conduct a review in these circumstances. The amendment would also ensure that the regulations setting out the protocol would need to follow positive resolution procedures. Given the significant impact regulations could have on the practice and the governance of policing nationally, I believe that this is essential.
I would like to say a few words on why I think this improvement to the Government’s amendment is necessary. I, along with many noble friends and colleagues in the House, have consistently raised concerns about the Bill in a number of key areas. We have already heard about these concerns earlier this morning; concerns about whether these reforms will politicise policing and place too much power in the hands of one person; that we need a more corporate approach with more emphasis on good governance and internal regulation; a desperate need to strengthen checks and balances across the whole Bill; inadequate provisions for conduct and complaints, particularly in relation to commissioners, but also in relation to senior officers. Once chief officers become responsible for appointing and disciplining their own senior team, in my view and in the light of the events of recent days, this is a very serious concern. Things have actually been changed by what has been going on.
I acknowledge that the Government have improved some of the checks and balances while the Bill has been in this House—for instance, around lowering the veto majority required by the panel—and we welcome the progress that has been made. In particular, I welcome the government amendment in relation to the protocol which seeks to provide some rigour around protecting the operational responsibility of chief police officers, although my amendment suggests an improvement to these proposals, prompted by recent events. In any event, the devil will be in the detail of the regulations at the end of the day, but my amendment will ensure that they must at least address situations where the chief officer resigns prematurely. Because the devil will be in the detail, I suggest that the regulations need to be subject to positive resolution procedures in both Houses because this is fundamental to ensuring that operational responsibility is adequately protected.
I echo the comments of many noble Lords and Members of the other place about the long and dedicated service of both Sir Paul Stephenson and John Yates. I mentioned at earlier stages of the Bill that I did not always agree with Sir Paul, but I have always respected and admired his great abilities and his tremendous commitment to policing. He will be a great loss to London and to the service.
The events of the past week have fuelled my great concern about the future of policing and the impact this could have on reducing public confidence in policing as well as creating instability and uncertainty in the police themselves, particularly among senior ranks. Recent events have dramatically illustrated the vulnerability of senior police officers when subject to the control of a single individual elected on a party political ticket, an individual who is used to operating in a very political environment. The fact is that all senior officers at some time or another need support in difficult situations. The noble Lord, Lord Dear, referred to this earlier this morning and it is absolutely the case. Every now and again they need the opportunity to talk things through on a confidential basis. I know for a fact that that has often happened up and down the country with police authority chairs and deputies and, indeed, with independent members of police authorities. The governance structure has given senior police officers the opportunity to talk to and confide in members and that has helped them in doing their job.
It is quite clear from recent events that individuals elected directly to oversee policing will operate completely differently from police authorities under the present governance arrangements. I am not arguing that that may not have many advantages. The Government have argued that they want a new governance structure and I understand what their reasons are. But I want to point out the huge downsides of this new governance structure, because the individuals so elected, the commissioners, will put their own political career prospects and their own survival ahead of any other factor when problems arise. They will ramp up the pressure on senior police officers rather than work with them supportively behind the scenes. It does not matter what protocol you put in place or whether you say, “This is operational but this is not, and you must not cross this line”, ramping up pressure is of a different order entirely. That is what I am so concerned about. It is for that reason that two Metropolitan Police commissioners have gone in the past two and a half years.
My concern is that once this system is extended to the rest of the country without any safeguards, we can predict fairly certainly that the same problems will arise up and down the country. Chief constables will be driven to resign and police and crime commissioners will boast about how tough they are being and play to the media for effect. That will happen; anyone who is a politician knows that.
Another of my worries is that the effect on the public’s trust and confidence in the police will be enormous. I think that their trust and confidence in the police will go down but their trust and confidence in politicians will not go up. That will mean a poisonous outcome of these new governance arrangements that a statutory protocol will not alleviate. Hence my amendment to have resignations thoroughly investigated by the inspectorate and, if necessary, the IPCC so that at least the public can get a clear and dispassionate picture of what the issues and problems are, free from the distortions of the media or of the commissioner’s account. That is what is motivating me in the amendment.
I remind noble Lords, although I am sure that they need no reminding, that the government Benches have consistently claimed that the London pilot model is a pilot of the proposals for the rest of the country. I do not happen to agree with the Government that it is a very good pilot, but the Government have consistently claimed that the proposals are close enough to act as a test bed and that no other pilots are needed because the London model is such a success. After the previous few days, that rings very hollow and worries me enormously. If London is the model for the rest of the country, then what we are seeing now is what we will see writ large over the next few years.
We are seeing the direct consequence of politicising the police. The senior ranks of the Metropolitan Service have felt the need to employ PR and media advisers, for example, in order to do their job in a political environment and to try to cope with political pressures. Do we really want that sort of scenario to be repeated up to 43 times across the rest of the country as the reforms are rolled out? I am sure the Government will tell me that my fears are misplaced, but I am sorry, that is what I am concerned about.
We live in a complex world. The media play an essential role in enhancing the accountability of the police. The police need to have a balanced relationship with the press, to answer their questions and disseminate information. Obviously, they cannot cut ties with the press and still be seen to be accessible and accountable, but we need to spend time getting the relationship right.
I warmly welcome the recent announcement by the Minister, when she repeated the Home Secretary’s Statement to the other place, that a review of this relationship is to be conducted, but surely we must await the outcome of that review before pressing ahead with the reforms in the Bill. Surely it is madness to do otherwise.
I fear that we are heading for a perfect storm of colliding events in the police world. The first of these, as I have just mentioned, will be a combination of the erosion of public confidence in policing as a result of the phone-hacking scandal together with instability and increased uncertainty among senior ranks of the police. This will be combined with unprecedented demand and pressures on the police with the upcoming Olympics; the Jubilee; the implementation of budget cuts that will affect the police directly but also increase demands on them; the changes predicated by the Winsor and Neyroud reviews on leadership; and more changes thorough the demise of the NPIA and the creation of the national crime agency. Is this really the time to be going ahead with all this along with the new governance structure, which, as we all acknowledge, has serious concerns attached to it?
My noble friend Lord Hunt has warned time and again as the Bill has progressed through the House that the Bill is badly thought through and will require the Government to bring in changes within a year or two to correct its errors if it goes ahead. I agree with him. Recent events have shown the cracks and dangers in the Government’s proposed model. Even if some noble Lords do not accept my view that these dangers are pressing, surely we have to take on board the lessons of the reviews and inquiries into the recent scandals—otherwise why have them? Surely we are going to wait to see what they say. Surely we must ensure that these problems that the reviews will bring up are fixed before any new model of policing is considered, because if we do not, the consequences will be severe and disastrous when combined with all the other demands which are coalescing on police resources. Senior police officers deserve a sense of stability and some certainty that they are not going to be asked to fall on their swords to protect their political masters.
I accept that there are some safeguards in the Bill, although in my view they are inadequate if the chief officer is formally required to resign. As the noble Lord, Lord Blair, has pointed out to us many times, there are ways of persuading a chief officer that he should resign voluntarily if a directly elected individual deems that his or her face no longer fits. Chief police officers deserve some certainty about this scenario too. In fact, it is fundamental to a healthy relationship between the commissioner and the chief officer.
My amendment cannot undo all the dangers and inadequacies of the Bill, particularly those around corporate governance and the woefully inadequate standards regime, but it tries to provide some safeguards for chief officers against losing their job on spurious grounds by ensuring that the HMIC must review all premature resignations. A question arises about whether checks and balances are strong enough and whether we need more of them. I urge the Government to consider this again, particularly regarding the powers of the panel and the ability—or lack of it—of the inspectorate to inspect commissioners.
Although I do not for a minute suggest that either Sir Paul Stephenson or John Yates would come into this category, the uncertainty about tenure prompts questions about whether we need again to consider banning disgruntled former police officers from standing as commissioners straightaway, because of course the Bill does not rule that out. In fact, recent events have prompted so many queries about the inadequacies of the Bill that I feel we must make sure that a strong message goes to the other place about this: a very strong warning about all the problems inherent in the Bill that may result in complete disaster.
With all due respect to the Minister, who is innocent of formulating these proposals in the first place, she has done a sterling job in trying to defend them. I know she has tried to bring about changes. She keeps telling the House that she will go away and seek changes and then she comes back and says that she is terribly sorry but the changes are not possible. We can only speculate about what goes on behind the scenes, but I know that she has battled hard. Surely there is now only one course of action: to pause and think again. We need time to reflect on the impact of recent events and to consider how the reviews being undertaken by the inspectorate and the IPCC need to be reflected in any reform proposals. At the very least, people will surely accept that this is the wrong time for reform. While I hope that over the summer the Government will pause to reflect again, in the mean time I seek to put forward this minimum safeguard to mitigate some of the more extreme possible outcomes. My amendment is really directed to safeguard chief officers’ operational responsibility and to protect their positions from the capricious, media-seeking, and politicised antics of some—not necessary all—directly elected commissioners. I beg to move.
Lord Wasserman
Does the noble Baroness really mean that if a chief officer resigns for domestic, private or health reasons, there has to be a published report from the HMIC?
Baroness Henig
I say to the noble Lord that what may appear as a private matter may have been caused by months of stress because of wrangles between the commissioner and the chief constable. There are all sorts of things that may not meet the eye. I really believe that we have to think of the public in all this. What is the public going to make of this system, of the new governance structures and of the police? It is important that they see chief constables and their forces as operating above party politics. In a lot of amendments that I have put forward I am trying to help the public to maintain respect for the police and not to feel that party politics will undermine the integrity of the police force. That has been in the back of my mind in all my amendments.
Baroness Browning
I am grateful, too. I turn to Amendment 10. I hope that the response of the Government to the very public developments over the past few days with regard to the Metropolitan Police Service indicates that the necessary powers are already in existence to achieve what I believe the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, seeks to place in the Bill.
The Home Secretary has a power, as we have seen this week, to direct HMIC to undertake work such as a review, and for that review to be published. The IPCC is an independent body. Matters for investigation are referred to it, and it is for the IPCC to determine how best to undertake its investigation. HMIC may look to the findings of IPCC investigations to assist in its inspection conclusions, but we must be clear that the IPCC cannot and must not be used as a tool to undertake certain areas of inspection or be placed under the direction and control of another accountable body.
If there is a matter related to the ethical conduct of any party to which the protocol applies, the Metropolitan Police authority has demonstrated how this can and should be dealt with in the future by the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime. It is the accountable authority that shall make a referral to the IPCC, and the IPCC shall be free to determine how that matter is investigated without fear or favour. I therefore suggest that there is no need for this amendment and that we should take a degree of assurance from the existing structures and mechanism that have been put into action this week. On that basis, I ask the noble Baroness to consider withdrawing her amendment.
Amendment 12 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, would make the protocol subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, as opposed to the negative resolution procedure. This amendment was spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Soley, and others. It is not necessary because the government amendment put before this House for the protocol to be given a statutory footing would also require the Secretary of State to consult with all interested parties before varying or replacing the protocol. It is also the case that whether the SI is affirmative or not, the detail of the protocol cannot be amended by Parliament.
A consultation that will inevitably focus on the interpretation of the statute provisions for those parties is attached to this requirement, and a draft revision will emerge. Where there is a clear discrepancy, then either House will be able to challenge the proposed protocol. In our view the negative resolution procedure affords the right level of parliamentary scrutiny.
Other Members of your Lordships’ House have spoken on wider issues beyond the amendments before us. I ask noble Lords with amendments in the group not to press them and ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Henig
I listened closely to what the Minister said and I have expressed my strong concerns. I was trying to draw attention to the fact that if this Bill goes ahead then, regretfully, we will see far more of what we are currently experiencing. I wanted to concentrate minds on establishing some machinery so that every time something along these lines happens we did not go into a great spin about what should be done. This is going to become a more frequent occurrence and we need to think about how we will deal with it. However, in view of what the noble Baroness has said and the late hour of this debate, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Harris of Haringey
I will be brief because I know we want to return to Amendment 12 in the previous group. I can assure your Lordships that I do not intend to make a valedictory speech about all the issues we have talked about during the course of this Bill.
However, this Bill is extraordinarily constructed. Where there is a direct route to one of the Government’s objectives, they have gone the long way round to do it. It is almost as if someone walking from your Lordships’ House to the Supreme Court decided to go up Whitehall, via Trafalgar Square, along the Mall and down Birdcage Walk to get there rather than simply crossing Parliament Square. There are two instances of that: first, the strange decision to use the concept of corporation sole as the mechanism for chief officers of police and for police and crime commissioners; and, secondly, the decision to insist on duplicate financial and audit systems, neither of which are necessary to achieve the Government’s objectives. They are simply going the long way round.
As we have discussed repeatedly during the course of this Bill, corporation sole is a medieval construct designed to prevent priests ripping money off the mother church. It has occasionally been used as a construct in terms of public policy in this country, most recently by the Children’s Commissioner. However, in the recent review, the Children’s Commissioner has made clear that the mechanism is unsatisfactory; it does not allow proper governance and is not particularly robust or transparent. Yet this is the mechanism the Government are using in terms of chief officers of police and police and crime commissioners. Frankly, that is a bizarre way of doing it. That also gets to the heart of the problem of this Bill, which is whether there will be adequate governance around the position of police and crime commissioners and whether there will be the adequate checks and balances that I know Liberal Democrat and many Members of your Lordships’ House are so concerned about. It gets to the heart of that principle because it does not facilitate good governance; it is a single individual making decisions alone. That is why it is called a corporation sole.
The second issue concerns having two chief financial officers, both of which will be subject to audit regulations. I have a letter from the Audit Commission which confirms that the Bill requires that both the chief officer of police’s chief financial officer and the chief financial officer of the police and crime commissioner will have to have separate auditors. There will have to be a separate audit opinion on separate financial statements, so the single police fund will be audited twice: once as it passes through the hands of the police and crime commissioner, and again as it passes through the chief finance officer of the chief constable. In fact, in London, it will be audited three times, because it has to pass through the hands of the Mayor of London and the Greater London Authority; it then passes to the MOPC, who will have to have a chief financial officer and who will have to be separately audited with a separate audit function; and then it passes to the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis.
What a bizarre waste of public money. That is simply because it has not entered the Government's mind to go the shortest distance from one place to another. That is why we have this bizarre construct of corporations sole and chief financial officers. The amendment would require the Government to come back to Parliament with a proper explanation, which can be debated, as to why those bizarre routes have been taken to deliver what they want. That would give Parliament an opportunity to make the Government think again and put more sensible, transparent and accountable systems in place. I beg to move.
Baroness Henig
I very much support my noble friend's amendment. In the past few weeks, I have struggled hard to master the concept and practice of corporations sole and to understand the Government’s thinking in this area. I know that we were going to have a meeting about it with the Minister. I would have welcomed that so as to be able to tease out the problems and issues. Unfortunately, that could not take place, and I quite understand that.
My problem is that in this area, the Home Office often has a different view from police authority chief executives, the Audit Commission and other bodies. There is a range of views here: there is the Home Office view of how we should do things, and there are other people who have different views. The reason I have a problem with that is that I have many years of experience at national level of sitting on bodies dealing with the Home Office’s suggested way forward. In my experience, the Home Office sometimes gets things wrong—not always, but on occasion. On occasion, the Home Office can be very stubborn in denying that it gets things wrong. Again, I have experience of that. I know that sometimes it can take years for the Home Office to accept that it has made a mistake and put it right. I am not saying that that happens all the time, but it happens.
In that light and in that spirit, I think that we need to pause. This is a very complex area, and I am not clear that the Government have got it right at the moment. My noble friend has put forward a serious argument and I hope that the Government are willing to consider it.
Lord Rosser
We believe that the Government should support the amendment and justify their decision in a report to Parliament as to why it is necessary to concentrate such largely untrammelled power in the hands of police and crime commissioners and chief constables without proper checks and balances. We say that particularly in the light of recent events concerning policing and police actions which, as the Minister will know, are now the subject of inquiries and investigations that may well comment on the issues of governance, checks and balances.
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Baroness Henig Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Soley
My Lords, I will intervene briefly, mainly to support what my noble friend has said.
On the previous intervention, the issue of offers of payment by the media to certain police officers is very much on our minds at the moment. In my view, this issue is not—and never has been—a really central and massive problem, but it has always been there. When I introduced my Freedom and Responsibility of the Press Bill 20-odd years ago, we looked at it then but it has never been dealt with so I would say it should be considered, particularly in the structure that Government are setting up. There will be a temptation for certain police officers to be paid by journalists. Usually, the journalist makes the approach, in my experience, when any offer is made. Journalists will talk about what they do on a confidential basis—“Do not quote me” and so on—but such things are said. Usually, the sums of money are not huge—perhaps £20 for a bit of information and a bit more for another piece of information.
We all have two or three concerns about this Bill, but on this particular aspect there is a danger of what you do if there is an issue of corruption, however small it is overall, and how it is dealt with. I hope that the Minister will deal with that point, which my noble friend made very adequately from the Front Bench, but has just been added to by my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey.
Baroness Henig
Before the Minister replies, I have a brief query that I would like to ask. Between discussing this in Committee and on Report, the Minister has laid an amendment about deputies, so I think we have covered this. I am therefore assuming that it is possible that the noble Baroness might be saying—and it was certainly what I understood when it was first mentioned—that a deputy might assume this role of acting commissioner.
When I looked at this in some depth, it seemed to me that this deputy post was not one that would be exempted from Section 2 of the Local Government and Housing Act. In other words, it was going to be a post where the incumbent would have to be politically restricted. If that was in fact the case and it was a politically restricted post, it would seem to me to be completely wrong for that person who is politically restricted to be able to act up. Am I correct in my understanding of that? When that deputy post was created, I had rather assumed that one of the reasons for it was that the deputy could act up, but having looked at it, I do not see how that could work. I would be most grateful if the noble Baroness would perhaps say something about that as well in her reply.
Lord Dear
If an allegation of corruption or any other crime is made against someone, whoever the officer might be, the procedure is well laid down, and I do not think that the Bill would change it in any way. The complaint is made to the chief officer of police, who has to record the complaint, which is automatically notified to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. The IPCC can take over the inquiry or supervise it, and discipline remains a matter for the chief officer. If, in the doomsday scenario, the chief officer does not deal with the complaint properly, then it is for the police authority or, in this instance, the police and crime commissioner, to step in. I do not think the procedure would be changed by the Bill.
Baroness Browning
My Lords, this amendment seeks to secure the appointment of an acting PCC from the panel rather than from the PCC's staff. I recognise the points made today and previously in Committee and remain open to suggestions about how we might secure a process of appointment for an acting PCC which provides the safeguards and political neutrality that I have described in previous debates and which would also provide assurance to a PCC that any appointment of a temporary stand-in would not endanger the continued delivery of the police and crime plan and objectives. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, that I am very happy to consider taking forward the situation with the deputy, but the deputy is not politically restricted.
Baroness Henig
When I looked at the government amendments, there was no suggestion that there was an exemption under Section 2 of the Local Government and Housing Act. If there is no such exemption, is that post not restricted? It does not say that.
Baroness Henig
“( ) A report is to be prepared annually by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary assessing the extent to which the strategic policing requirement has been met in each police area and nationally.
( ) A copy of this report must be laid before Parliament.”
Baroness Henig
My Lords, I would like to speak to Amendments 235, 235A and 239. Can I just point out that I think there is a misprint on the groupings list? To clarify, this group should comprise Amendments 235, 235A and 239.
Amendment 235 is a response to the widespread fears of your Lordships expressed in earlier debates. It is also a response to the concerns of policing professionals, charities and businesses that an elected commissioner might, for obvious reasons, want to focus on a local mandate, and the fact that a lot of important, strategic national issues are somewhat hidden from public view. There is concern that all this might lead to cross-border national or strategic policing issues being relatively neglected under the Government’s proposed new model.
I dare say that we are as one in recognising and wishing to respond in the most effective manner possible to the ever present and, indeed, growing threats to many of the so-called protective services or national and strategic threats, which cross police force borders or require specialist attention. The sort of crimes I refer to are such things as cyber crime, threats from terrorism, extremism, serious and organised crime, people trafficking and the more sporadic—potentially devastating—impact of civil contingencies. There is a whole number of national incidents.
I do not wish to raise an apocalyptic spectre of crimes and emergencies, but it is exactly because these important issues are not the currency of local, political, policing debate that I am concerned that it might not be at the forefront of a commissioner’s attention. There is a risk that commissioners may—for understandable reasons—not give full weight to national issues. Anybody who has attended local, public policing meetings or read the results of public consultations about policing priorities will understand that local people are interested in local issues. One example is born out of recent excellent research undertaken by my home police authority, Lancashire, which revealed that most people’s priorities for an elected Lancashire commissioner were going to be tackling quite low-level crime. Anti-social behaviour and environmental issues such as littering and abandoned cars were the sort of issues that people wanted commissioners to address.
I have experience of consulting local people on their policing priorities. I used to always give people a list of issues on which we wanted to consult them. It would always include anti-terrorism and other matters but the public always said “We do not want anti-terrorist activity to be at the top of the list because that is a national responsibility”. When asked how this should be paid for they said that the Government should pay. They always put national issues at the bottom of the list. As I went round the county, this happened every time.
Even at a time in Lancashire when the Irish situation was quite difficult—and Heysham was quite an important area for activity which meant that the Lancashire police were engaged in considerable anti-terrorist activity —none the less people in Lancashire did not want their precept to be spent on that kind of activity. That worried me then and it worries me even more now because I think that tendency will be even more emphasised in this new regime.
What I propose as part of the solution to act as a substantial check and balance on commissioners and force actions is to have an annual report to Parliament by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary. I am sure I do not need to remind the House that it has a long and distinguished track record in both identifying and trying to identify the best ways of closing the gap in protective services. It is perfectly placed to provide an annual guarantee that the gap does not widen in the years to come, or, if it does widen, that it can alert Parliament that this is happening.
My idea of an annual report to Parliament draws on similar recent and successful provisions that have enabled Parliament’s concerns about the potential impact of certain Acts to be monitored and to some degree ameliorated. I am thinking here of the distinguished work of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, as the independent reviewer of counterterrorism legislation. That is just one example of a way in which activity could be monitored, so that Parliament could get some sense of how things are working out. I understand that the amendment would impose a new duty on the inspectorate’s already, no doubt, hard pressed resources, but the national issues are so important and the consequences of us failing to ensure adequate provision for national strategic policing requirements are so great that an annual assessment would be one way of monitoring the situation and measuring what forces are doing. It would help commissioners in their debate with local people to emphasise how important these national strategic requirements are. It is in that spirit that I beg to move the amendment.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I had not promised to give the detail of the strategic policing requirement, which is currently under negotiation. I am happy to give noble Lords a situation report on where negotiations stand regarding the definition of the strategic policing requirement. That is the most that I can do.
Baroness Henig
My Lords, I have listened closely to everything that has been said. I thank noble Lords who have participated in this debate. I have listened very carefully to the Minister. I agree that under the present system there is a recognised way of reconciling local and national police authorities; I do not think that is in doubt. The problem is that we are embarking on a completely new structure of police governance. Everything that we are used to is being changed, and not incrementally but quite radically. I think that we all accept that. My amendment seeks to reassure the public, given that we are faced with this completely new and untried system. We owe it to the public to reassure them that under the new system cross-border crime, serious criminal issues and national crime will be tackled by local forces.
We have heard a lot about commissioners. I am sure that good commissioners will act as the Minister thinks they will; it is the not-so-good commissioners and the areas where local people may be let down which are the problem. I do not see that this measure is such a lot to ask for when reports are prepared in many areas of our national life. Why cannot they be prepared by the inspectorate in this area? I do not understand why this is such a novel suggestion. I keep being pushed to press amendments to a Division, but I really would like to test the opinion of the House on this matter.
Baroness Henig
“(2A) The inspectors of constabulary may carry out an inspection of, and report to the Secretary of State on, the performance by a police and crime commissioner or a police and crime panel of its functions or of any particular function or functions.”
Baroness Henig
I rise to speak to three amendments, which, taken together, seek to preserve the checks and balances and independent assessment of performance within the current system that the Government have drawn on so heavily in creating their case for change; namely, the excellent work of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary.
Right at the beginning of our work on the Bill, the Government told us that HMIC unearthed the evidence for the failings of the present system, which necessitated the abolition of police authorities as quickly as possible. Indeed, in the absence of an analysis of the results of the Home Office’s public consultation on their reform proposals and the rather limited utility of a Cabinet Office report now five or six years old, the findings of HMIC’s inspections of 22 police authorities could be charitably described as the nearest thing the Government have for an evidence base on which they can build the case for change—at least as far as the suggested evidence for the weaknesses of the old system goes.
When it comes to this clause of the Bill, it very much surprised me—and may well surprise many of your Lordships—that, far from the excellent work of Her Majesty’s inspectorate being valued and taken forward into the new era of elected accountability, it has been relegated to the sidelines. In fact, the inspectorate is no longer going to be called upon to inspect the whole range of policing accountability but is going to be focused on forces.
I find this a little odd. We are told that commissioners and their panels are the necessary drivers of change, the fulcrums on which the hopes of reforms are going to be founded. They are going to have the role in driving efficiency at local level, not the Home Office from the centre any more. Yet these crucial new transformative individuals and bodies are not to be subject to the same level of inspection in the public interest as police authorities. I find this quite strange. Surely it cannot be right to limit the scope of inspectors who could provide valuable, impartial and expert information to the public on complex areas of policing and police finance, including the efficiency of those overseeing that finance. Budgets are going to be tight in the next few years and the new system is going to be very costly. I find it hard to believe in the new system, which many of us think will increase costs. These costs will add up and may very well eat into the policing budget. It is therefore not unreasonable that inspections should be able to oversee how those costs are running and whether things are operating reasonably.
Baroness Henig
I thank the Minister for that response. However, I do not think that he fully understood what I was arguing. I was not arguing that everything is wonderful in the present system; in fact, until recently, police authorities were not inspected. It is only quite recently that they became inspected, which had a tremendously focusing impact. Police authorities operated much more effectively once they were inspected, which has taken place only in the past two or three years if my memory serves me correctly. If elected councillors sitting on a police authority can be inspected, I do not understand why commissioners who have been directly elected cannot be. I do not understand the difference: they are both elected, albeit perhaps in different ways.
One reason why I have perhaps less confidence in the panels than the Minister is that I have yet to believe—and we are now on Report—that they will have any power. We keep talking about checks and balances. The panels have some rather pathetic veto powers requiring a two-thirds majority vote, but their input is not that great. I do not have much confidence that they will have any great impact on the way in which a commissioner operates.
My standpoint, funnily enough, has nothing to do with police authorities working well or not; my standpoint is the public. The whole point of the system is to serve the public. One of the strengths of policing in this country is local accountability to local people. It is local people that I am thinking of. They should have the reassurance on some sort of regular basis that commissioners are operating effectively—I do not see that there is anything wrong with that. I find it difficult to accept the repeated suggestion that I am asking for all sorts of radical and extreme things, when it seems that very sensible and basic issues are being raised. All I am suggesting is that it would be sensible for commissioners to be inspected, because it would give the public reassurance.
I am sorry that the Minister finds that so difficult to understand, because it seems to me to be very straightforward. However, in view of the lateness of the hour and because I do not want to test the patience of the House any further, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Baroness Henig Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I do not have any other amendments in this group but there are also the two government amendments, Amendment 230 and Amendment 234, and Amendment 231 from the noble Baroness, Lady Henig.
My amendment repeats an amendment tabled and spoken to by my noble friend Lord Shipley at the previous stage. This point was drawn to our attention by the Electoral Commission—I am well aware that the Minister was until recently a commissioner—regarding funding by third parties. The Electoral Commission pointed out that it would be helpful, useful or necessary—I do not remember which; I suspect necessary in its view otherwise it would not have contacted us—to add a regulation about spending by those who seek to influence the outcome of an election: that is campaigners who are not themselves standing. It seemed to me that in the Minister’s reply to the debate on 6 June there was not a response to this point and I hope that she will take this opportunity to give an answer.
I also have a point on the Minister’s Amendment 230 which disapplies, as it were, the two-term limit on commissioners. She will recall that I tried to do the opposite by imposing a two-term limit on the MOPC to bring it in line with commissioners outside London, and therefore my sympathy for this amendment is limited, but I do understand the need for consistency. The amendment is being proposed, I believe, because of arguments that, faced with the prospect of an election coming down the track, accountability will be limited in the eyes of commissioners because in the second four years they do not have the prospect of a further election. My short point is that there is always going to be a final four years. I do not see that this is going to avoid that problem entirely and it could of course mean that some commissioners remain in office for a long time. That can do nothing but increase the concerns that have been expressed about the concentration of power in one person’s hands. I beg to move.
Baroness Henig
My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 231 and Amendment 234 in this group. I hope your Lordships will have noted the balanced symmetry of my amendments, one with the Minister for the Government and the other with my noble friend Lord Hunt, leading for the loyal Opposition, so I have one with each person in this group.
Amendment 231, which I have tabled with the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, and my noble friend Lord Hunt, suggests that no serving police officer or a person who has served as a police officer in the past 10 years may stand as a commissioner. Amendment 234, tabled, I am delighted to say, with the support of the Government, will ensure that noble Members of this House may be elected as commissioners and continue to fulfil their duties within the House. It removes Clause 74 which would have barred your Lordships from being both a commissioner and an active Peer, a proposal which, as I recall, caused considerable disquiet in Committee. I am very happy that this amendment provides the Government with a way out of what I am absolutely certain would have been a defeat on this proposal and spares the Benches opposite from any further blushes on this Bill. I look forward to the possibility of noble colleagues—not myself, I hasten to add—who may consider putting themselves forward to be commissioners. If they do that I will look forward to hearing about their experiences on their probably infrequent visits back to this House. That option should be open. Under this amendment it will be open. I am grateful to the Minister for agreeing to that amendment.
On serving police officers—or people who have served as a police officer in the last 10 years—then serving as a commissioner, that proposal is not intended as a slight on the noble profession of police officers in England and Wales. There may well be individual police officers whose skill sets would enable them to be very effective commissioners. The valued contributions in your Lordships’ House of noble Lords who have previously served as chief commissioners are testament to that. Yet here, we are 827 noble Lords. The expert contributions of the noble Lords, Lord Blair, Lord Condon, Lord Dear and Lord Stevens, and others are a valuable addition to debates on policing, alongside the views of a whole host of others—civil libertarians, local government experts and those with other viewpoints from outside the policing profession. Peers with a policing background bring a valuable perspective but they are not the sole arbiter of policing policy. I dare say that they would not wish to be.
The fact is that these commissioners will be a novelty introduction to British politics—a sole, directly elected arbiter of policy in one particular area, effectively unconstrained by his or her peers, or by Cabinet or other collegiate responsibility and elections every four years. It is incumbent on us to ensure that such a single individual can carry as much public trust and confidence as possible. He or she must be seen to be impartial in holding the police to account. Perhaps controversially, I am not convinced that under this system, reliant on a single individual, one person who is associated exclusively with the police service could carry the perception of impartiality from the police force that is necessary if every section of the community is to trust that their police force is being held rigorously to account.
We have an established principle in our public life whereby there are safeguards against what the public could reasonably perceive as potential conflicts of interest, or undue or improper influence, as individuals with relevant experience move between related fields. For instance, the Ministerial Code of May 2010 makes it clear that no former Minister may take up an appointment with a lobbying company for at least two years after leaving office. I am not suggesting that the parallels with policing are exact but the public has an expectation that, if an individual has been on one side of the fence and decides to swap over, there should be an appropriate break between the two to mitigate against the perception of conflicts of interest.
The noble Baroness, my noble friend and I are not wedded to 10 years but believe that there should be some separation between people serving as police officers and then standing as commissioners. Maybe 10 years is not considered appropriate but there should certainly be some period of time. That period would also enable any police officers who would be commissioner candidates to broaden their experience of fields beyond policing, perhaps trying business or community-based endeavours, not to mention developing the contacts and support that they would undoubtedly need in order to be elected.
One or two other matters are worth mentioning briefly. One that bothers me is that, without the safeguards offered by the amendment, it is possible that a disaffected police officer could choose to stand as a commissioner so that he or she might laud it over his or her chief constable or force. I hate to mention that but I have come across individuals who have had those motives. One cannot rule that out completely. It may sound fanciful but it is a real risk and one that we should take the opportunity to remove now.
Given the hour, I am trying to be as brief as possible. I encourage the House to look at this carefully. The amendment in relation to police officers would be a step towards preserving and not diminishing the recent substantial gains that the police and authorities have together made in raising public trust and confidence in the police and the impartiality of those who hold them to account.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I welcome the two government amendments, which we are glad to support. On Amendment 218, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has done a great service by bringing this issue to your Lordships’ attention.
I am assuming that the noble Baroness will be able to say that the order-making power in the Bill is sufficient, but if not, it would be helpful if she acknowledged that. She will be equally helpful in relation to my own Amendment 231; alas, perhaps I am wildly optimistic on that.
I agree with the worries expressed by my noble friend Lady Henig about whether it is right and appropriate for former police officers to stand for election as police and crime commissioners. There are two areas we might discuss. First is the question raised by my noble friend about disaffected police officers. There are known to be disaffected police officers; they do surface from time to time. I worry about such a person being elected as a police and crime commissioner and the approach that they would then take to the chief constable and the force over which they had such influence. I also worry about any police officer elected as a police and crime commissioner.
Noble Lords will know that one of my major concerns about the legislation is that, in effect, the police and crime commissioner will act as the chief constable. We have still to hear about the Memorandum of Understanding—I assume we will come back to that on Third Reading—but even with a statutory Memorandum of Understanding, in the end all the levers are with the police and crime commissioner. I believe that it is almost inevitable that that person will seek to unduly influence the way in which the chief constable operates. It would be even worse if the police and crime commissioner is a former police officer. The temptation, the itch, to intervene in the details of that force would, I believe, be overwhelming. I know that it is unusual, when it comes to elections, for us to say there is a category of people who ought not to be able to stand, but in the case of police and crime commissioners, who are corporations sole, we have a huge responsibility. I wonder whether it would be appropriate for a former police officer to stand.
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
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Lord Harris of Haringey
My Lords, I realise that we are stretching the rules of Report, but this is important. Presumably when the matter goes to the other place, we can receive back from them only amendments that relate to amendments passed by your Lordships' House. That will produce a very narrow range of areas. Areas on which there is no amendment from your Lordships' House will not be covered. I make this plea for the fourth time that it would be in the Government’s interests to postpone Third Reading on this Bill to 5 September. It would lose them only one parliamentary day, but it would enable the Home Office, the Minister’s officials and colleagues around the House to spend a little bit more time getting the details right. It would also give the Minister the opportunity to come back on some of these detailed points.
Baroness Henig
My Lords, I have suddenly realised that some days ago I moved an amendment, did I not, about statutory protection for chief executives, and withdrew it because the noble Baroness would not give me any assurances on this. Does this not rule out any changes? I am puzzled because I did move this amendment and, as I recall, it was rejected.
Baroness Browning
My Lords, I hear what noble Lords have said about the use of ping-pong and the other place; I am not a business manager and the matter of when Third Reading of any Bill takes place is not in my hands. I have heard what the House has said tonight and I will take it away for further advice.
Baroness Henig
“Functions of police and crime panels: conduct, complaints and audit committees
(1) Every police and crime panel shall—
(a) deal with complaints and conduct matters in relation to the police and crime commissioner and members of the police and crime panel;(b) monitor the discharge of the police and crime commissioner’s functions to deal with complaints in relation to the police force for its area;(c) monitor the accounts and audit matters of the relevant Police Commission, police and crime commissioner, and chief constable, as the case may be.(2) A police and crime panel must establish one or more independent sub-committees to discharge its functions under subsection (1).
(3) For the purpose of subsection (2) an “independent sub-committee” is one which comprises the following members appointed by the police and crime panel—
(a) an independent person to chair the sub-committee who is not a member or a member of staff of a police and crime panel, a local police body, a police force or a local authority;(b) at least three other independent people to be members of the sub-committee who are not members or members of staff of a police and crime panel, a local policing body, a police force or a local authority; (c) up to three members that are police and crime panel members, at least one of whom must be a co-opted member. (4) In appointing members to an independent sub-committee the police and crime panel must ensure—
(a) that people with sufficient relevant skills and experience are appointed to undertake the role effectively;(b) it does not appoint a person who has or appears to have a conflict of interest or a personal or prejudicial interest in becoming a member of the sub-committee.(5) An independent sub-committee may—
(a) make recommendations to the police and crime panel or police and crime commissioner about action to be taken to resolve a complaint or conduct matter;(b) make recommendations to the police and crime panel, police and crime commissioner or chief constable about audit and finance matters.(6) If an independent sub-committee makes a recommendation in accordance with subsection (5), the person or body to whom it is made shall have regard to it.”
Baroness Henig
My Lords, in moving Amendment 117 I shall speak also to Amendments 144, 148, 149, 150, 154, 156, 232 and 232A.
Amendment 117 confers specific functions for complaints, conduct and audit matters on panels and obliges each panel to establish an independent sub-committee to discharge these functions. It also makes provision about the composition of the independent sub-committee so that it is chaired by an independent person and has a majority of other members independent of the police and of local authorities. The people appointed to that committee must have relevant skills to contribute to its functions and must not have a conflict of interest. The independent sub-committee can make recommendations in relation to conduct or audit matters to the police and crime panel, the commissioner or the chief constable, who must have regard to those recommendations.
Amendment 144 enables panels to require information from chief constables or commissioners about complaints, conduct and audit matters to support this function. Amendments 148 to 150 include provisions about breaching codes of conduct within the proposed new clause that deals with suspending commissioners. At present the standard for suspension is a criminal one and does not include conduct matters. Amendment 154 effectively removes Schedule 7 because this is replaced by the other provisions in my amendments. Amendment 156 provides that a code of conduct will be formulated independently, which will apply to commissioners and panel members. Finally, Amendments 232 and 232A disqualify panel members and commissioners if they fail to sign the code of conduct within a month of assuming office.
I would like to say at the start of this group of amendments that, given the strength of feeling expressed about the Bill’s utterly inadequate provisions relating to the conduct of police and crime commissioners and police and crime panels, I am quite alarmed and dismayed that the Government have not put forward far more far-reaching proposals about this at Report. I appreciate that the Minister has put forward some amendments to include the newly created deputy commissioners within the conduct proposals applying to commissioners and also seems to have an amendment specifying that the MOPC or Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime should be covered by the conduct provisions applicable to local government. I may have missed something but I do not think the same provisions have been applied to commissioners or deputy commissioners outside London—perhaps the Minister can clarify. Even if they have been, these are in the process of being changed and I fear they may not prove robust enough for people charged with police governance. Police governance requires even higher standards of personal integrity than would be expected in other areas of local government because of the nature of the role, and my amendments set out how this might be done.
The other issue that my amendments address is the matter of audit. This relates back to a number of concerns addressed at Committee and on the first day of Report about the creation of two corporations sole in each police area both for the commissioner and for the chief officer of police. Doubts were expressed then, and have not been fully addressed by Government, that it was not clear how this structure was consistent with good financial governance; in particular it was not clear how the need to have two separate strands of audit would work for one police fund. The Minister also supplied some assurances on the first day of Report that the Government were serious about applying principles of good governance to the new structures they envisaged for policing. My amendment, like all my amendments, is an attempt to help the Government in this respect. In relation to good governance of financial issues a key requirement is an effective audit committee. My noble friend Lord Harris brought forward some proposals about how this might be done within a non-executive board linked to the office of the commissioner. However, the House rejected this so I am proposing an alternative method of ensuring sound financial and ethical governance.
My amendment proposes that an independent sub-committee should be formed within the police and crime panel which would have responsibility for audit and conduct matters. In relation to financial governance it would have responsibility for audit matters in relation to both the chief officer’s remit and the commissioner’s office. It would be able to link the audit requirement for one police fund to the two bodies that will manage it. I am not aware of any other accepted method of carrying out financial responsibilities in the corporate context except through an audit committee. The virtue of my proposal is that this will become a function which is to all intents and purposes carried out by independent people, thus avoiding the dangers of politicisation.
An independent sub-committee would also have responsibility for complaints and conduct matters. Incidentally, there is nothing in my amendment to prevent a panel from setting up more than one independent sub-committee, but equally audit and conduct functions could be undertaken by the same committee, if that was appropriate to local circumstances. Either way, my key point is that these independent committees should be comprised largely of independent people; it is essential for good governance and public confidence that this should be the case so there are no doubts about bias or vested interests. It would also help to guard against politically motivated complaints and countercomplaints being traded between the commissioner and the panel if the panel is not alone responsible for this but is required to undertake this at arm’s length through more independent arrangements.
In relation to both the commissioner and the panel, the suggestion is that the independent sub-committee should handle any complaints against individuals. If there is reason to believe that a complaint involves a serious matter or criminal behaviour, there is nothing to stop the panel referring this to the IPCC, the police, the CPS, HMIC or another appropriate body. It implies, however, that the first port of call for all complaints matters against commissioners and panel members should normally be the independent sub-committee. It should decide how best to handle the complaint and if it is a relatively routine conduct matter it should be able to deal with it. I believe that this rebalances the proposals in the Bill, which effectively suggests that the IPCC should be the first port of call in relation to commissioner complaints and does not address complaints against members of the panel at all.
Because this amendment reverses the proposals in the Bill about the role of the IPCC, which incidentally is likely to be swamped with complaints when it first takes this role on, I have removed Schedule 7 which proposes the opposite. There could still be a role for the IPCC under my amendment, but it is one that I believe should first be filtered at local level by independent committees which could decide whether to escalate the matter. I also want to mention that, in relation to force conduct matters, my amendment suggests that the independent sub-committee should have a role in monitoring how the commissioner is carrying out his or her functions in this regard to provide public reassurance.
Earlier amendments I put forward also suggested that the independent sub-committee should have a role in dealing with disciplinary matters for senior officers to ensure that a commissioner or chief officer is using disciplinary powers appropriately. In order to carry out functions in relation to complaint and audit matters which have an impact on both the commissioner and the force, it is very necessary for the panel to receive the information to enable them to do this, so there is also provision in my amendments that the panels may require information from both commissioners and chief officers in relation to their responsibilities for audit and conduct matters.
The amendment would also remove the current standard by which conduct matters are judged, which is effectively a criminal standard. In Committee I spoke about my concern that this was a ludicrous criterion to use in the context of police governance. Noble Lords will not be surprised to learn that I have not changed my mind. On the basis of zero tolerance, if I may borrow an Americanism, one would address issues of concern at the lowest level. One should not wait for them to become a major problem before taking action. The conduct criteria need to be rebalanced around the standard of acceptable behaviour. Criminal behaviour should be the extreme end of the scale, not the starting point. For this reason I propose a code of conduct, which I shall shortly explain, but first I want to mention that part of the rebalancing exercise should be the inclusion of a clause on the suspension of commissioners setting out provisions that would enable them to be suspended for breaches of the code of conduct as well as criminal behaviour.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I thank the noble Baroness for that detailed question. PCCs will have a chief finance officer, with the professional qualifications and the professional obligations of a chief finance officer. If a police and crime commissioner does not choose to have his or her own audit committee, the PCP’s audit functions will play a much more active role in scrutinising what the PCC provides, whether by the whole panel or by its own audit committee. The legal obligations for audit are, I am assured, the same as those for police authorities. However, we are very happy to write in detail on that, and a number of these matters will of course come up when the detailed regulations are put for affirmative resolution before the House.
Baroness Henig
My Lords, I have a problem with the response. This is a very big issue about public confidence. It is about putting processes in place that will reassure the public that everything is being done ethically and correctly, and that governance structures meet certain standards. I heard what the noble Lord said. My worry is that some of this is being left to laissez-faire: you can do this or you need not do this; there is a model here that you could follow if you would like to.
These matters are really important. I agree absolutely with the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. Therefore, I do not understand why these serious principles cannot be in the Bill, and why we cannot agree on a way to encapsulate them that meets both what the Government want and what I am asking for. The difference between us is not great.
Serious principles are at stake: for example, the serious principle that audit needs to be carried out and needs to be independently led. I think that we all agree on that. Another principle is that codes of conduct and standards need to be established. Again, they need to be led by an independent committee. A third issue, on which perhaps the Minister feels less strongly than I do, is that low-level complaints should be dealt with first at local level and then escalated; they should not be dealt with by the IPCC and then come down.
Baroness Henig
I have just been reading Schedule 7. As I said, it has an element of laissez-faire about it. If the Government agree about the issues and believe that they are as important as I believe they are, what is the problem with putting them explicitly in the Bill? I cannot understand what the difference is between what I am asking for and what the Government want. Why will they not accept that these principles are very important and therefore state that they will try their best to put them explicitly in the Bill? I do not understand their hesitation. What am I asking for that is so revolutionary that the Government are resisting it? All I am asking for are the most basic principles of good governance. If the Minister is not able to meet my concerns, I will have to test the opinion of the House, because the issues are fundamental and I do not understand the problem that the Minister is facing. Perhaps he would like to reassure me in another way.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I suspect that a great deal of what the noble Baroness is asking for is in regulations under previous legislation, and will be in regulations under this legislation. That is why I fail to see a difficulty. I assure her that we all understand that these are extremely important principles, and that the role of the chief finance officer and of the PCP in looking after the audit will be set out extremely carefully in regulations.
Baroness Henig
The problem for me is that this is like justice; it must not only be done but be seen to be done. Not only must we have high standards and regulations, but the public must be convinced, and must see, that they are there and that they are explicit in the Bill. If we care about these things, we must spell them out. I will find it tragic when noble Lords opposite vote against something that they all believe in, but I cannot avoid it. These matters are so important that I wish to test the opinion of the House.
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
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Lord Beecham
My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the Chief Whip for inflicting me on the House at the earliest possible moment. I move the amendment with what your Lordships may think is not my customary diffidence, because we have here three excellent amendments to do with the majority required to levy a precept. Mine is probably the least attractive, even to my mind. I am moving for a two-thirds majority to be required to overturn the precept. My noble friends Lady Henig and Lord Hunt have respectively better amendments. Mine is therefore something of a fallback position, which I think the noble Baroness has indicated might be acceptable to the Government—a rare event where I am concerned, which underlines my preference for the other amendments.
Nevertheless, we clearly need a better regime than that contained in the original Bill, which required a 75 per cent vote to overturn the precept. As I understand it from previous debates, there is no provision in the Bill to amend the precept. It is the veto or nothing. Presumably it is then envisaged that there would be discussion between the commissioner and the panel about a revision. All the amendments contain the—to my mind, welcome—addition of a proposal to allow the panel to amend as an alternative to a simple veto. I apprehend that the Minister may not be as willing to accept that, but one lives in hope.
That being the case, I move the fallback amendment, as it were, and leave it to my colleagues to make the even better case for their amendments.
Baroness Henig
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 102 and 104 in the group. As my noble friend Lord Beecham said, they both deal specifically with the majority required to veto the precept, and taken together suggest that it should be a simple majority of the panel members present. I have made similar suggestions in relation to other powers of veto through separate amendments in other groups.
The usual way to decide things in a democracy is by simple majority. I cannot see what is wrong with that principle. My amendments would apply that principle to the veto that a panel could exercise over the policing precept element of council tax. Before I argue for that, I mention that I remain concerned that there will be confusion between proposals in the Localism Bill about excessive precepts and the provisions in this Bill on the policing precept. The public may well be confused about the difference between the power of veto and the power to call a referendum on a precept. They may well also be confused if there are to be two referenda: one on the police precept and one on the council tax.
I welcome the fact that the Government have now tabled amendments to reduce the required majority from three-quarters to two-thirds, but that is still too high and too confusing for the public. They might well have trouble understanding why a referendum will be decided on a majority, but the power of veto cannot be exercised in the same way. The public operate on straightforward principles, and I think that they would find that quite difficult. Of course, a straight majority would also give the police and crime panel a stronger role in contributing to policing governance and would guard against giving too much power to one person.
We have heard a lot in Committee and on Report about strict checks and balances. In practice, these checks and balances remain extremely elusive. The police and crime panel remains very feeble. One way of strengthening the panel and providing a stronger check on the commissioner would be to go to a simple majority for a veto rather than two-thirds. The current proposals are inconsistent with democratic practice. They are better than the original proposals but we could go further in strengthening the panel and fostering a mature relationship between the commissioner and the panel. That is the purpose of my amendments. I beg to move.
Baroness Henig
Baroness Henig
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 116. Amendment 106 would effectively remove Schedule 6 on the composition of panels, which I seek to replace with the alternative high-level proposal set out in Amendment 116.
As I indicated in Committee, the latter amendment goes to the heart of the issue about politicising policing. I am very disappointed that the Government’s amendments have not reflected the concerns about political balance as the strength of feeling in the House was evident in Committee. It is fundamental to getting checks and balances right that the political balance of panels is prioritised and determined according to rigorous principles. Crucially, my amendment would ensure that no single political party can dominate the policing panel and its agenda. I cannot believe that any Member of your Lordships’ House would oppose this objective.
The balanced appointment objective currently set out in Schedule 6 is not strict enough in this respect because it muddles where the geographic balance, political balance or skills balance is more important; it invites appointments to be made on the basis of a fudge so that none of the criteria will be properly satisfied. I remain concerned—although, in setting out high-level alternatives, I have not gone into too much detail to address this—that the issue of giving some areas a double whammy of representation through the inclusion of district councils in county areas does little to improve the balanced appointment objective. The whole thing seems unbalanced to me.
If we do not get this right and do not set rigorous principles of political balance, as I said in Committee, we risk the majority of panels going one of two ways: they become either the cheer-leaders of the commissioner if they are of the same political persuasion, or there could be a state of constant warfare between the commissioner and panel if they are of opposite political beliefs. Either way, however, they would be an ineffective check and balance against the commissioner and ineffective at contributing to the better governance of policing. I cannot stress how important all the experiences of police authorities have shown this to be. We must get this right, otherwise all the other safeguards that have been built into the Bill will fail.
My amendment setting out the key principles of panel composition also suggests that the number of co-opted members should be increased. I note the Minister has tabled more modest proposals along the same lines. Naturally, I welcome those up to a point. I agree that we need an increase in the number of co-opted members, but I regret that the Government’s proposals miss the point somewhat because they suggest that some of these co-opted members might be local authority members. I am concerned about this. We have quite a lot of local authority members on the panels already and this would make the important balance considerations more difficult.
The whole point of having co-opted or independent members in the first place is to bring in people who are politically neutral, who will improve the diversity of the membership and who will cover specialist gaps in skills. Although as an ex-councillor I hate to say this, I know too well that local authorities do not have a good record in improving diversity—and we will not improve the diversity of panels by looking to appoint co-opted members from local government.
Equally, it is hardly a secret that independent police authority members are generally widely regarded as among the most able and effective members of police authorities. I am not saying that there are not some very good council members out there too, but independent members bring specialist knowledge and skills to police authorities that are not generally present among councillors. I find it hard to understand what sort of specialist skills the panels will access from co-opted local authority members, and I would like to probe the Government’s thinking in this regard. There is a danger that, in proposing more co-opted members who could be local authority members, we might actually be making an already difficult situation even worse. This needs more thinking through.
Lord Newton of Braintree
My Lords, I shall interject a question from a slightly more sceptical angle, while understanding where noble Lords opposite are coming from. I can understand how the proposal in Amendment 116 might work in a police authority where there is only one local authority. What I do not understand is how it would work in a police authority such as Essex, where there are, if not quite 17, at least well over a dozen local authorities. I shall give way to the noble Baroness—it may be that the question is for her—but I do not understand how such an arrangement could work without local authorities having their choice taken away from them and being told that they have to choose X or Y.
Baroness Henig
Perhaps I can explain to the noble Lord that that is precisely what happens at the moment. In a two-tier area such as he is describing—I am familiar with Lancashire—all the authorities have to get together and, in certain cases, agree to put forward nominations in line with the political balance overall. They do this by a process of negotiation. In Lancashire, there are two unitaries to throw into the mix. On many occasions Blackpool or Blackburn have been told to send a Labour member or a Conservative member in order to reflect that balance. I accept that that is one issue; to get an overall balance, every now and again an individual local authority has to contribute to that balance.
Lord Newton of Braintree
All I will say, if I am allowed to treat that as an intervention, is that I found it pretty messy and I would like to know what is to be done in councils where there is no overall control.
Baroness Browning
That gives the Secretary of State, as I just described, the opportunity to ensure that the panel’s motive is to ensure the overall balance of the panel and to prevent the panel being packed with chums and politically slanted, which noble Lords have been concerned about—we have had a lot of discussion in Committee and on Report about this. Noble Lords have asked whether the members will be of the same political party as the PCC may be seen to have. This gives the Secretary of State the opportunity to look at the motivation of the panel in co-opting people. This is not about the Secretary of State wielding a lot of power in the sense of deciding whether or not the panel co-opts, but about whether the Secretary of State believes that the submissions made have met an objective that the panel has clearly identified.
Baroness Henig
I seek genuine clarification from the Minister. She referred to the schedule that states that the balanced appointment objective means that the political make-up of a relevant authority has to be represented on the panel. That means that in some parts of the country—Manchester, let us say—all the political representation is likely to be Labour, whereas in other parts of the country, because of the councils that make up the relevant area all the representation is likely to be from another party. My amendment aims to reflect the voting numbers. There are parts of the country in which Liberal Democrats and Conservatives would not get a look-in on the panel because all the councils are Labour, and other parts of the country where Labour would not get a look-in because the councils are all Conservative. What the noble Baroness is saying about the schedules goes only so far because at the moment police authorities are made up on the basis of the voting figures at the last election. In other words, there is proportional representation in police authorities that is not in this Bill. That is the difference, and that is the issue that I am trying to get at with this point about politicisation. The noble Baroness perhaps did not give me credit for what I am trying to do here.
Baroness Browning
I hate to disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, on this because I know that her motives are well-meaning. That paragraph in Schedule 6 has the heading: “Duty to produce balanced panel”—the Bill very clearly already includes the duty to produce a balanced panel. The noble Baroness describes a situation, and it saddens me to say this, in which there may be councils around the country with no elected Conservatives at all, although that can apply to other parties in other parts of the country. However, what I can only describe as the generosity of increasing the number of people that can be co-opted on to the panel means that I would expect a responsible panel to make absolutely sure that it would look to the additional co-optees to redress that political balance. If that is what the panel puts to the Secretary of State, I can see no reason why it cannot do that. If the motivation is to create a politically balanced panel, Conservatives can be co-opted to the panel to get political balance. I see no reason why what I am doing does not address the point that she is making.
Baroness Browning
I have to say that this amendment is a major concession on the part of the Government. It is free to all noble Lords to come back at Third Reading, but I believe that this is a very significant concession, which reflects a lot of the points raised across the House.
Baroness Henig
The problem is that I certainly, speaking for myself, do not fully understand the extent of the concession. Without being able to see the evidence that the Minister is talking about and to compare the former list and the present list under the amendment with old police authorities, I cannot see the extent of the concession. Given that we have not yet seen this information which will be put in the Library, is it possible to reserve the right to come back to this at Third Reading, if concerns remain? It is difficult to be specific about something that we have not yet seen.
Baroness Browning
My Lords, I cannot say that the Government will come back to this at Third Reading. I am happy to talk off the Floor to noble Lords who have concerns about this, but this is a major concession. In looking at the exact numbers for each police force area, I remind the House that before I tabled this amendment the ceiling for police and crime panels reflected the number of local authorities plus two co-opted members. For most authorities, we will see significant numbers of co-opted members available to the panel to co-opt, if that is its wish, in order to achieve balance. A significant concession has been made in seeking to address many quite legitimate and important issues raised on the Floor of the House in Committee.
Panels will be required to exercise the power to co-opt additional members in such a way as to achieve the objective that the local authority members represent all parts of the police area and the political make-up of the contributing authorities. They will also need to ensure that all the members—local authority and independent—when taken together, have the necessary skills, knowledge and experience. To ensure that panels do this, any proposal to co-opt will require the agreement of the Secretary of State, who will look purely on the motivation in terms of achieving balance for that co-option. These amendments are considered to address the concerns that have been raised. I believe that the government amendments, particularly that to increase the panel to 20, have seriously addressed some important issues raised across the House. I ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.
Baroness Henig
My Lords, this is an extremely serious issue. It first raised its head at Second Reading when nearly all the speakers voiced their anxieties about party politics being put into policing and it is a theme that has run right through our discussions since that time. I accept the assurance of the noble Baroness that she is trying to address this, as indeed we are trying to address it. The problem is that many of us, certainly on this side of the House, feel that the noble Baroness’s way of addressing it will not be sufficient.
It is all very well comparing panels in the original Bill with panels now, but the comparison I am interested in is between the panels under the Government’s amendment and the existing police authorities. We have a tried and tested formula under which there is no party political majority on police authorities. All parties are represented. They have worked harmoniously and they have worked effectively. I suggest to the House that one of the reasons why police authorities have not had a high profile is because they have avoided controversy by having party political balance, with people of all parties working together to resolve problems. That is why we have not seen high profile problems and why police authorities have not been noticed more.
This issue of party political balance is important. We have it now. My concern is that we will lose it. It is a concern that the Minister has not addressed. It is not a question of what the original Bill had in as against what it has in now; for me it is an issue of what we have now—which is very precious— and what we will lose under this proposal if we do not get party political balance on our panels. In the past week or two I have been in meetings with police personnel where a group of Members of Parliament were berating a chief constable for not coming out publically to support the Government’s proposals. The aggressive tone of that meeting—I will not go into detail—left me quite shocked. I am concerned that if we do not address this issue of party politics in policing we will have chief constables being put under pressure to do certain things.
This is not an issue about operational or not operational. It is about people saying, “Chief Constable, you are not giving leadership; you are not saying X, Y and Z put forward by the Government”. There will be pressure of that kind and it will be insidious. That is what I am worried about. I have seen it happening already and it will happen more. The Government should be trying to tackle this head on. It they do not, we will undermine the impartiality of our police authorities and put party politics back into policing. That is what I—and many others—worry about. It is why I put so much emphasis on this amendment. It is crucial. It protects something that has been very precious in our policing over the past 20 years. It protects something that is very precious to chief constables. I very much fear that if we put party politics back into policing it is chief constables who will bear the brunt of it. It is for all those reasons that, despite what the noble Baroness has said, I have to test the opinion of the House.