Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Baroness Henig Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Henig
“(6) The police and crime commissioner is head of the Police Commission and must co-operate with the police and crime panel to enable the functions of the Police Commission to be discharged effectively and efficiently.”
Baroness Henig
My Lords, I declare an interest as a former chair of a policy authority, as a former chair of the Association of Police Authorities and as the current president of that association.
The amendment is in a group of amendments, the majority of which are in my name. The substantial amendments are Amendments 15A and 31D but I shall speak also to Amendments 32G to 32R, 34B, 35A and 36ZA.
The two key amendments seek to explore and fill out the new structure that has been put in place by the changes incorporated in the Bill last week. In particular they set out the key function of the new police commission and explain that, as the head of the commission, the police and crime commissioner must work with the panel to ensure that the new body works effectively and efficiently. The majority of the remaining amendments are consequential amendments to parts of Schedule 1; they essentially confer on the commission powers and protections that were previously conferred on the police and crime commissioner, particularly those for appointing staff.
I shall begin by saying a little more on Amendment 15A, which focuses primarily on the theme of strengthening checks and balances by placing a duty on the police and crime commissioner to co-operate with the panel. While I am hopeful that the changes to the Bill have put in place a structure that is based more on co-operation than conflict, I am conscious that the legal structure will not in itself guarantee this.
The amendment seeks to ensure that a spirit of co-operation is explicit in the way in which the commission has been established. The relationship between constituent members of the commission—that is, the police and crime commissioner and the panel—will be vital in ensuring that policing remains resilient and responsive in difficult times. It is important to strike a proper balance from the outset to ensure that we do not set up a landscape that is combative rather than collaborative.
Amendment 31D sets out the core overarching function of the police commission, which has now been established. It is clear that these key functions should belong to the commission rather than to any one of its constituent parts. It is not necessarily an exhaustive list and I am sure that we will have some interesting debates later in the Bill about where some functions should properly sit, whether with the police and crime commissioner, the police and crime panel or the parent body in the form of the commission. However, it seems to me that these core functions should sit with the commission, and I look forward to the debate testing this proposition.
One of those functions is new compared with the functions of their predecessor police authorities, and that is the one relating to the new crime role envisaged by the Government. It is important to explore this crime role in more detail because it is not entirely clear what it means in practice and whether it is adequately covered in the Bill at present. Apart from a short and generic section in Clause 10 about co-operative working between police commissioners, community safety bodies and criminal justice bodies, the new role seems to rely mostly on explicit powers to make grants to reduce crime and disorder.
Baroness Hamwee
I want briefly to add a word. We all seem to be of a mind to find a way to make the procedures work for us and not to be overburdened by them. I hope that, in whatever order we do things, there will be a proper opportunity, whether through a fairly prolonged ping-pong or not, to contribute the experience and expertise all round the House, as the noble Baroness said. Nobody has a monopoly of wisdom on this. We need to collaborate.
Baroness Henig
I thank noble Lords who have participated in a most interesting debate. I particularly thank the Minister for her response. I also apologise—I must have been too close to the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, because my voice is beginning to go. First, in speaking to these amendments I was trying to be constructive and attempting to build on existing good practice—that is very important. I said at Second Reading that I thought good governance was absolutely essential in the policing world. I am trying to ensure here that good governance is an essential element in any new structures that the Government introduce. That is one of my fundamental concerns.
I shall address one or two points raised by the Minister. There was an issue about the public holding directly elected people to account. I was a local councillor on a police authority and can assure the Minister that I was held to account by the electorate, as were fellow members of the police authority throughout Lancashire. There is a debate to be had on representative democracy as against direct democracy. If the Minister would like to have that debate, I am willing to join her. The fact is that in this country we have a system of representative democracy. We elect members of Parliament and they are then appointed to government jobs. We elect local councillors and they are then appointed to bodies. That is, as I understand it, representative democracy. If the coalition Government now suggest that we should have a system of direct elections, I hope that they are not just suggesting that for local government. If you want direct elections, that goes right across the board. We are then dealing with a very different system of government. As far as I am concerned, we have always had representative government in this country. That is why I feel so strongly when people say that local members of police authorities have not been held to account. That is not true.
The second point that I take exception to is that we keep hearing references to Derbyshire and what happened there in the 1980s. Here I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Howard. The fact is that the reforms of the early 1990s created police authorities that were very different from those that existed in the 1980s. Indeed, one of the issues facing police authorities currently is that because they work across party lines, work co-operatively and have a very corporate style, they have not attracted the headlines but have worked much more effectively. I can assure noble Lords that no police authority that I can think of in this country has operated in any sense like that of Derbyshire in the 1980s: that needs to be acknowledged. There was a sea change in the way that police authorities operated. I almost feel I am carrying the flag for the reforms of the noble Lord, Lord Howard. While he has changed his mind and is adopting the Labour policy of the 1980s, I am now advocating the changes that he effectively brought into being.
Lord Howard of Lympne
I seek to relieve the noble Baroness of her burden. Is not the point that the reforms put in place in the 1990s—she has been kind about them and their consequences—were a response to the problems of the 1980s? Some 20 years later, it is time to look at things again and see if we can improve the arrangements that have been in place for 20 years and institute a more effective way of dealing with the difficulties which have arisen.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
I am sure that the noble Lord would agree that a lesson from history is not to walk blindly backwards into a situation. I do not think I have discussed Derbyshire so often since I ceased to be a member of the Association of County Councils. As leader of the Labour group on the Association of County Councils, it is my personal experience that at that time in that place, not only would it have been the leader of Derbyshire County Council—supported by other Derbyshire county councillors—who was on the police authority and causing some problems, but also, had it gone to the population of Derbyshire, then that would have been a direct election, unfettered even by other members of the local authority. I am worried about the noble Lord, for whom I have enormous respect. I hope that he will not take us back into the dark ages.
Baroness Henig
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Howard, on one thing. He said we should evolve and I absolutely agree that we should build on and continue to try to improve the structures that we have. On that, there is no debate. However, I argued last week that change should be incremental. Introducing directly elected individuals is not incremental but highly radical change. That is one reason why many of us feel it is several steps to take in one go. We would like something more evolutionary. That is one of the differences between us.
In drawing to a close, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. Many of us in this Chamber have extensive experience of the lay governance of policing. Policing is a fundamental but complex service. Different views from around the House on what would work would be quite useful in moving this debate forward. I took exception when the Leader of the House suggested that discussion of Part 1 would be completely pointless in view of what happened last week. I do not share that view and hope that the constructive debate that we have had shows that there are many significant issues that we need to discuss.
One of them, raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, was to do with reducing crime. I did not suggest that the new individuals should be called police and crime commissioners. However, if they are going to be called that, then they have to be seen to engage in the reduction of crime. However you measure crime, the reduction of crime is an important part of their brief. That is why I sought ways in which that could be reflected in the drafting of the Bill.
I do not propose to push this amendment to a Division at this point. The amendments were probing. They have shown the sorts of concern that noble Lords rightly have about aspects of the Bill. I will, by leave, withdraw the amendment but hope that many of us will be able to engage constructively with the Minister in the way that she suggested. That would be extremely helpful. I reserve the right to perhaps return to these amendments at a later stage if I feel that we are not making as much progress as I would like.
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Baroness Henig Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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The Lord Speaker (Baroness Hayman)
I have to inform the Committee that if Amendment 1 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 2 to 8A by reason of pre-emption.
Baroness Henig
I support the points made so forcefully and eloquently by my noble colleague Lady Harris of Richmond. First, I must declare my interests; I chaired Lancashire Police Authority for 16 years up to 2005, and I chaired the Association of Police Authorities for eight years and am currently its president. I begin by joining those who have welcomed the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, to her new role. I am sure that the whole House will look forward to working with her. In the short time since her appointment was announced on Monday, I have talked to many people who worked with her. They told me that she had considerable abilities and many accomplishments—too many for me to mention here today. I was not told specifically, but I am sure that one of those will be the ability to learn very rapidly on the job, which will be a great asset to her in this new role.
I am quite sure that she has been extremely well briefed by the Home Office, but she will this afternoon have the opportunity to hear at first hand the views of those with first-hand experience of local policing and its governance and those who understand how their local communities work across England and Wales. This will, I hope, give the noble Baroness a different perspective on this proposed legislation and help her to understand the serious nature and extent of our concerns.
My greatest concern is that the major changes outlined in Part 1 of the Bill are not based on very much tangible evidence, as far as I can see. I have listened carefully to all the arguments that have been put forward to justify the changes, but I find a lot of the arguments pitifully thin and some of them are out of date. The first argument was put forward at Second Reading; it was necessary to reconnect people to policing. That assumes that in some way the public are not presently involved at all. That is patently not the case. Neighbourhood policing is doing an excellent job working with local people at ward level to address their concerns and to work with them in their localities to address complaints and problems. The police usually do that by way of monthly meetings, and this is happening all over the country. That is what the public want.
What the public do not want is one individual elected to cover the 23 parliamentary constituencies of West Yorkshire or a massive police area such as Thames Valley, which does not actually exist in local government terms. In a recent survey in Lancashire, over 70 per cent of the more than 1,000 people surveyed said that one person could not possibly represent the diverse communities of Lancashire. Of more concern, the figure was much higher among those from ethnic communities, who believe that their concerns would be marginalised under the new arrangements. The Lancashire Police Authority has always had direct representation on it from its ethnic communities since its inception in 1995. That, together with other policies, has considerably boosted confidence in policies across the ethnic minority communities in Lancashire. To lose that direct link would be a serious step backwards. That worries me greatly.
The second argument for change was put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Howard, at Second Reading. He said that local people did not know the name of the chair of their local police authority. He said that that had apparently helped to change his view that direct elections to police authorities would be dangerous because they would politicise policing, which was certainly the view that he held in the 1990s. I am willing to say to the House that I believe that that is probably true because, in the recent audit of political engagement carried out by the Hansard Society, more than half the people surveyed said that they knew nothing or not very much about how things worked in their local areas.
As a result, police authorities have been innovative in combating that problem. For example, Lancashire police have held 14 roadshows since last April, meeting more than 5,000 residents and gaining the views of more than 10,000 people in surveys. Similarly, in south Wales, roadshows are held in each of the seven local authority areas every year, and in the past year there have been more than 18,000 visitors to the police website. South Yorkshire Police are in regular e-mail contact with 4,000 people. The Minister may be interested in the fact that Devon and Cornwall, part of which she represented in the other place, held 37 public meetings in the past year, engaging up to 1,000 people.
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Baroness Henig Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Howard of Lympne
My Lords, I speak in support of the Bill. In the interests of brevity, I shall confine my remarks to Part 1. It is hardly surprising that I should be in support of Part 1 since I can claim a modest share in the paternity of that proposal. The proposal for elected police commissioners was in the 2005 general election manifesto of the Conservative Party, which I had the honour to lead at the time. I appreciate that that claim, judging by the speeches that we have heard so far, is not likely to endear me to all of your Lordships, but nevertheless that is the case.
At least that claim enables me to rebut conclusively one of the observations made by the noble Lord, Lord Blair: this proposal does not originate in any attempt to emulate some model transported across the Atlantic from the United States of America. Rather, it is designed to remedy a weakness in the present arrangements in this country. That weakness can be summarised in one question: what is the name of the chairman of your police authority? That is the question to which, if you ask the ordinary man and woman in the street, not one in a thousand would be able to give you the right answer; indeed, most of the people you asked would not have the faintest idea what you were talking about. Your Lordships will have noticed that I posed the question in terms of the chairman of the authority. If you ask the man or woman in the street the names of the members of the authority, you would have an even more minuscule response.
Baroness Henig
Would the noble Lord be able to guess how many members of the public out of a hundred would know the name of the present Police Minister? Is that then an argument for the Police Minister to be directly elected?
Lord Howard of Lympne
Not at all. The whole point, as I am about to explain, is that the reason why this single question contains the nub of the case for change is that police authorities should be the means by which citizens hold their local police force to account. That is the point of police authorities, and the anonymity of those authorities is an insuperable obstacle to the achievement of that objective. The point of Part 1 of the Bill is to sweep away that obstacle to provide the basis for true accountability.
The election of the police and crime commissioner will attract a great deal of attention. I would not go so far as to say that everyone in the local community will know the name of the commissioner when he or she has been elected; after all, not everyone knows the name of their Member of Parliament, nor does everyone know the name of the Prime Minister. However, a large number of people would know the name of the commissioner, many more than know the name of the chairman of the police authority. That would provide the transparency that is necessary—this proposal is about transparency—if the holding to account of the police is to become more meaningful, more effective and much better understood by those on whose behalf that accountability is being exercised.
This, however, is a big change, and I recognise that inevitably it gives rise to some concerns. There is a concern that the change will have an impact on the operation and independence of the police, and I accept that it is essential that that operational independence is preserved. As has been pointed out, though, the language in the Bill, which provides that the chief constable has direction and control over his force and officers, is identical to the language in existing legislation. The Government intend to publish a protocol, which I understand they hope to have available by the commencement of the Committee stage in this House. As the right reverend Prelate said, the devil is in the detail, and it is right that that protocol should be exposed to great scrutiny by this House in Committee, as I am sure that it will be. However, I do not accept the view of the noble Lord, Lord Blair, that chief constables, with the command that they have too of access to the media, the ability that they have too to put their case, will be so pusillanimous as to give way to any police and crime commissioner who oversteps the mark.
There are other concerns, including that someone dangerous or wholly unsuitable might be elected. I think it was Benjamin Disraeli, among no doubt many others, who said, “Trust the people”. That is not a bad watchword. With great respect, we in this House should be particularly cautious about casting doubt on that watchword. As my successor as Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, put it—admittedly in a different context—in an excellent article in yesterday’s Times:
“There is a patrician tendency among the British political elite that asserts that some issues are too serious to be informed by the vulgar instincts of the common people”.
It is a tendency that we in this House should particularly guard against. His words were, as I say, in a different context; he was criticising some of the policies of the current Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary—criticisms that I wholly share. I assure your Lordships that I am not invariably a supporter of all the policies of the Government. However, his words are equally apposite when applied to those who distrust the electoral process that the Bill would put in place.
The provisions of the Bill are consistent with the localism that is such an important part of the coalition Government’s approach. They create transparency, which is also at the heart of that approach, and so essential if true accountability is to be asserted. There are many points of important detail that will certainly merit careful attention and scrutiny on the part of this House. I wholeheartedly support Part 1 of the Bill and I commend it to your Lordships’ House.
Baroness Henig
My Lords, I declare my interests as president of the Association of Police Authorities and chair of the Security Industry Authority. I promise to try to keep noble Lords awake for the next 10 minutes. That is surely a lesser challenge than keeping the attention of students on a Friday afternoon, which I used to have to do regularly. I have been involved in the governance of policing at both force and national level for more than 20 years. My whole approach to the Bill, particularly its first part, is shaped by that experience and by my absolute conviction that good governance is fundamental to success and that in the public sector it is in the policy area of policing that good governance is most essential.
British policing is justly admired throughout the world, not least in the United States, because of the principles on which it is based. Those principles are fundamental to the success of policing in this country and any proposed change in our policing structures should be judged on the extent to which it upholds or betrays those principles. We have heard reference to those principles throughout the debate. I shall allude to them only briefly, but they are important. Police forces, in particular the chief constable and his senior command team, must be held to account to local communities through a body that represents, and which is seen to represent, local people. This body should not operate in a party-political way but should hold the force to account, working with the chief constable to draw up overarching policing strategies within which the force will operate, while day-to-day operations must be exclusively the preserve of the police, who are accountable to law.
The police authority needs to gain its mandate by consulting local people effectively about policing issues, seeking their views on matters such as the level of the policing precept, divisional and force policing plans and their experience of day-to-day policing. This means that any police body has to operate not just at force level but at divisional and ward levels, working in partnership with district bodies such as crime and disorder reduction partnerships and local councillors who may want to raise policing issues. We have to realise that policing in this country is delivered at four levels: national, force, divisional and neighbourhood. Any effective lay policing body has to strive to hold the force to account effectively at all four levels.
I have spelt all this out because it is only when we articulate those fundamental principles underlying policing in this country that we can see how flawed many of the proposals in this Bill are. For me, the most worrying aspect of the proposed changes is that no evidence has been put forward to suggest that the reform will enhance the effective delivery of policing or contribute to the reduction of crime. Surely, if we are making such major changes, we need some evidence. We certainly have not heard from those who have spoken on behalf of these measures today how effective delivery of policing will be enhanced or how a reduction of crime will come about. Without that evidence, how should we possibly be asked to support such far-reaching changes?
The proposals are not supported by the public, who we know in a number of recent surveys have overwhelmingly rejected the idea that one individual elected on a party-political basis should exercise lay control over a police force. They will not apply in Northern Ireland or Scotland, while the Welsh Assembly has voted to reject them. That has led to a serious impasse between the devolved Welsh Government and the Government, which we will have to look at seriously in Committee. It is therefore the forces in England and in local communities outside London who will face the most massive change in systems being imposed on them—a change that, despite all the talk about localism by the coalition, they will have no opportunity to influence.
It is interesting that, although there was consultation last year, we have not yet heard how many of the 900 or so responses apparently received by the Home Office were in favour and how many opposed. I find that rather surprising. We can probably conclude from it that the vast majority were opposed. I have not yet heard any compelling arguments for why these changes are necessary. We heard, not so long ago, about the importance of re-establishing links between the police and the public, but 60 per cent of the public already have confidence in the police. That is third only to doctors and nurses and far higher, I might say, than for politicians or journalists. Neighbourhood policing now gives the public a big and a regular say in setting priorities for their local areas. How much more reconnection are we looking for? The public are getting what they want. In fact, the proposals, as we hear, have not been supported by the public.
There are at least five powerful reasons for opposing the proposals. First and foremost—and everyone has talked about this—we will be injecting party politics into policing in a big and dangerous way that will completely change the dynamics of policing. Anybody who says that it will not does not understand how policing works. It is going to give one individual the power to hire and fire a chief constable. It is no use denying this. What is being proposed will undermine effective delivery by creating huge political tensions between the elected commissioner and the chief constable. It is going to bring party politics to the heart of policing. No protocol that I can imagine at this point in time is going to lessen those tensions.
Secondly, there is a complete mismatch between what the public are asking for and what they are being given. What individuals want is information about policing in their neighbourhood and their district—and increasingly they are getting it. What they are being given in this Bill is an individual elected to cover a force area—that will comprise 18 parliamentary constituencies in Devon and Cornwall, three whole counties in Thames Valley, or the whole of the West Midlands. Obviously the definition of “local” used by the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, is very different from mine.
This one individual, as the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, told us, will decide on the policing precept, which accounts for about 11 per cent of the local authority budget. This individual also has to liaise with and scrutinise the force, all its divisions, all its crime and disorder reduction partnerships, all the local councils and all their scrutiny panels. That is an impossible job for one individual. Partnership is the essence of delivering effective local policing. The election of one single commissioner will weaken and not enhance those essential local partnerships, which have brought crime levels down so dramatically in recent years.
Thirdly, this Bill takes policing away from local government, as the noble Lords, Lords Shipley and Lord Beecham, identified. At present, all police authorities have at least nine elected councillors, who assess police performance at force and divisional level, work with local bodies, question the chief constable in public on any policing issue monthly or bi-monthly, look at force HR and equality issues and consult the public on a range of policing issues. All this is going to disappear. The proposed police and crime panel is a pathetic invention with puny powers. It is confined to scrutinising the commissioner and his policing plans and proposed budgets. It has no political balance and no ethnic or gender balance. It is a huge step backwards from the present situation. Indeed, I believe that this part of the Bill is an insult to local government.
How can it be right that policing is being removed from local government in this way? Is this the beginning of the end for local government? Will we see commissioners for local health, for education, for local transport? What will the relationship be between directly elected mayors and commissioners? Surely the mayors will want some say in policing matters. Among the many amendments that I shall be tabling at Committee stage—this will come as no surprise to your Lordships—will be some to change the role and powers of police and crime panels. They should be working with the commissioner and be operating at divisional and local level, not just scrutinising his or her actions. That at least would make some sort of sense, rather than, as is proposed at present, the commissioner scrutinising the chief constable and the PCP scrutinising the commissioner. Nobody who understands what really makes policing work effectively could ever have proposed this structure.
Fourthly, the election of commissioners is going to be expensive, as we have heard. Should that really be forced on the public at a time when we know that they are facing draconian cuts in their local front-line forces? I confidently predict that, if the public were given a choice between more front-line police and these elections, well over 90 per cent would want the front-line forces.
Fifthly, what if the person elected is no good at the job? At present, chairs of police authorities are elected annually, but we will be stuck with commissioners for four years. They are not to be appraised by Her Majesty’s police inspectorate, unlike police authorities, which is rather surprising, given the Minister’s emphasis on the appraisal of police authorities. No, the will of the people apparently trumps the ability to do the job effectively as, it is argued, those with no aptitude for the position will be voted out of office. That has to be an extremely naive view and it is not borne out by my experience of politics at either local or national level. Also, if a commissioner falls ill, a non-elected member of his office can stand in for him. That cannot be right. It is something else that needs to be looked at in Committee. I have long argued in favour of fewer, larger, more resilient forces. Alas, the measures in the Bill will prevent, not facilitate, that development, which is increasingly necessary in the modern world.
I cannot deal with any other part of the Bill. It is the first part which will change our system and its structure of governance irreversibly and which has the capacity to do so much damage to the delivery of a service that has operated pretty well for nearly 200 years. My fundamental concern is that we are being asked to take a gigantic leap in the dark towards the politicisation of policing in a situation where the existing system is not broken and few people are calling for change. For me, the supreme irony is that the system that we have was established by a Conservative Home Secretary, Robert Peel, and overhauled in the early 1990s very effectively by another two Conservative Home Secretaries. Why on earth does the Conservative Party now want to destroy one of its most enduring achievements? I hope that the Minister will be able to explain the reason to me and to allay my profound concerns when she concludes the debate.
Public Bodies Bill [HL]
Baroness Henig Excerpts(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Whitty
My Lords, I rise briefly to support this amendment. I do so partly because I was in on the beginning of the campaign to regulate the security industry when I still worked for my trade union, which organised the more respectable end of the security industry. However, 20 years ago, and indeed more recently, it was an industry with some very dodgy people in it. There was an element of criminality; there were occasional outbursts of violence; there was fraud; and there was a straightforward dereliction of duty to the businesses and individuals that employed so-called security companies. There was much in the industry that, to put it at its mildest, was short of customer service.
It was not a pleasant industry but in many respects it was one on which, because of the nature of our society and the value of the goods in which we trade, more and more businesses came to rely. They needed to be assured that the people they brought in to protect their premises, their transit arrangements, their valuables and, in many respects, their staff and customers knew what they were doing and did not have any record of transgression. That is what, after a long campaign, led to the setting up of the Security Industry Authority.
The Home Office has ummed and ahed about this for many years and has done absolutely nothing about it. The first time the authority’s abolition was proposed, it was suggested that its responsibilities went back to the Home Office, but that would have been absolutely disastrous. Now, a degree of self-regulation for the industry is proposed. However, the problem with that is that the more respectable end of the industry will undoubtedly attempt very effectively to ensure a degree of quality of service and vetting of staff and individuals but the less respectable end will re-emerge and so-called security firms will spring up all over the place employing people who have not been through the vetting procedure. Therefore, any self-regulation is dependent on the majority of the industry participating in it and being able to exclude others.
There may have been criticisms of the SIA but most of those have probably been invalid. I feel that there should have been a mandatory system of approving companies, as well as individuals, but the authority, together with the police, undoubtedly helped to clean up the industry. Taking away this protection from businesses and individuals is a big risk for the Government to take. I hope that the Home Office will think again, because it cannot do this job itself. Those at the respectable end of the industry do not really want to be reduced to self-regulation. They will operate such a system if the Government insist on it but it will not be as effective as the development of the SIA. For that reason, and in the interests of protecting a lot of small and large businesses and public premises, I ask the Government to think again.
Baroness Henig
My Lords, I declare an interest as the current chair of the Security Industry Authority and president of the Association of Police Authorities. In the speech I made at Second Reading I told the House about the enormous concern with which the Government’s proposal to abolish the organisation and return to self-regulation of the industry was greeted, particularly by people in the industry and also by Scotland and Northern Ireland. Last week the chairman of Security Alliance said how the inclusion of the SIA on the list for abolition came as a great surprise to the industry. He said that since regulation was introduced, there had been a general acceptance in the industry that licensing had been a force for good. So that is clearly understood and agreed across the industry.
We know there has been a lot of criticism recently in the other place by the Public Administration Committee about the handling of the bonfire of the quangos. The committee said it was a rushed, botched job with no clear evidence of savings or concern for value for money or efficiency. More important for the SIA was the lack of consistency in applying the three questions and the issue of whether they were even the right questions to ask. I asked at Second Reading why the SIA was being abolished when the Gangmasters Licensing Authority was being spared—a question which has not yet been satisfactorily answered. The Public Administration Committee’s report asked exactly the same question. The silence in response is deafening.
I asked another question to which there has been no response: why is it that the Government believe the industry is mature enough at this moment in time to regulate itself when the Scottish Government, the Northern Ireland Administration and even large parts of the industry disagree very strongly. Yet the Minister told us at Second Reading that there had been no major disagreements on the legislation between the Government and the Scottish Government. I do not think that is entirely an accurate description but obviously I defer to others on that.
The most serious issue I had with the Government on this matter was their lack of consultation with the industry. After all it was the BSIA and other bodies and individuals within the private security industry which consistently pressed for regulation of the industry in the 1980s and 1990s and they have supported it and for the most part paid for it. Surely, therefore, the views of the industry should have been sought before the policies were drawn up, not to mention the uncertainty caused to 350,000 individuals working in the industry, many of whom funded their own licence fee and invested in their training. Surely there should have been consultation with all these people. Certainly the view of the Public Administration Committee was that there should be consultation with all the bodies listed in this Bill, even at this late hour, and who can say that it is wrong?
In the case of the security industry, its leaders sensibly were not prepared to wait that long. Indeed, they made their opposition to the ending of regulation and the abolition of the SIA very clear. They wrote to the Home Secretary, the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister. They organised and they highlighted the tremendous risks inherent in the Government’s proposals, forcing the Government to change their mind. Instead of abolition the Government agreed that there should be a phased transition to a new regulatory regime and that the SIA should no longer be an NDPB.
So there has been a change and therefore this Bill is already out of date in terms of regulation of the private security industry. In the exchange of views that took place between the Government and the industry, industry leaders made it clear that they were already discussing with the Security Industry Authority a blueprint for the evolution of regulation whereby the regulator and the industry would work together to produce smarter, more cost-effective regulation and would press the Government to introduce business registration alongside individual licensing so that we could move to a more efficient, effective and lighter-touch regulatory regime—“better for less”, to use the Government’s own phrase. That was certainly what the industry was working towards with the SIA. As the Public Administration Committee so rightly observed, the major issue at stake in relation to quangos should not be about their status or structure but about effectiveness and delivering value for money. Since last summer the SIA has been in discussion with the industry about precisely these matters.
The issue before us in this discussion on the Security Industry Authority is not a simple should it or should it not be abolished, but how best to facilitate a phased transition from the current regulatory regime to lighter touch, smarter regulation in which industry bodies and leaders play an increasingly active and important role alongside the SIA. There is no disagreement about that. The issue is that it is a process which will take time. It cannot be rushed. It has to include all sections of the industry that are currently regulated. While the recent emergence of the Security Alliance as a unified voice for the industry is to be welcomed as a very positive development, it is by no means fully established across the industry. So there is a lot of work to be done, and along the way the decisions made by the Home Office and the Government in relation to the extent of regulation—for example, that it should not include in-house security, or for the time being private investigators or security consultants—will undoubtedly be queried and challenged by many in the industry. If we are discussing the industry’s future, people working in it want to raise many things.
Then there are the views of Scotland and Northern Ireland. I cannot speak with enormous knowledge about these areas but the licensing of private security has been a huge success both in Scotland and Northern Ireland. It has been in Scotland since 2007 but licensing in Northern Ireland is just a year old. The Northern Ireland Administration are in no rush to change it and we can understand why. They think that it has made a big difference. Both those areas have elections in the spring and we will have to wait to find out the views of the new Administrations and Governments that result. A lot is standing in the way of progress at the moment. As part of the phased transition process, the industry is strongly of the view that the Government should play their part by showing a willingness to bring in business registration in the industry, alongside the licensing of individuals. I hope that the Minister will be able to commit the Government to action in relation to business registration when she replies, as the industry is keen to see that.
We are working to move forward. We in the SIA are consulting a whole range of bodies, including the strategic consultation group, a Security Alliance industry panel, and so on, because it is important to have agreement with the industry and major stakeholders on key principles and milestones for the future, while being conscious, as was said, of the need to proceed cautiously before the Olympics in 2012. There are also the Commonwealth Games in Scotland in 2014 and we must not forget that. It is important to put on the record that many senior figures in the industry are urging caution. They do not believe that the industry is yet ready for self-regulation. I strongly support giving the industry more responsibility in terms of licensing and training, but I share its view that there is no evidence at present that it is sufficiently mature at this point for self-regulation. We have to move very gradually towards that goal. Substantial progress will have been made towards establishing a new regulatory regime by 2014 but there is the big issue of effective intelligence and enforcement operations. It is important that they continue and that the state continues to maintain a strong regulatory regime in respect of criminality; in respect of criminals and their associates; and in respect of those who continue to seek to undermine and weaken the regime. Everyone who works in the industry wants the regime to be effective in driving out and keeping out criminality and in upholding robust standards. That is extremely important because the credibility of the industry requires strong intelligence and enforcement activity, which has to continue in any new regime.
There is a considerable way to travel. Listing the SIA in Schedule 1 to the Bill was a misguided and inappropriate step for the Government to take. We are talking about Schedule 3 and changing the nature of the organisation and moving it to something different. The important thing is that we all want to build on and improve the regulation that has been introduced. It has been a great success and we want to continue it both with the industry and the devolved Administrations. We have to work with them at their pace, which I hope the Government will be supporting so that we can move forward together.
Baroness Meacher
My Lords, I will speak very briefly in support of the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, the current chairman of the SIA. I should mention that I was the first chairman of the Security Industry Authority some years ago and in that capacity I came to respect very highly the considerable number of companies that control the vast majority of companies within the security industry. However, I was introduced to the industry prior to regulation and can certainly endorse the comments already made that the industry does attract a large number of highly unscrupulous individuals who, without very tight controls, are more than willing to take advantage of the unsuspecting, either employers or members of the public.
The two big achievements of the SIA, and a credit to its current chairman, have been the raising of the educational level of the 350,000 or so security officers and also, as others have mentioned, the protection of the public and employers from these unscrupulous security guards. I am sure the Minister would like to recognise the value of its work.
There is of course merit in the proposal to focus in future on the system of business registration, leaving the individual licensing largely in the hands of the industry. However, I too do not accept the Government’s argument that none of the SIA functions needs to be carried out by a public body. In view of the extent of criminality within the industry, and the potential for far greater amounts of criminality, this just does not seem realistic. It is difficult to imagine that all aspects of the SIA can effectively be carried out by the industry itself.
The Government refer to employers in other industries taking responsibility for making appropriate recruitment decisions and suggest that this approach would be appropriate for the private security industry. My understanding is that the industry just is not ready. I do not think the Government have at all taken into account the degree of criminality in the industry. It must be quite alone—in fact I cannot think of any other industry that has comparable problems.
It is certainly most encouraging that Ministers have now agreed to the SIA’s plan for evolution towards a new system based upon business registration. However, Ministers do not seem to be taking account at all of the degree of opposition to these changes both in Scotland and Northern Ireland. It seems the Government will need to move much more slowly if they are to have any hope at all of bringing the devolved Administrations with them. I hope the Minister will take very seriously the points already made by the noble Baroness, Lady Henig.
I want to mention one small but particularly threatening sector of the security industry—the security officers who control parking on private land. The Government are committed to ending the right to clamp vehicles on private land. I applaud this move wholeheartedly. However, there is no move to prevent, as I understand it, these operators charging unsuspecting members of the public extortionate fees for parking on private land. It is in this area that threats are made and extortionate quantities of money are demanded, increasing over time if people do not pay up quickly, that lead to people submitting to the fees charged. I hope the Government will be able to deal with that relatively small but really alarming sector of the security industry in the course of their deliberations about reform.
I was very pleased to note in the Government’s briefing that any proposed changes will be subject to parliamentary approval. Perhaps I may take this opportunity to applaud the Minister, who told us in a meeting recently that he will be eliminating Clause 11 and Schedule 7 from the Bill. This does seem to me an enormous step forward and I imagine I am speaking on behalf of others too in saying that this is extremely welcome. That is at least an excellent piece of good news.
Finally, as others have said, the SIA regulatory system is self funding. There are no public spending implications in this reform. Perhaps the noble Baroness will explain to the House the motivation for a reform which seems to be opposed not only by the devolved Administrations but also by the industry which currently pays the bill for the Security Industry Authority. I look forward to the Minister’s response.