Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Baroness Henig and Lord Soley

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[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 Journalists will talk about what they do on a confidential basis—“Do not quote me” and so on—but such things are said.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.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Baroness Henig and Lord Soley

Monday 4th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Soley]

This issue is an important one and relates back to what I have said before on crime prevention. It took many years to get a good relationship between the police and local authorities on crime prevention and we should not lose that again. Local authorities and the police work together and when the police listen to what locally elected people and local authorities have to say, there is a much better chance of reducing crime and coming up with good crime prevention schemes. So I strongly support my noble friend’s amendments.

[Baroness Henig]

I have Amendment 47 in this group. I will be very brief. This is about partnership arrangements and improving the link between policing bodies and other partners, particularly community safety bodies. I note the Minister’s Amendment 43 on behalf of the Government specifying that the local policing body has to have regard to the priorities of the statutory partners—