Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, we are indebted to the noble Lords, Lord Elystan-Morgan and Lord Wigley, for bringing this back to our attention. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, asked the Government for some sensitivity. The problem is that the Government have not shown sensitivity when it comes to the way they have dealt with the Welsh perspective.

As noble Lords will know, the Welsh Government made it clear that they did not agree with a proposal for directly elected commissioners. However, they were quite prepared to discuss with the Government a compromise which would have consisted of police authorities remaining—and the noble Lords, Lord Elystan-Morgan and Lord Wigley, gave very convincing arguments as to why they should remain in Wales—but the elected commissioner in Wales would act as chair of those police authorities. For the life of me, I do not understand why the Government were not prepared to accept that very decent offer from the Welsh Assembly. Instead, we have to look at Part 3 of Schedule 6 which gives the Secretary of State the ability to ensure that police and crime panels are established in each police area in Wales, despite the fact that the Welsh Assembly Government do not want those panels established. The only argument that I could recall from our discussion in Committee stage was that this might have a big impact on cross-border crime.

With the greatest respect, I really do not understand the need for Wales and England to have police and crime panels in order to deal with either cross-border crime or cross-border co-operation. One is not aware of the traumas of the relationship between England and Scotland where there are not the police and crime panels north of the border. Indeed, one can look at other aspects of the devolution settlement, like the health service, where one sees different policies developed in different parts of the UK but none the less we still have one National Health Service.

I am delighted that the noble Lords have brought this to our attention. Even now, at this late hour, one hopes that the Minister will show some sensitivity. If not, I hope that the noble Lords will consider other opportunities to bring this to our attention.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I urge the Minister to take account of the issues that have been raised by other noble Lords. The Minister will recall that I raised these issues at Second Reading and that my noble friend Lady Hamwee put forward amendments in Committee that sought to deal with this issue. I am concerned that there is still a problem, but the amendments put forward by noble Lords this evening have the possibility of providing some sort of solution. They could, in principle, offer a practical way out of a currently considerable and undesirable impasse.

The UK Government have recognised that they needed the consent of the Welsh Assembly to legislate for police and crime panels. That is why a legislative consent Motion was put to the Welsh Assembly. It is obviously the case that the issues are intermixed and intertwined, and noble Lords have explained how that occurs. But it is worth dwelling on this issue because it is the devolved policy areas which are so closely interlinked that make it impossible for the police in Wales to operate entirely separately from, for example, the highways department, youth services, or the substance misuse strategy, all of which are under the control of the Assembly—there are very many more I could cite.

Something that has not been mentioned is the fact that only 40 per cent of the money that goes to the police comes from the Home Office. Policing may not be devolved but only 40 per cent of its funding comes from the Home Office. Some 25 per cent comes via the Assembly and a third from the police precept from local taxpayers. The Government have recognised the need for there to be a solution to this. I am sorry that there has been no way out of the impasse so far. The Assembly of course refused legislative consent and the Government have sought to circumvent the problem therefore created by making the Home Secretary responsible for bringing together locally elected representatives. The fact is that the Home Office does not have the infrastructure in Wales to support that. There are considerable practicable problems about how that will actually work in practice.

I make it absolutely clear that I am also critical in particular of the Welsh Assembly Government. There is something rather foolish in the Minister concerned negotiating a solution, putting it to the Welsh Assembly and then abstaining on his own solution—which he had agreed with Ministers in Westminster. There are obviously considerable problems there.

I am also disappointed in the Welsh Assembly Government for their lack of vigour in trying to overcome these problems. I am grateful to the Minister for the information that she has supplied to me and I know that there have been meetings between her officials and those of the Welsh Assembly Government. There have not been meetings at a ministerial level. If I were the Minister in Wales, I would seek to solve this problem with a little bit more vigour. My purpose in speaking tonight is to make clear that we still have a constitutional stand-off. It is a very unfortunate situation. It is clear that negotiations have failed to resolve the issue but it is disappointing that the Welsh Assembly Government have not entered into more positive and effective negotiation. Unfortunately, as the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan said, the amendments as put forward do not really solve the problem.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I am interested in that last comment but it strikes me that retaining police authorities with an elected commissioner as chairman was a pretty good offer to start discussions. I would be interested in the comments of the noble Baroness on that.

[Baroness Randerson]

The original plan—the legislative consent Motion—that was put to the Assembly was on the basis of the Assembly Government appointing representatives to that panel. That was the offer that the Assembly rejected. The other proposal that the noble Lord mentioned earlier was not put formally. For the purposes of our discussion here this evening, that cannot be regarded as a formal offer. It is a great pity that that offer has not gone further but it was never put to the Assembly.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

It is just that I have a briefing here, which the noble Baroness probably has herself, which says,

“in a statement to the Assembly on 12th October, the Welsh Minister for Social Justice and Local Government … offered a compromise: ‘I have told the Home Secretary that we believe a compromise whereby, in Wales, police authorities remain, but with the elected commissioner as chair, would offer the democratic accountability that the Home Office is seeking, while maintaining the important strengths of the current system’”.

[Baroness Randerson]

That was a statement made to the Assembly, but it was not the legislative consent Motion that the Assembly was asked to vote on. The Minister will, I am sure, correct me if I am wrong, but my recollection is that that the Assembly was asked to vote on the issue of the appointment of representatives appointed by Welsh Ministers to serve on the new bodies.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

The noble Baroness is quite right. The matter that was put before the Welsh Assembly under the original provisions of the Bill was a very narrow one: whether the Welsh Assembly—in one way or another; I am not sure whether it was a ministerial or a plenary appointment, but it does not really matter—should select one person from a list, if I remember rightly, of seven different groups which are set out in the Bill. The Welsh Assembly said, “We so fundamentally disapprove of the Bill that we will not do that”. So it was a very narrow issue.

[Baroness Randerson]

That is my recollection of the procedure: the Minister may have made a statement, but this was not a formal offer made for the Assembly to accept or not. The point that the noble Lord makes is very relevant in that there are a number of different solutions to this. My point in speaking this evening is to urge the Minister to continue to make efforts to reach an agreement with the Welsh Assembly so that we can go forward, maybe not with perfection, but with a practical, workmanlike approach that will seek some kind of centre ground. I regret that it appears that the Minister concerned in Wales does not like the amendments put forward today, because they put the power in the hands of the Welsh Assembly. That is an aspect of the amendments that I heartily approve of, but Ministers, of course, do not approve of that kind of thing, do they? They like power to rest in their own hands, but the fact remains that I believe there is scope for further discussion and for agreement.

[Baroness Morgan of Ely]

My Lords, we have heard today that the Welsh Assembly is not responsible for policing and, unlike some previous noble Lords who have spoken, I believe that it would be premature to devolve all policing matters to Wales, but there are a number of areas where the Welsh Government do have statutory responsibilities—in particular, crime reduction and social justice. Local government, however, is a devolved competence in Wales and, in terms of police governance, police authorities in Wales have to follow rules set out by the Welsh Assembly on a range of matters including advice on the financial settlement for the police in Wales. It should also be noted that council tax in Wales has an influential impact on funding distributed and available for police authorities. These things are crucial; this is not an area where the Home Office can simply dictate what happens in Wales.

We are all aware that the Bill would abolish police authorities and replace them with directly elected police and crime commissioners. The reasons I believe these are unattractive have been well rehearsed in your Lordships’ House. The proposals will sweep away a system that works well in Wales, as the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, has suggested. Police authorities in Wales have made a strong case against the proposals, based not on self-preservation but on a reasoned analysis of the argument for reform and the practical difficulties of the Home Office proposals. I emphasise that the purpose of this amendment is not to tackle the principle of elected police and crime commissioners, but simply to explain how arrangements for a commissioner and for police and crime panels would operate in Wales. It would give powers to the National Assembly of Wales to establish police and crime panels in Wales consistent with current devolved practices. There is a serious constitutional matter here that should be respected, and that is not the case as the Bill stands. I have received a letter from Carl Sargeant, the Minister responsible in the Welsh Government, giving his assurance that he would welcome support for this amendment, albeit with the slight changes that the Minister has indicated.

After the publication of the Bill, while it has recognised that there might be a constitutional issue to resolve here, rather than sit down and try to thrash out a compromise solution with the Assembly, the Home Office has now come up with amendments on Report suggesting that it is possible to circumvent the devolution settlement somehow by making the Home Secretary responsible for bringing together and supporting the locally elected representatives, rather than placing a duty on local authorities to convene them. That is a nice little effort in thwarting devolution and trying to impose a solution, but there are significant practical problems in terms of implementation as the Home Office simply does not have the infrastructure in Wales to deliver that kind of operation. If it cannot do it now, it certainly will not be able to do it after we see all the massive cuts that we are expecting from the Home Office.

The Government’s suggested solution also ignores the immense amount of co-operation that currently takes place between the police and other devolved agencies in Wales, as my noble friend Lord Wigley has pointed out. The introduction of a standalone proposal for policing governance that fails to emphasise the importance of joint working can serve only to undermine these positive working relationships.

By supporting the amendment, we are not trying to undermine the principle that the Government are trying to achieve—we are trying to do that elsewhere, but not here—but are asking simply for the devolution settlement to be respected and for a workable, practical system to be worked through, rather than an imposed one-size-fits-all solution as has been advocated here.

It is right to say that there have been issues regarding the negotiations. One of the issues has been that the Welsh Assembly Minister perhaps did not feel that he could accept something from the Government in the UK that he did not think it was in their gift to offer. It was a principled decision; he felt that he had to oppose the suggestion coming from the Home Office. I hope that he will take account of the discussions today and find some practical solution. If we can find a way through this, dialogue is probably the way forward if possible.