Policing and Crime Bill

Debate between Lord Walney and Andy Burnham

Monday 7th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

What I have heard from my fire services in the north-west is that they did not have enough resources to cope. Greater Manchester fire services were drawn up to Cumbria when the bad weather hit, but when the flooding came down to Greater Manchester, they did not have enough resources to cover it. We heard at Christmas about a hastily concocted plan to cut the incident response units, which are there to deal with a dirty bomb. These cuts are going too far. The question the Government have to answer is simple: can they give us a guarantee that there are enough fire and police resources in place to ensure that if a major incident or Paris-style attack were to happen in one of our big cities, public safety would not be compromised? I do not believe that they have answered that question and, until they do, I will keep on asking it.

As I was saying, the Bill looks like a plan for policing on the cheap. I will come back to part 1 later, but first I will go through the measures that we support.

Part 2 deals with police accountability. Although there has been progress in that area, I think it would be accepted on both sides of the House that there is much further to go. Ongoing historical cases such as Hillsborough, Orgreave, and the Daniel Morgan murder, stand as testimony to the uphill struggle that ordinary people face in holding the police to account, even when there is clear evidence of wrongdoing. As the Home Secretary said, there is no sign that public confidence has improved, given that so many people who are dissatisfied choose not to pursue their complaint.

There is also evidence that the current system is not as fair as it should be to police officers who face disciplinary charges, with professional standards branches encouraged to adopt a heavy-handed approach. We agree with the Government that the system for handling complaints is in need of serious reform, and we welcome clarification that all complaints should be recorded, ending the confusion that comes with leaving that decision up to police officers. I give a cautious welcome to the new role for police and crime commissioners in that area, but it is still early days for PCCs, and many have yet to show that they can effectively hold a whole police force to account. An individual who is close to the force on operational matters may struggle to hold it to account on disciplinary matters. That is an open question, and the Government should not have too much trust that that will materialise.

[John Woodcock]

I am sure my right hon. Friend welcomes the fact that the Independent Police Complaints Commission will be able to bring misconduct charges for officers who have retired. Does it seem strange, however, that the only penalty that seems to have been proposed for a retired officer who is found guilty of misconduct is to say to them, “You can’t come back and work in the police force”? That is no penalty at all if they have already retired.

[Andy Burnham]

I will come to that point in a moment, but I agree with my hon. Friend and I will demonstrate why his point is entirely valid.

We support measures in the Bill to refocus and rename the IPCC, and to strengthen its independence by allowing it to initiate its own investigations and carry them out directly, rather than relying on police forces. We also support protections for whistleblowers, and potentially the most powerful proposal in the Bill is the power to bring super-complaints.

I recently held a seminar with Baroness Doreen Lawrence, which brought together groups that are still campaigning for justice, such as the Shrewsbury 24 campaign, the Orgreave Truth and Justice campaign, and Justice 4 Daniel. There are common threads between them all, but the way the system works currently forces them all to plough their own furrow individually, and it does not allow them to join forces. The super-complaint proposal could rebalance the system in their favour, which is why I welcome it so strongly.

I know that the Home Secretary has still to publish details on how that proposal will work, but I offer to work with her and I encourage her to allow a number of often small campaign groups to bring a complaint together. For instance, if the Stephen Lawrence campaign had been able to join forces with the Daniel Morgan campaign, or if the Orgreave campaign had been able to join forces with the Hillsborough families, history could have been very different. At our seminar we heard from all campaigns about something that they hold in common: the unacceptable levels of collusion between the police and the press. If the Government fail to honour the police’s promise to victims of phone hacking and to set up the second Leveson inquiry—as we have been led to believe from reports—I hope that the route of the super-complaint will open up another avenue for campaigners.