Dangerous Driving

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Greg Mulholland]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that issue. He is quite right. He has exposed to the House yet another area where the law simply does not make sense—it is not common sense.

I have also had to deal with the awful deaths of David and Dorothy Metcalf, who were killed a year after Jamie Still, on new year’s day 2012, on the Stanningley bypass in Leeds. They were an honest, hard-working couple, who had just begun to enjoy retirement. They were hit by a driver—rear-ended—who was speeding at 100 mph. The impact of the crash caused the Metcalfs’ car to be thrown 10 feet in the air before it flipped over. Mr Metcalf died instantly, and Mrs Metcalf some time later in hospital. The driver, Mr Eduard Mereohra, was a Moldovan national in the UK illegally. He had been drinking all night at a party, and even the next morning he had twice the permitted level of alcohol in his system. He had previously been deported for entering the UK illegally, but somehow he had entered the country illegally for a second time. He fled the scene, only to be caught by a heroic bystander, guided by another heroic individual who told the police where the man was fleeing, having witnessed the incident from their house.

When he was caught, Mr Mereohra first tried to deny being the driver. Later he tried to blame David Metcalf for the accident. As if that was not bad enough, to make it even more galling, he had been caught speeding a few weeks beforehand, yet nothing had been flagged up to say that he was here illegally. There was no evidence at all to suggest that he had a valid driving licence, and it could not even be established that he had a national insurance number. I still have not received an answer to that question.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

The whole House will be shocked by the two cases that the hon. Gentleman has brought to our attention. In respect of the second case concerning a foreign national who has committed a crime in our country, were his convictions in Moldova, or wherever he resided, brought to the attention of the court before his sentence, or was there a problem obtaining that information?

Police and Crime Commissioners and ACPO

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I will be brief, as the Minister has to speak, and I know that other colleagues also want to contribute. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell, and to congratulate the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) on initiating the debate. He is a true original thinker on the Select Committee on Home Affairs as far as policing is concerned. Throughout the incredible change that has been organised by the Government and the new landscape of policing, he has pushed the Select Committee in the right direction when we have probed the changes. I am happy to remind the House that the Select Committee is investigating how police and crime commissioners and chief constables work together. As part of that, we will have our say on what is left of ACPO in the new landscape.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that chief constables have a different role from the one that has developed over the past few years. They are not supposed to be involved in making policy, although the Home Affairs Committee has on many occasions called on ACPO to give us views on policy. That changes in this new landscape, which I am on the record as saying I am excited about, but it has not yet settled. The hon. Gentleman is saying that when it has settled, chief constables will have a role to play, but it will not be the traditional role that developed under ACPO. It should be a new role. I am sure that the Select Committee will consider those points when we come to make recommendations.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. It was also a particular pleasure to hear some thoughtful and trenchant views in the course of this short debate. Those who spoke, most of whom are members of the Home Affairs Committee, have thought about the subject deeply and long. Furthermore, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chair of the Select Committee, said that a report is gestating; as ever, we look forward to its birth. I was especially grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for saying that he was “excited” about the new policing landscape. There were many reasons why we conducted such a widespread and radical reform of the police. It was extremely necessary to improve policing in this country. It is an uncovenanted and added bonus that it excites the Chair of the Select Committee.

The time is right, amid all this change, to look again at the role of ACPO to ensure that it has adapted to the massive change and reform programme introduced by the Government, because the whole of the policing landscape has been reformed. As was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), who introduced the debate so thoughtfully, police and crime commissioners have given communities a greater say in policing and introduced new lines of accountability for chief constables. Also, the Independent Police Complaints Commission has been strengthened to ensure the highest standards of police integrity, which is clearly an ever more important reform; the National Crime Agency has been created to lead the fight against serious and organised crime; the inspectorate of constabulary has been made more independent; and the College of Policing has been established to provide professional standards for policing. It is therefore essential that ACPO’s functions are now delivered within the ethos of the new policing landscape.

In the short time—a little more than a year—that PCCs have been in office, they have innovated by developing strategies to tackle drug and alcohol misuse and the problem of people with mental health problems being held in custody cells; they have worked with young people to improve engagement; and they have driven innovation in technology to improve policing. They have done all that while holding their forces to account and scrutinising police performance. Many PCCs have wasted no time in introducing new processes to hold chief constables to account for the delivery of the PCC-prepared police and crime plans and in driving value for money. All that has fundamentally changed the accountability process in and governance of policing for the better. I am grateful for the endorsement of that change in the tone of the debate so far.

PCCs have reviewed the role and remit of ACPO within that new context—this is essential, and I very much welcome it. Various hon. Members have talked about the Parker review, which demonstrates that PCCs are providing an impetus to reform at the national as well as the local level. They are of course innovating and delivering policing more efficiently in each of their individual areas, and not only have they brought real local accountability to how chief constables and their forces perform, but they are working hard to ensure that their local communities have a stronger voice in policing.

Everything is happening against the economic and fiscal background with which we are familiar. In the current climate, it is essential to drive innovation and transformation that deliver value for money, so that savings can be made and priority given to front-line policing. PCCs are doing this at the same time as they are delivering against their national responsibilities, which I hope is putting an end to the view of some people that that is a weakness of PCCs. I think that it is a strength.

I now turn in some detail to the Parker review. As Sir Nick Parker said in a review undertaken on behalf of PCCs, not of the Home Office, there are frustrations with the lack of transparency in ACPO funding and with the inadequacy of audit and performance monitoring. Sir Nick said that

“these arise out of ACPO’s undoubtedly complex and unorthodox structure.”

There is a variety of governance mechanisms across the full range of ACPO’s functions, and its status is unusual, in that it is a company limited by guarantee rather than a public body. We have heard some of those frustrations aired in the Chamber today.

[Keith Vaz]

To be fair to the president of ACPO, Sir Hugh Orde—I am a great fan of his and the way in which he conducts his policing—he said that he was very uncomfortable with being in a company limited by guarantee. He had torn what little hair he had left off his head in order to find alternatives.

[Damian Green]

Absolutely. The right hon. Gentleman is entirely right to make that point. I am conscious that Sir Hugh Orde has thought as much about these matters as anyone else and has, as one would expect, come to thoughtful conclusions.

I support the broad direction of travel of the Parker review, and I was pleased that PCCs had taken collective action to review the role and functions of ACPO. I was also pleased the review recognised the need for efficiencies and for deriving maximum value for money from services that are currently provided under ACPO.

The PCCs have a vital role in ensuring that there is a national forum in which chief constables may come together to co-ordinate what they see as their needs at the national level. We all agree that that is an essential function. As the review recognises, crucially, the majority of ACPO functions have now transferred to the College of Policing. We are using the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill to give the college the power to set standards. It will be for the college to provide leadership for the whole of policing in future.

Mental Health (Police Procedures)

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

I look forward to this debate under your excellent chairmanship, Mr Brady. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for finding the time for this debate on a most important subject and I am pleased to see the interest, that the turnout here today shows.

The poor quality of life and of the services available to people struggling to live with mental ill health has been the subject of previous debates in the House. This debate relates to police involvement with people with mental ill health, particularly during times of mental health crisis. Mental health crisis, as defined by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, is

“when the mind is at melting point”.

It may involve an immediate risk of self-harm or suicide, extreme anxiety, panic attacks or a psychotic episode. How we treat the most vulnerable in society lies at the heart of our values. We made a decision not to hide away the sick and disabled, as we had hidden them away in the past in asylums and institutions, but we still have a long way to go in granting them equal status in society and equal access to justice.

The Mind report “At risk, yet dismissed” shows that those who suffer from mental ill health are three times more likely to be victims of crime. Shockingly, 50% of people with some form of mental ill health have experienced a crime in the past year, and severely ill women with mental ill health are 10 times more likely to have been assaulted. Crimes are less likely to be reported and prosecuted, because people with mental ill health fear being dismissed or disbelieved. Sadly, the evidence shows that more often than not they are. How does the Minister plan to improve police understanding of mental ill health and ensure more accurate recording of such crimes, and will he give a commitment to greater investigation and prosecution for such offences?

Another reason for not reporting is fear of police powers in relation to mental ill health. Too often, between 5 pm and 9 am during the week, at weekends and on bank holidays, police officers are the only first responders available in a mental health crisis, despite the fact that they lack the medical knowledge, skills and training to resolve and manage the crisis. They respond not because there is a real and immediate threat to members of the public, but because mental health services are understaffed, under-resourced and overstretched, and lack facilities.

For example, Miss P, who is 23 and a size 8, is a sweet, loving young girl who has suffered mental ill health for most of her life. She finds it difficult to build relationships and she is lousy at keeping appointments. She does not drink alcohol, except when she is in mental health crisis, and when she does, she turns into a violent and abusive person. Local mental health services concede that she needs a specialist placement, but they cannot find one. In the past five years, police have been called to 130 incidents and attended court to give evidence for 81 offences, resulting in 18 terms of imprisonment. The gaps between her prison sentences are becoming briefer—days, not weeks—and her self-harming and suicide attempts are escalating. The cost to that young girl, her family, the police, the courts, the probation service and the Prison Service is huge. I am told that it approaches £1 million, all for one young girl.

When the Minister sums up, I hope he will address this critical question: how much longer will we expect our police services to process vulnerable people through the criminal justice system due to mental health, underfunding and failures?

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) and the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow) on securing this debate. My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that, as a result of the work done by her and others, the Select Committee on Home Affairs will be looking into this issue, with a possible report next summer.

Will my hon. Friend comment on the study by Nottingham university, published in May this year, which shows that 56% of custody officers suffer from depression and anxiety? It is not just the victims of crime, but the officers themselves. Is it not right that the new College of Policing should carefully consider the issue of training?

[Mrs Moon]

As always, my right hon. Friend makes excellent information available to the House. I am delighted to hear of the study to be made next year by his Committee, which is highly regarded across the House. He is right to focus on mental ill health among police. It is little surprise, given the amount and range of incidents with which we require them to deal. That is why we must ensure that the police are called to attend only incidents that they can deal with and that they have the skills and capability to manage, so they do not go home at the end of their shift feeling guilty and bereft about an incident that they may perceive they dealt with badly. My right hon. Friend made a most helpful intervention, and I thank him.

The Centre for Mental Health states that police are the first point of contact for a person in mental health crisis and that up to 15% of police incidents have a mental health dimension. Other people have told me that mental health interventions occupy up to 30% of police time. The Royal College of Psychiatrists recognises that in some areas police cells are the routine place of safety, under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983, when a mental health crisis requires urgent assessment and management. Many of those detained come from socially deprived backgrounds, and some black and minority ethnic groups are over-represented.

The Royal College reports considerable geographic variation in the use of police cells. During 2012-13, five police areas recorded more than 500 uses of police-based section 136 places of safety, while four areas recorded 10 or fewer uses, and one had zero. The difference was that the latter areas had better health-based services and facilities. Will the Minister undertake to talk with the Department of Health about the urgent need for commissioning boards to provide an adequate number of staffed health-based places of safety in every part of the country? At present, 36% of all places of safety under section 136 are thought to involve police custody. In 2011-12, an estimated 8,000 to 11,000 orders were made, with 347 involving under-18s. Will the Minister ensure that accurate figures on how often and in what circumstances police officers are called to deal with mental health crises are available, so that we can get a clear picture of the problem?

People held by police under section 136 are, as I have said, the most acutely vulnerable. One study found that in 81% of cases involving police-based places of safety, the person was self-harming or suicidal. The Independent Police Complaints Commission found that 35% of deaths in police custody involve people with mental ill health. Alarming reports from Inquest show that a number of those deaths are linked to police restraint techniques, and that 65 people took their lives within two days of leaving a police place of safety. Between 20% and 30% of people held on section 136 detentions in police cells were subsequently sectioned.

The impact on time and costs associated with police engagement in mental ill health has never been calculated accurately, but it is clear that, in a variety of ways, health service costs are being passed to the police services. It is common for police officers taking people in mental health crisis to accident and emergency or medical-based places of safety for an assessment to be told, “There’s no bed available”, “The person is too drunk”, “They are under the influence of drugs”, “They are aggressive”, “They are a child”, or, “They have a learning disability”, all of which condemn that person in crisis to a night in police custody. How much longer can we allow these informal exclusion criteria around drugs, alcohol, aggression, children and learning disabilities to continue?

EU Charter of Fundamental Rights

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I am absolutely not suggesting that we do nothing, and that is why we need to get this point clarified in law at the earliest opportunity. The recent Supreme Court case on prisoner voting has reassured me on this issue, but I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) that I have every intention of testing this in law quickly. If we find that the legal position is not what we believe it to be, we will have to take further steps.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State is right to say that I was the Minister for Europe who negotiated the charter of fundamental rights. I am very clear that, as the former Foreign Secretary has said, this is not enforceable in UK domestic law and the protocol is absolutely clear, in article 1. I know why the Secretary of State is reacting as he is today, but I can say to him that if he needs to clarify the matter in the courts, I have no objection, and the House should have no objection, to that. I also have no objection to the legal advice that was given to me and the previous Government being released to this House—I think that would be a very good idea.

[Chris Grayling]

The truth is that we were reassured again and again by the previous Government that this document had no legal force at all. Of course it now does have legal force in European law. The issue is about whether that legal force extends to UK law. We regard that matter as being exceptionally important. If there were any question of that linkage being made, we would have to take steps on it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. On his first point, he will recognise that one of the emerging challenges is the misuse of drugs that are not in and of themselves illegal. In that regard, I commend to him the private Member’s Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James), which I think answers that problem very effectively and I hope the House will pass it.

On the through-the-gate reforms, again my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) is right that it is important that we undertake to all those providing drug treatment in prisons that what they begin will be properly completed; otherwise, they will not begin what may be long-term drug treatment programmes. That is why through-the-gate matters, and why our rehabilitation reforms will support people not only in custody but in their transition into the community and for some considerable time thereafter.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

May I commend to the Minister as his recess reading an excellent book, “Doing Time: Prisons in the 21st Century”, by the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman)? In chapter 2 he talks about 50% of those in prisons having a drug problem. As the Minister knows, the Home Affairs Committee has recommended mandatory testing on arrival and exit. Are we any nearer to that?

[Jeremy Wright]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I do not agree with him that the right way to deal with drug testing is to have a mandatory point at entry and exit. He also knows that the main reason I disagree with him is that everyone knows where the points are and can see them coming. What I think is much more effective is mandatory random testing, which is what we do now, but, as I explained in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter), we must all recognise that the problem that is emerging is less about illegal drugs, dangerous though they are, and more about legal drugs that are being misused in our prisons. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will support the private Member’s Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge.

Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

Used properly, these orders will protect victims, they will disrupt grooming, and they will prevent sex tourism. These reforms are the right thing to do, and for these reasons I will not press my amendment to a Division, but instead I ask all Members who think the police should be able to step in to protect girls like Alice to support the Government amendments to protect people from child sexual exploitation.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

May I begin by apologising to the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) for not being present for the start of her speech?

I want to contribute briefly to the debate in order to congratulate the hon. Lady on the incredibly effective work she has done on the issue of grooming. She has a constituency interest, of course, as Operation Bullfinch was going on in Oxford and she has been monitoring what has been happening to the victims, but she was also instrumental in beginning the important Childhood Lost campaign, and I was present at its launch with the Minister, who gave a very effective speech. She has decided not to press her amendment to a Division, but instead has urged the House to support what the Government are doing. I am glad that the Government are following the recommendations of the Select Committee. I think all in the House who are concerned about the grooming of children and the crimes being committed against young people and children will want to see effective action being taken. What we have seen in some of the criminal cases is just the tip of the iceberg, and the hon. Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins), who has now been promoted to Minister in the Department for Communities and Local Government, gave very passionate and effective evidence to the Select Committee.

I support what the hon. Lady has said, I commend her on her marvellous efforts in this area, and I certainly hope the Government will continue to take forward the recommendations of the Select Committee—I see that the hon. Members for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), who serve on the Committee, are present. We will revisit our recommendations six months after publication of the report, which will be at about Christmas time, when we will see what progress has been made, but I know that in the Minister we have someone who is determined to do something very serious and radical about stopping those who seek to exploit children, and I fully support what the hon. Lady has said.

[Sir Paul Beresford]

I echo those congratulations. One thing I have discovered in this House is that it is possible for Back Benchers with a really good cause to push it and persuade a Government—whatever Government. The other thing to be said about this evening’s debate, at least until 7 o’clock, is that there is cross-House agreement —and, I hasten to add to the Opposition Front Bench, even the Liberal party is on board—and that has been the case on this area for some considerable time.

The Sexual Offences Act 2003 is the legislation being changed tonight. Although the Act came in under a Labour Government, I am sure the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins), who was a Minister at about that time, would agree that there was huge cross-party support and thinking behind the scenes. Indeed, I was on the Home Office taskforce that did a lot of the work leading up to the child protection part of that Act.

Tonight, however, I want to focus on my new clause 7, which would amend section 62 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, entitled “Possession of prohibited images of children”. Those prohibited images are pornographic images, and they may take various forms, including photographs, pseudo-photographs, cartoons and computer-generated images. They may be moving or still, too. The link between the possession and the viewing and actual action against children is generally accepted, as the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) said from the Opposition Front Bench.

The ludicrous situation is that an individual will be liable for prosecution for possession of photographs, pseudo-photographs, computer-generated images and so on, but not for the written word describing child sex abuse in pornographic, and often lurid, detail. All, including the written word in this form, are designed by the individuals concerned for sexual stimulation over the sexual abuse of children. If an individual wrote from his or her imagination a graphic description of child sexual abuse—which could, and often is, more emotive and more graphic than any picture of any form—even if he or she described one of those pictures or cartoons, that individual could not be prosecuted for the possession of this graphic material, even though for many of these individuals the written word is more powerful.

Let me give a simple example that I gave in speaking to my ten-minute rule Bill last Wednesday. CEOP provided me with the details of a man from Kent who wrote describing his wish to kidnap an early-teenage girl, strip her, sexually abuse her in an exceptionally unpleasant way and then, in an even more unpleasant way which I will not detail, slowly kill this girl. It is horrific, especially as his writings then inspired this individual to actually carry it out. He is in prison, hopefully for a very long time if not for ever, but the teenager is gone. One would have thought that the early discovery of the writings could have helped, but if the police had found them they would have had no power to act. This new clause has developed out of discussions with members past and present of the Metropolitan police paedophile unit and with the team leading CEOP in this area, and is supported by it, including Peter Davies.

CEOP last year published a research document on paedophile cases. It is mentioned in the report, almost as a sideline, that some offenders possess graphic notes or writings of child abuse. The Home Secretary has written to me on this matter stating she is asking for a report from CEOP on the need for this change. As the Minister will recall, some months ago both CEOP and the head of the Metropolitan police paedophile unit joined me in making a presentation to him. They brought some of the literature; I did not. The officers supported the need for this change. They explained that they had seen volumes of material in their search for illegal child abuse photographs. As the possession of such written material is not illegal, they obviously disregarded it, seeking only, at high speed and using computer technology, child abuse images.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend was one of the most vocal in the criticisms of the way in which Rochdale council operated. Is he satisfied that the council understands the seriousness of the situation and that, under its new chief executive, it is putting in place the proper processes to make sure that the situation is monitored? It cannot stop it happening again, but is my hon. Friend satisfied that things have changed for the better?

[Simon Danczuk]

I appreciate my right hon. Friend’s intervention. I am more satisfied than ever that Rochdale council is playing its part in tackling on-street grooming.

It is important to note that we still await the serious case review on Rochdale. I would think that it is imminent, so it should be available in the next month or two. I think it will raise questions—not much light has been cast on this—about the performance of Greater Manchester police and whether it acted effectively enough in terms of intervening. I suspect that the serious case review will show some failings in that regard. That relates to the proposals under discussion because, had they been in place at the time, not only would the tools have been available to the police, but an emphasis would have been placed on their need to use them.

Electronic Tagging

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

This is a shocking statement and I believe that the Lord Chancellor has acted swiftly and decisively in dealing with the issue. G4S should never have got another Government contract after the shambles of the Olympics. G4S and Serco hold 17 contracts worth £118 million with the Home Office, and although I accept what the Lord Chancellor has done in referring G4S to the Serious Fraud Office and the police, I think he should have done the same to Serco. When its chief executive appeared before the Home Affairs Committee on 25 June, he said that he did not believe that Serco had overcharged. The right hon. Gentleman is right to have acted as he did, but he should not take a different approach to Serco. We need the high-risk register that the Home Affairs Committee recommended after the Olympics. That register should be held by the Cabinet Office, and any company that has failed the taxpayer should be on it and should not get another contract.

[Chris Grayling]

Let me be clear about the different treatment of G4S and Serco. I have followed the legal advice I received very closely, and the right hon. Gentleman and all Members of the House would expect me to follow such advice in the interests of the taxpayer and the Government. I have done that, and the approach I have chosen follows closely the legal advice I received. I would not expect any Member of this House to expect me to do otherwise.

As for how the Cabinet Office approaches contracting, my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office, who is sitting next to me, will have heard what the right hon. Gentleman said. The Cabinet Office is taking both this issue and the broader issue of contracting very seriously, and my right hon. Friend will be saying more in due course.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Indeed.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

4. If he will introduce mandatory drug testing for prisoners on entry to and exit from prison.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)]

The right hon. Gentleman knows that we already have a system of random and intelligence-led drug testing in prisons. He knows, too, that we are not persuaded of the merits of adding further testing for all prisoners at the fixed points of arrival and departure from custody. However, we are working with the Department of Health to test an end-to-end approach to tackling addiction from custody into the community, which includes looking at which prisoners should be tested and when.

[Keith Vaz]

The Minister is right: I do, in fact, know all that. However, it does not deal with the problem. The problem is that 35% of those in prison have a drug addiction and 6% acquire that addiction once they are in prison, so more come out with an addiction than went in with one. Why do the Government not feel that mandatory testing on entry and exit will help break the cycle of drug dependency?

[Jeremy Wright]

We are in agreement, because I knew all that, too, but it is worth saying to the right hon. Gentleman that we have one or two issues with the suggestion he and his Select Committee make in what is, I concede, an excellent report that makes a substantial contribution to this debate. The concerns we have are that if tests are done at a fixed point of exit, particularly from custody, the offender knows that is coming and can do things to try to mitigate the effect of the test. We think it is important to test on a random, and perhaps frequent, basis. We entirely agree with him and his Committee, however, about the importance of extending our testing to include prescription drugs as well as illegal drugs, because of the widespread abuse of those drugs, and I hope he will support the private Member’s Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James), which will achieve exactly that.

Legal Aid Reform

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Teather]

I understand that the family of Jean Charles de Menezes would not have qualified under the new test. As the hon. Gentleman says, that was an incredibly important case which had huge implications for policing policy, and it is for precisely that reason that we need to be careful about identifying categories of this kind.

A number of Members have said that the changes will not save money. That, I think, is the point. The Government are apparently not seeking to save money with the changes in the residence test; they say that their purpose is to shore up public confidence in the legal aid system. However, I do not think that the public will continue to have confidence in a system that denies access in certain cases, including the one that was referred to by the hon. Gentleman.

Particularly unjust, in my view, is the position of those who, having gained refugee status, will be forced to wait 12 months before becoming eligible for legal aid. I think it extremely unlikely that we would be complying with article 16 of the Geneva convention if we proceeded with that proposal. Many of the people involved are very vulnerable, and there is frequently a gap in communication between the Home Office and those who should be seeking care for them in the form of housing or benefits. Many would face a period of homelessness if lawyers did not intervene to ensure that local authorities do their duty.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Sarah Teather]

I will, but I am conscious that I am taking up the time of others who wish to speak.

[Keith Vaz]

I am most grateful to the hon. Lady, who has been extremely generous in giving way. She is right about immigration, which has become more complex. One of the reasons for opposing these proposals is that the few remaining specialist legal aid immigration lawyers will disappear if they are accepted.

[Sarah Teather]

I fear losing specialists in immigration law. I already see constituents who are consulting lawyers who are, I am afraid to say, less than qualified to do the job, and that is what creates many of the delays and bad decisions in the first place.

Police and Crime Commissioners

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I had no idea you were keeping count so very carefully, Mr Speaker, but thank you for reminding me.

I am delighted to be able to raise the issue of police and crime commissioner accountability on the Floor of the House tonight. I am pleased to see the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice here to answer the debate, having appeared before the Select Committee on Home Affairs only last week.

On 15 November 2012, 41 police and crime commissioners were elected, representing a total population of 48 million and covering individual populations of up to 2.6 million people, earning salaries of between £65,000 and £117,000 a year, and between them controlling billions of pounds of spending on police in England and Wales. Since 2010, the Home Secretary has embarked on what can only be described as a revolution in policing: whole organisations have been changed, some have been abolished, some merged, and others are at this moment in a state of limbo. Names that we have become used to, such as the Serious Organised Crime Agency, the National Policing Improvement Agency and police authorities, have been or will be replaced by the College of Policing, the National Crime Agency and 41 elected police and crime commissioners. The police commissioners were introduced to bring a democratic element into the new landscape of policing. I fully support the vision behind them, which is one of the democratic accountability of our police service.

Allegations today that undercover officers spied on the Lawrence family are just one of a number of recent events in policing that have shown why this new element of democratic accountability is vital to the landscape of policing. In creating the commissioners, the Home Secretary was seeking to construct a new and better, more accountable policing edifice. However, it has become clear that there may be a number of structural faults, and if these are not addressed quickly, this gleaming new building will collapse.

The birth of the commissioners was a long and difficult one. The original election date had to be changed, voters did not receive a formal election mailing—they were asked to look at websites—and there was a record low turnout. In Devon and Cornwall, Commissioner Tony Hogg was elected by only 5% of the electorate. In Wales, at a Newport polling station, not a single vote was cast. The commissioners are a new breed, although some of them are known to us. Six commissioners are former Members of Parliament, including Alun Michael from South Wales, Jane Kennedy from Merseyside, Paddy Tipping from Nottinghamshire, Vera Baird from Northumbria, Sir Graham Bright from Cambridgeshire, and Tony Lloyd from Greater Manchester.

Subsequent to their election, the first actions of some commissioners were to make appointments to their offices, which vary hugely in size, from 40 staff in Tony Lloyd’s Greater Manchester office to just four in Vera Baird’s office in Northumbria. There are 16 Conservative, 13 Labour and 12 independent police commissioners. The House will know that there has been much controversy over political appointments. The Committee heard from the West Yorkshire commissioner, Mark Burns-Williamson, for example, who appointed the wife of his party’s regional director in Yorkshire and Humberside, who oversaw his selection, to become his deputy on a salary of £53,000. Both the Labour West Midlands commissioner, Bob Jones, and the Conservative Northamptonshire commissioner, Adam Simmonds, made political appointments to the post of assistant commissioner.

Not a week has passed without articles in newspapers about the activities of some commissioners, and I shall give just four examples. Newspapers reported that three police officers were arrested after allegedly leaking details of Cumbrian Commissioner Richard Rhodes’s undeclared expenses to the press. Richard Rhodes has written to my Committee to clarify the position, and we have published his letter on our website. The Mail on Sunday ran a splash raising questions about the office of the Thames Valley commissioner, Anthony Stansfeld, who is the Prime Minister’s local commissioner. Last week, the Watford Observer said that in April alone, in his capacity as Hertfordshire commissioner, David Lloyd accepted hospitality with outsourcing companies Serco and Capgemini. It was also revealed by the newspapers that the Surrey commissioner, Kevin Hurley, ran a private security firm, and it was claimed that that was a conflict of interest. Mr Hurley denies that. The House and the public need to decide if that is just press speculation or something more serious reflecting general unease about the activities of some commissioners.

So much is not known about the commissioners that the Select Committee decided to produce a report to set out all the issues and to provide an easy way to refer to what the commissioners were doing, effectively creating a central register of interests. I want to thank Richard Benwell for his hard work on the Committee’s register. Our report was prompted by a lack of transparency: the fact that the Government refused to collate such a register themselves led to our decision to produce one.

In May 2013, four commissioners had still not published the required budget data online: Humberside’s Matthew Grove; Norfolk’s Stephen Bett; North Wales’s Winston Roddick; and Suffolk’s Tim Passmore. Twenty-three commissioners have yet to publish the full statutory information required.

Despite the permanent secretary telling the Committee on Tuesday that he had e-mailed his own staff saying that the Home Office needs to be much more transparent, the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice has refused to disclose details of meetings that have taken place between the Home Office and commissioners. His excuse was that it was on the website, yet he answered in full a similar question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) on 12 December. Ministers need to be open and transparent with Members of the House when they ask questions about police and crime commissioners, rather than referring them to Home Office websites.

Transparency is vital to allow a full and fair analysis of the momentous decisions that some of the commissioners have to make. The biggest power they wield is the ability to hire and fire chief constables. This month Gwent’s commissioner, Ian Johnston, apparently forced the chief constable of Gwent, Carmel Napier, to retire. The reason he cited was that she was hostile to the idea of commissioners and their relationship was “never going to work.” We hope to hear from both the Gwent Commissioner and the former chief constable at the Committee in the near future. In Lincolnshire Commissioner Alan Hardwick’s suspension of Chief Constable Rhodes was later reversed by a High Court judge, who called it “irrational and perverse.” Ten chief constables have resigned or retired since November 2012.

The police and crime panels are meant to hold commissioners to account on all these issues. They are the only groups standing between commissioners and a four-year period in which they can, in effect, do whatever they like. However, as soon as the cold light of scrutiny was shone on them by the Committee, we found that these panels were often compromised by political allegiances, and some lacked the guidance, legal advice and legal powers that they required. The Kent police and crime panel never scrutinised Commissioner Anne Barnes’s decision to appoint a youth and crime commissioner on a salary of £15,000. Gwent’s commissioner, Ian Johnston, admitted to a group of Labour Gwent MPs that until the details of his meeting with Chief Constable Napier were leaked, he had had no intention of informing the panel of the full details of her departure.

The Lincolnshire police and crime panel did not meet for two months to discuss the suspension of Chief Constable Rhodes. The panel chairman told the Committee that it received poor and confused legal advice and in the end the chairman had to write to the Minister asking what to do. Just a few days after appearing before the Committee, Lincolnshire’s panel chair, Councillor Ray Wootten, resigned after “inadvertently misleading” the Committee. Apparently it was he who was confused, not the legal advice that he had been given. He and the other panel chairs we heard from, Councillor Patricia O’Brien in Suffolk and Councillor Peter Box, issued a plea that the Home Secretary had left them alone in their mammoth scrutiny task and they needed more help and support to achieve proper scrutiny.

The situation is so serious that Sir Hugh Orde, one of the country’s most distinguished police officers and the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, has branded the system for holding commissioners to account

“the worst system you can possibly have”

and demanded a meeting between chief constables and the Home Secretary—an astonishing statement from someone as senior as Sir Hugh, and a statement that I hope the Government will listen to. I hope that when the Minister replies, he will tell the House when and where this meeting between Sir Hugh and the Home Secretary will take place. I hope he will not refer me to a website.

London’s own police and crime commissioner, Mayor Boris Johnson, and his relationship with Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan commissioner, is proof that with proper scrutiny, the system can work. We can also look to Leicestershire, where Commissioner Sir Clive Loader and Chief Constable Simon Cole get on very well indeed. We want to see relationships like this replicated across the country.

Her Majesty’s chief inspector of constabulary, Tom Winsor, recently told the Committee that he thought there was scope for the inspectorate to have a greater role in the new landscape. HMIC should take over publication of the central register of interests started by the Committee, as well as the register of chief constables’ interests, which still does not have a home. The chief executive of the College of Policing, Alex Marshall, should ensure that police and crime panels have a representative on the college’s board, and indeed the college should provide them with training, guidance and legal advice.

As the level 2 transfer deadline approaches, some commissioners will choose to take over important matters such as procurement. The Home Secretary has said that she is looking at commissioners taking over 999 contracts, including for ambulance and fire services, which is a most interesting idea.

A number of these issues would never have arisen in the first place if the Government had done as the Select Committee recommended in our report on the new landscape of policing published earlier this year, in which we suggested the introduction of a “Magna Carta”. This would be an agreed document, signed by police and crime commissioners and chief constables, setting out the rights and responsibilities of the various parties.

There is unquestionably a very important role for commissioners in the new landscape. I want to pay tribute to the work that many of them do; it is no easy task to take the first steps in a completely new and important area of policy. The police need to be accountable to the taxpayer for the money they spend, the priorities they choose and, indeed, the mistakes they make. However, we must ensure that there is a sound process in place for making commissioners accountable. After all, we will have to wait another three and a half years until the next election, and nothing can be done until then. That is why my colleagues on the Home Affairs Committee have agreed to conduct a major inquiry into commissioners on the anniversary of their elections. We want the public to have their say on this important issue. If the police commissioners are to assume their place as the bedrock of more transparent and accountable policing in the Home Secretary’s new landscape, we must get the process right, and we must get it right now.

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Damian Green)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) on securing the debate and am grateful for his support for the Government’s vision of a more accountable police service. He made the standard disobliging remarks about turnout at the elections, but I should point out that 5 million people voted, which is approximately 5 million more than the number who elected anyone who sat on a police authority.

The police and crime commissioners have been in office for six and a half months, and in that relatively short time they have made a significant impact. Crime has fallen by more than 10% under this Government and has continued to fall since the PCCs were elected, against the challenging economic climate. PCCs not only represent the most significant democratic reform of policing we have seen; they are also proving to be central figures in helping to cut crime. In the past six months all the PCCs have published their police and crime plans and engaged with the public in a way that police authorities did not, and indeed could not. PCCs have made pledges and put in place measures to improve services offered to victims and to protect the vulnerable from those who would prey on them.

The right hon. Gentleman listed a series of newspaper articles criticising PCCs and said that they were appearing almost weekly. I merely observe that articles that are critical of Members of this House appear almost daily, but that does not mean that parliamentary democracy is a bad thing. Newspapers are there to criticise, and elected representatives are there to defend their position.

I am genuinely puzzled by the right hon. Gentleman’s objection to looking up information on websites. The internet is common these days and many can access it; it is the easiest way for the public to access information. He is as capable as anyone in the country of accessing information on a website.

[Keith Vaz]

When a Member of Parliament asks a question of a Minister about when they have a meeting with a police and crime commissioner, the Minister should answer the question rather than saying, “Wait until it is published in three months’ time”. That is my point. I have no problem in accessing the internet.

[Damian Green]

I am delighted to hear it. As I pointed out to the right hon. Gentleman at the Select Committee last week, this Government are the most transparent ever. Previous Governments, including the Government of whom he was a leading and distinguished member, did not routinely publish the meetings their Ministers had in the way that my ministerial colleagues and I do.

I do not accept at all the right hon. Gentleman’s implication or accusation that the Government are in any way trying to hide information about meetings. Indeed, as he pointed out, I replied in some detail to the shadow Policing Minister about a meeting I had with police commissioners. Any imputation that such meetings are covered up is factually inaccurate.

As a result of the arrival of police and crime commissioners, we are seeing the development of innovative and challenging thinking that cuts to the heart of crime reduction and prevention in our communities. That thinking is the work of a disparate group of individuals who are nevertheless united in their commitment to a single goal that cuts across party politics or ideological leanings—that of cutting crime, reducing the harm that comes to our citizens from those who would wish to do them harm, and making our streets and communities safer places to live.

Those innovations, brought about by the police and crime commissioners, can be split into three broad groups: challenging the criminal justice system to deliver for victims and the vulnerable; challenging local partners to play their part in cutting crime; and challenging forces to drive the changes needed to ensure that front-line services are maintained and improved.

Let me illustrate some of the ideas being brought to life. In the first group, we see examples such as Martyn Underhill, the independent PCC for Dorset, who is developing a victims bureau where victims are supported throughout their journey through the criminal justice system by a single point of contact. Another example is Shaun Wright, Labour PCC for South Yorkshire, who is allocating extra funding to assist the work to prevent child sexual exploitation.

In the second group, Matthew Ellis, the Conservative PCC from Staffordshire, has focused on the interaction between the police and those with mental health issues. He is looking at how officers can reduce the time spent with such individuals, without compromising the service to those who need it. Sue Mountstevens, the independent PCC from Avon and Somerset, is establishing a business crime forum for business leaders to provide input into policing best practice on such areas as CCTV security, security staff and joint initiatives. That will be coupled with prevention work with communities and schools.

In the third group, we are seeing PCCs challenge forces to drive essential changes. PCCs of all kinds are looking at how the police can work more closely with the fire service. Sir Graham Bright, the Conservative PCC from Cambridgeshire, has begun work to exploit better the existing IT systems to provide the opportunity to automate and improve the flow of information across the force. That work is designed to get key information to the officers on the beat when they need it and provides the opportunity for the public to access the police quickly through digital means.

Such innovations have not come about by accident, but by design on the part of the individual PCCs. That is a direct result of the Government achieving what they set out to do all along with the introduction of PCCs—to shift accountability away from Whitehall into the hands of locally elected representatives, who understand the needs and the priorities of the people in their areas far better than policy makers in Whitehall ever could.

The right hon. Gentleman implied that some kind of accountability gap is developing between Whitehall and PCCs. That is not the case. This Government have given serious thought to how we can improve the accountability of the entirety of policing, not just the leadership, and that is why we are seeing improvements in the information that is available to the public. In the case of PCCs, the Home Secretary rightly retains backstop powers that we do not envisage using, but the day-to-day management, governance and oversight of the forces have transferred into the hands of PCCs. The legislation that underpins PCCs is enabling legislation, not preventive legislation. The supposed accountability gap is a fiction created by people who cannot bear to see the transference of accountability away from Whitehall, where it was held for so long—indeed, for too long. The truth of the matter is that what we have seen demonstrates that we were right all along. The challenges and, indeed, controversies that we are seeing are the product of PCCs doing the job they have been elected to do.

The right hon. Gentleman rightly made a point about the availability of information. I share his desire for increasing transparency. We are working towards ensuring that key elements of the information required by legislation are published on the national police.uk website. We are confident that this will enable the public to access even more easily the information they need to hold their PCC to account. Under the specified information order, PCCs have to publish a register of interests, including every pecuniary interest or other paid interest, budgets, contracts and tenders, senior salaries, expenses, and key decisions. We have been clear that it is not the role of central Government to establish and maintain a national register of interests. This is not co-ordinated because the public want to hold their own local PCC, and not all 41 PCCs, to account.

Significant structures and safeguards are in place to ensure that PCCs are able to fulfil the role that the Government intended for them. PCCs already benefit from appropriate checks and balances, as befits their status as democratically elected individuals, through locally elected councillors with strong powers to question the PCC, through the statutory framework that underpins the office of PCC, and ultimately, of course, at the ballot box. As the right hon. Gentleman rightly said, PCCs work every day in the full gaze and scrutiny of the media.

Specific safeguards include the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011, which brought PCCs into being. That is enhanced by the Policing Protocol Order 2011, a document that has been commended in the House of Lords for its ease of comprehension. These documents clearly set out the powers that police and crime panels have to provide supportive scrutiny to their relevant PCCs. Those powers include, but are not limited to, the power to ensure that the appointment of a chief constable is subject to the scrutiny and the potential veto of the panel; the power to ensure that the dismissal of a chief constable is open to proper scrutiny and follows clear procedure; and the power to require that information held by the PCC is made available to the panel and therefore to the public.

If there have been failings in the system—the failings that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned—they may be the result of chairs of panels, and panels themselves, having a lack of understanding of the powers they hold and the role they fulfil. We are confident that panels have the powers they need to fulfil their scrutiny roles. He mentioned the incidents in Lincolnshire. As he knows, the chairman of the panel there wrote to the Home Office asking for advice about whether he could hold a scrutiny meeting. I wrote back to him saying that he could, and he chose to ignore that advice. With the best will in the world, there is not a lot more that the Policing Minister can do when asked for advice than to give it, and if the chair of the panel—former chair; he has subsequently left the job—chooses to ignore it, that is a matter for him.

The protocol is explicit:

“At all times the Chief Constable, their constables and staff, remain operationally independent in the service of the communities that they serve.”

That could not be clearer. Regardless of which PCC is in office, the police have the discretion to use their judgment when deciding who to investigate or arrest, and must by law be wholly without influence of the PCC.

There have been several high-profile cases where the performance of the chief constable has been challenged by the PCC. That is a positive symptom of the shift in accountability from Whitehall to PCCs. It is right that the role of chief constable and the post-holder are open to challenge, and that PCCs have the mandate to challenge them on behalf of the people they represent. It would be a disservice to PCCs and chief constables, who are professionals, to suggest that they would be unable to maintain a professional and productive working relationship having come through any such challenge.

There has been criticism of the size and structure of the offices of PCCs. Indeed, we have heard some tonight from the right hon. Gentleman. There are significant variations. In the examples that he gave, that is partly because of the difference in size between Greater Manchester and Northumbria. However, PCCs have the mandate and the knowledge to determine what is needed to carry out their remit. Who else is better placed to judge that? Equally importantly, all information regarding the offices of PCCs is available to the public, so people will be able to take into account the value for money that their PCC has delivered when they next cast their vote. That is also true of the appointment of deputies and other figures who support the PCC in their duties. Whether those appointments are appropriate or necessary is not for me to say; it is for the public to judge at the ballot box.

PCCs have been complying with the requirements that we made on them to be transparent. The Elected Local Policing Bodies (Specified Information) Order 2011 requires PCCs to publish key information. That includes a register of interests that must include all other pecuniary or paid interests, expenses, budgets, contracts and tenders, senior salaries, and key decisions. The intention is for the public to use that information to hold PCCs to account. I would contrast that with the situation that used to obtain with police authorities.

Police and crime commissioners are doing much that all Members of every party can be proud of. Those actions are a function of the shift in accountability from Whitehall to PCCs. The innovation and ambition in PCCs’ plans for their areas are testimony to their dedication to the role, their commitment to the people of their areas and their desire to make a real change, which is precisely what is happening. It is evident to me that PCCs are doing exactly what Parliament had intended and many of them are doing it extremely well.

Question put and agreed to.