Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville and Lord Rosser

Wednesday 8th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to government Amendment 53, to which my noble friend has just spoken. In responding to my amendment in Committee, my noble friend Lord Ahmad was kind enough to acknowledge that there appeared to be a strong case for extending the availability of public spaces protection orders to bodies other than local authorities. I am most grateful that further consideration has confirmed that view. I know also that the City of London Corporation, whose position prompted my earlier intervention, is grateful for the constructive and open-minded approach taken by officials during discussions on this point. No doubt, other bodies that manage public spaces under statute but are not local authorities will also find the change helpful.

My noble friend will recall that in my amendment in Committee, to which Her Majesty’s Government have now helpfully responded, I alluded to Epping Forest. In this appreciation of the Government response, I quote a testimonial about the Corporation of London from 1979—35 years ago—when I moved in the Commons the Second Reading of a private City of London (Various Powers) Bill on behalf of the City which primarily related to Epping Forest. Two of my noble friends who are now in your Lordships’ House spoke in that Second Reading debate: my noble friend Lord Tebbit, then MP for Chingford, and my noble friend Lord Horam, then replying to the Bill as Under-Secretary for Transport. They were thus witnesses to the quotation uttered by the late Arthur Lewis—then and for the previous 34 years Labour MP for West Ham, where he was Tony Banks’ predecessor—when he spoke in that debate. I quote the conclusive passage in his speech:

“I do not trust the Department of Transport. By its actions over the years it has not proved that it has the best interests of the people at heart. The City of London has proved this. It has done so for 100 years, and certainly to my personal knowledge for the past 34 years … I have gone along to many Ministers, ministerial advisers and local government officers. I have never found any of them so accommodating or helpful as the City of London authority and its officers. They have not put themselves out in the way that the City of London’s officials have. When I have problems or difficulties over Wanstead Flats, West Ham park or Epping Forest, I know that I get better treatment from the authority’s officials than I do from ministerial Departments”.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/3/79; col. 1203.]

I am confident that the Home Office will be rewarded by the Corporation of London for government Amendment 53 with just such similar imaginative service in future.

Finally, to wind up, I also thank the Minister for taking up the drafting point in Clause 67(2) that I raised in Committee in relation to the interpretation of Chapter 2. I note that this has been addressed in the Report stage print of the Bill now before us and I express appreciation for the Government’s reaction to that.

[Lord Rosser]

I will just raise one or two questions on these amendments. Again, I look particularly at what was said in the letter we received from the Minister. On these particular government amendments, that letter ended by saying that any public spaces protection order,

“made by a designated body under the provisions of the new clause would take precedence over a PSPO made by the local authority in whose area the land is situated”.

As I understand it, that means that a PSPO made by the City of London Corporation—if it was so designated—would take precedence over a PSPO made by the local authority covering the area of Epping Forrest, Ashtead Common, Hampstead Heath or any other areas. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm whether that is the case. It is what the last sentence of his letter dealing with these government amendments says, as I just read out.

On the face of it, that would appear to be rather odd because Clause 55, which deals with public spaces protection orders, says that two conditions must be met, the first that,

“activities carried on in a public place within the authority’s area have had a detrimental effect on the quality of life of those in the locality”.

If the City of London Corporation has responsibility for managing an open space, presumably most of those who will be deemed to be affected on the basis of the,

“quality of life of those in the locality”,

are unlikely to actually live in the open space and likely to live in the areas surrounding it, which are presumably within the area of the local authority.

I am not seeking to raise some frivolous point, and my intention is not to oppose this amendment. What I am getting at is whether there are potential areas of conflict now between what the City of London Corporation may deem to be necessary or desirable in a public spaces protection order and the views of the local authority, bearing in mind that it is surely only the local authority that can make the judgment on whether activities were being carried on which had a detrimental effect on the quality of life of those in the locality. I would be grateful if the Minister could clear that up. Perhaps I have misunderstood it. If I have, I am sure the Minister will explain that when he responds.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville and Lord Rosser

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

Would the noble Lord care to answer one thing? Will he comment on why the previous Labour Government, against what I would have thought were all their natural instincts, chose to confer on the City of London Corporation the right to have elections for democratic representation in the City, in which all businesses in the City were allowed to have a vote that was calculated in a particular way? Indeed, they pressed the Corporation to go down that route. Was it really not because there was a recognition that the City at large worked extraordinarily well and that fiddling around with it was not a very profitable use of time, not least in the context of the City of London's success?

[Lord Rosser]

I do not know specifically what the reasons were. They may well have been those that the noble Lord has said. However, I am not sure that that necessarily applies to an argument about the City of London Police, which is what we are discussing, particularly in the context of the expertise which the Metropolitan Police has—and in the context that the City of London is no longer the only financial centre in London. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, the financial centre has moved further east to an extent and nobody has said that those responsible should set up or extend the powers of the City of London Police to cover those new centres, which presumably come under the Metropolitan Police.

It is not irrelevant for this question to be asked when we are talking about a major reorganisation of our police forces, with a major change in how they are run and in governance. Maybe there is a good answer, and I am waiting to hear what the Minister has to say, but the question should be asked: did the Government look at the issue of the retention of the City of London Police and was it justified? If so, what were the reasons for coming to the decision that they did, bearing in mind that they think that all other police forces should be covered by the changes that they are putting forward in this Bill?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

I intervene very briefly. When I am attending your Lordships' House, I stay in a club in my former constituency. In the 1930s, a Duke was slumbering in that club after lunch one day when he became conscious that a man and a woman had entered the room. He waited until they had left and then pressed a bell. The club servant arrived and said, “You rang, your Grace?”. The Duke said, “What was that?”. The club servant said, “That, your Grace, was the club secretary and Her Majesty the Queen”. “Thin end of the wedge”, said the Duke, shut his eyes and went to sleep again.

I will not expand on the point at this hour of the night, but I wanted the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, to know that I have noticed, as the thin end of the wedge, that the City of London again creeps into his Amendment 50.

[Lord Rosser]

One reads with interest the amendment, which, as my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey said, provides for the deputy mayor for policing and crime to be elected, on the basis that it ought to be done on the same terms as the Government proposed for everywhere else in the country under the Bill, namely, for the police commissioner to be directly elected. Clearly, as long as the Bill remains as it is, where there is no elected police commissioner, we will not press for the deputy mayor for policing and crime to be elected. We will be consistent and say that we will stick with the same arrangement in London as the Bill currently has, having been amended by your Lordships' House.

If the Government are to make an effort in future to restore elected police and crime commissioners to the Bill, it would appear rather odd if they did not also say that, if that is what is to happen outside London, Londoners should also be able directly to elect the person who in reality will be responsible for policing. The arrangement that we appear to have at present is for an elected mayor to appoint a deputy mayor, who takes over the role that, if the Government get their way, an elected police commissioner will have elsewhere. I suppose the only parallel—although it is hardly a parallel—is that, if we had elected police commissioners and one were suspended or otherwise unable to operate, that elected police commissioner would, as the Bill stands, appoint someone from their own staff to act in their stead. The arrangement that we appear to be moving towards in London is not that of the mayor waiting to be suspended or otherwise unable to act before appointing someone, but that the mayor, immediately he or she comes into office, appoints someone else to act as the deputy mayor responsible for policing and crime.

We look forward to the Minister’s response on this. As I said, as long as the Bill remains as it is without elected police commissioners, we do not wish to be inconsistent by saying that the deputy mayor for policing and crime in London should be elected. However, if the Government intend to try to restore elected police commissioners to the Bill, we look forward to their explanation of why they think Londoners should not be able to elect the person responsible for policing as well.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville and Lord Rosser

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, I rise to make a short comment on Amendment 31E, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, and to add a gloss on the earlier debate that we had in the context of Amendment 32, spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee.

On Amendment 31E, the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, spoke out for localism in deciding what these salaries should be. I find myself frequently reading in both the national and local press about the extreme distress caused by the salaries that are paid to the chief executives of local authorities, which seem to be totally out of order when compared with the salaries paid in a neighbouring county. Here we are talking about an office which is not elected, but where the decision is taken by the local authority itself. I understand the noble Baroness’s argument about localism but I recall doing these exercises from the centre for four years between 1985 and 1989, when the then Chancellor, my noble friend Lord Lawson of Blaby, delegated to me responsibility for the pay and conditions of the Civil Service. I negotiated with a number of people who now sit on the Benches opposite in connection with those matters. I recall that some jobs in public bodies went beyond purely the Civil Service and that in those cases the Treasury reserved the right to decide what the salaries would be. It was a difficult task and one which I think we discharged with reasonable consistency, accuracy and honour. I would be happier with something of that order rather than the provision which the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, suggested.

In the context of Amendment 32, I heard my noble friend Lady Hamwee say she did not believe that the police and crime commissioners would have a full-time job. I recall that on the previous occasion we debated these matters my noble friend Lord Eccles pulled up the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and asked him where the Bill stated that it would be a full-time job. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, had made the perfectly reasonable assumption that it was likely to be full time. However, here we are on Amendment 32 going back to the situation where it is not likely to be a full-time job at all. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire whether the Government expected the job to be full time and received an immediate answer. I go back to a mild comment that I made on the previous occasion when I said that there was some danger of entering an Alice in Wonderland scenario if we did not keep track of the matters that we were discussing, particularly given the way in which we are dealing with the Bill.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Henig and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, have explained the purpose of their amendments, which we are discussing. I want to refer only to one or two aspects.

This group of amendments seeks to address the considerable powers that are given virtually unchecked and unchallenged under the Bill to police and crime commissioners, while very little meaningful power or responsibility is given to the new police and crime panels. As my noble friend Lady Henig has said, the Bill provides for the Secretary of State to determine a commissioner’s salary. We know very little about how the Secretary of State might do this. At one stage, certainly in the media, there were suggestions of six- figure salaries, though it now appears that the Senior Salaries Review Body may be called in.

However, that raises the issue of why the Secretary of State wants to determine directly the salary of a police and crime commissioner. As has been said, the approach seems at odds with the Government’s declared stance of devolving responsibility as far down the line as they can. Is the view that Whitehall knows best on this issue? Is the Secretary of State of the view that each commissioner should be paid the same irrespective of the geographical size and diversity of the area covered, the population of the area, the size of the budget and of the force and the levels of crime? Or is the Secretary of State of the view that commissioners’ salaries should differ? If so, what factors does she consider should be taken into account? How will she take into account any specific local or area factors? Does she intend to take into account the views of the police and crime panels or, indeed, the views of anybody else other than those of the Senior Salaries Review Body, if that is to be used?

I acknowledge the concerns that the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, and probably others, have about some of the salaries that are paid to chief executives of local authorities. But if you devolve responsibility and you believe that that is right, you have to accept the consequences and not simply say that because you are concerned about what might happen you will automatically keep everything at the centre. Of course, the salary of a local authority chief executive is, in that sense, determined by the local authority members, as are the salaries, if any, to be paid to council members and the council leader. One of the amendments spoken to by my noble friend Lady Henig provides for the salary of a police and crime commissioner to be determined by the police and crime panel. The panel should be in a better position than the Secretary of State to know what salary will be appropriate to the responsibilities and complexities of the position, and what salary is likely to be needed to attract appropriate candidates for the position. It could be argued that that would also enhance the position of the panel and provide a check by the panel to the largely untrammelled authority and power given to a commissioner under the terms of the Bill.

We have discussed other amendments relating to the ability to enter into contracts. As was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, the amendments were intended, at least in part, to probe what powers the Bill seeks to give or to remove. We have heard concerns expressed by my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey about some of the amendments spoken to by the noble Baroness.

I hope that because most of my comments related to the determination of the salary the Minister will recognise the concerns behind the amendments on salaries, reflect that in her response, respond to the concerns expressed by my noble friend Lord Harris about the provision that appears to prohibit an elected policing body from entering into a collaboration agreement with another elected local policing body, and explain the Government’s thinking behind that.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville and Lord Rosser

Wednesday 18th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, did the Committee a service before dinner in drawing our attention to Amendment 62, where there is a specific reference to the staff of the police commissioner. It would be helpful if my noble friend in responding to the debate were to fill in some of the detail of what the Government envisage this staff to consist of, so that the Committee can have a sense of what the structure will be.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, in this amendment we are pursuing the issue of police and crime commissioners. Before I go any further, and in view of the doubts raised by two of the Minister’s noble friends earlier, perhaps I may ask the Minister to say whether the Government envisage the proposed police and crime commissioners being full-time or part-time positions.

The Constitution Committee of your Lordships' House in its report published on 6 May said that Part 1 of the Bill is,

“self-evidently of constitutional importance … From a constitutional perspective, the chief risk with Part 1 is that of politicising operational decision-making … In our judgement it is essential to ensure that any reform to the governance of the police does not jeopardise this principle”.

The committee also noted,

“the concentration of powers in the hands of individual police and crime commissioners”,

and said that the,

“Government must ensure that the values of pluralism, equality and diversity adequately inform the new arrangements for representation and engagement with communities by individual commissioners”.

The amendments that we are discussing would address some of those concerns by seeking to provide a police and crime commissioner, whether elected or not, with the help, advice, wisdom and support of a non-executive board of between four and seven members. One would hope that a police and crime commissioner would use the power to appoint suitable people of independent mind and approach, with differing backgrounds and life experiences, to ensure, working with the commissioner, good governance of financial, staff and equality matters, and to support the commissioner in respect of his or her functions.

The appointment of non-executives is an accepted part of good governance and common practice in both the public and private sectors. Indeed, the Minister has non-executives in her own department. They bring their own expertise to bear and should not be wedded to the ways and practices of a department, of an organisation or of an office. They are there to support but also to challenge, to offer advice, to question—including asking the questions that no one else is prepared to ask—to act as a critical friend and, in extreme, if they think that something is seriously wrong which the commissioner is not addressing, to make their concerns more widely known, or, as my noble friend Lord Soley said, blow the whistle.

The Government’s proposals put far too much unchallengeable power in the hands of an individual. They also, as was said earlier by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, put that same power in the hands of a member of the commissioner’s staff whom the police and crime panel would have to appoint in the event of the commissioner no longer being able to carry out his or her role. The panel would have to appoint them, apparently, even if it felt that there was nobody suitable from within what would presumably be a relatively small number of commissioner staff. That is an extraordinary state of affairs which the Minister has not so far maintained could not arise and which makes the need for a non-executive board even stronger.

I hope that the Minister will recognise the strength of feeling on this issue—about the lack of checks and balances and the weak governance arrangements—and accept at the very least the spirit and intention of these amendments which have been spoken to so ably by my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey.

Identity Documents Bill

Debate between Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville and Lord Rosser

Monday 1st November 2010 Grand Committee

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, sitting between the Cross Benches and my noble friend’s Liberal Democrats, I have to confess that the difference between myself and them is that whereas they could not understand the Bill as it was originally written, I cannot understand it now that it has been rewritten by them. I grew up on childhood problems which involved Mr Black, Mr Brown, Mr Green and Mr White who lived in houses that were—but not necessarily respectively—green, white, brown and black. Then you were given a certain amount of information and you had to decide who was living in the right house. All I can say is that the Minister now constitutes my road to sanity because if she can explain what the original Bill meant and why this measure does not improve it, at least I shall sleep at night.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, and the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, are interesting. Those are the points that I understood. Other points were made which—through my own ignorance, not their failure to explain them—I could not fully understand. I am extremely grateful that I am not left with the hapless task of having to respond to them. No doubt when we have heard the Minister’s response, we will find out the validity or otherwise of the points that have been made. For people such as myself who are not lawyers and who do not profess to understand some fairly obscure wording, will the Minister please give the reasons why she is not accepting the amendments in a layman’s terms, not a lawyer’s? If she is accepting them, presumably there is no problem in that regard.