Police and Crime Commissioners and Panels

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his helpful question. It is of course up to the Government, and we talked about last week’s Casey review at some length in the Chamber. The Government are doing a lot to restore confidence in the police, and of course the police also have a responsibility to do so, as Sir Mark Rowley has said.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, said, is there not example after example, across the country, of police and crime panels failing to hold chief constables and commissioners to account? Instead of the Government having review after review, is it not about time that police and crime panels were given the teeth to hold commissioners to account and, in that way, restore confidence to policing? If the Minister is so confident of the work of the police and crime panels, will he place in the Library a list of examples of where they have worked?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The Government are confident that the panels have the appropriate powers—agreed by Parliament, as I said—to effectively scrutinise the actions and decisions of PCCs and enable the public to hold them to account. Through the review process, we agreed that this scrutiny was inconsistent in some cases, and significant measures have been taken to do something about that. These include extensive engagement with members of the panels, which has proved popular; indeed, there are requests for more of that engagement.