Police Service: New Governance Structure

Lord Dear Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, for focusing on this timely issue just before the country—in very large numbers, we hope, but perhaps they will not be—goes to vote for its local police and crime commissioners. As a declaration of interest, I remind the House of my service for some years in the police service.

We are here to debate the challenges to the police service in the new landscape. This is not necessarily the time to debate too deeply the rights and wrongs, perceived or otherwise, of the concept of police and crime commissioners; we have done that at length in your Lordships’ House in previous months. I personally have supported the concept; I am wary of many of the pitfalls but hope that they will not present themselves. In the short time available, I want to pick up on three issues that I think will define the whole landscape of policing as the new PCCs emerge and begin to make their mark on what is certainly a fundamental change to the whole landscape of policing as we know it. I want to pick up on the lack of a five-year plan, on the National Crime Agency, which has just been mentioned by the previous speaker, and on the whole issue of professionalism.

First, a five-year plan does not exist. Unlike the Armed Forces, which have a national defence review where every five years the whole of the international landscape is scanned, against which one then tries to measure the response that our Armed Forces may well need to adopt to counter growing threats and situations, we do not have one in this area and we never have. It has been a matter of some dismay to me that we do not. Funnily enough, the PCCs, who are essentially elected on local issues, are in a strangely privileged position to be able to address this. I hope that they will not fall into the trap of parochialism. Rather, I hope that, as they almost certainly will, they body together as a grouping of 40 or so individuals nationally every so often to discuss mutual problems. I hope, when they meet as that national body, that they will reflect on the fact that no national business, no commercial concern, with 40 or more regional divisions—that is how one might well look at the police service in this instance—would ever exist without a regular scan of the distant horizon. In business they would need to look, as indeed they do, at demographic issues, socioeconomic issues, climatic issues, the international dimension and so on. There is a need for that, and if the Home Office has not done it—no Home Office under any Government whom I know of has ever done this—then there is a role for the PCCs to do it, and to help with their own local input against the broader canvas.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said that she was not too sure that she supported the National Crime Agency, if I understood her correctly. I understand where she is coming from as there are indeed doubts about it, but I personally have long supported the concept of it. There is a power for the National Crime Agency to direct the PCCs if push comes to shove, but I hope that that is a stick that will remain in the cupboard. I look for, hope for and probably anticipate that there will be a good deal of mutual understanding between the NCA on the one side and the PCCs on the other, seeking to fit the local issues into the national landscape.

With regard to national and international crime, the national landscape is a problem, and I shall give the House an indication of how big that problem is. Recent estimates are that 30,000 individuals, grouped together in 7,500 groups, are involved in organised crime affecting the UK and its interests. Over 50% of the 7,500 groups operating in the UK are involved in drug trafficking. Last year, Serious Organised Crime Agency-led activity recovered over £450 million worth of drugs in seizures.

The National Fraud Authority indicates that organised crime group activity has resulted in £9.9 billion-worth of fraud committed against individuals in this country. Cybercrime is confidently estimated to be in the order of £27 billion. The last figure I shall weary the House with, in order to put this into a more human dimension, is that the UK Human Trafficking Centre’s assessment is that there were 2,077 adult and child trafficking victims in the UK last year.

All that will have to be played out face to face with the local issues that the PCCs will deal with. I recognise the tensions that may exist, but I indicate my support for the National Crime Agency. It has to be with us, and I hope it will work in harmony with the PCCs.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, let me make it clear that I support the National Crime Agency.

[Lord Dear]

Finally, I turn to professionalisation in the service. We have recently received two reports from Mr Tom Winsor, who was recently appointed as Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary. Those reports, taken together, produce the most radical review of policing we have seen for at least 50 years. There has been opposition, perhaps understandable opposition, from the Police Federation, and the media interest on the days of the reports’ publication seemed to focus on compulsory fitness tests for police and little else. I support compulsory fitness tests, but there is much more in the reports than that. Mr Winsor seeks, quite rightly, and I support him in it, to sweep away outdated practices in the police service and attract the best recruits to it. His stated aim—and I ask the House to reflect on this—is to create a white-collar profession rather than a blue-collar job. I think that that is long overdue. He seeks to replace the Police Negotiating Board—the PNB—with a salary review body. That is admirable. The PNB has served its purpose very well over the years, but I believe that it is no longer fit for purpose. It needs streamlining; it needs to flatten the rank structure; and particularly, it needs to reward those who contribute massively to the police effort rather than those who are along just for the ride.

I shall touch briefly on two-tier entry. I have spoken before in your Lordships’ House on my support for a streamlined, two-tier entry system. Winsor talks of a three-tier entry system, but I shall leave that for another moment. The two-tier entry system deserves a fair wind because there is no doubt in my mind that we do not get a sufficient number of Russell group graduates coming into the police. The police are not seen as an obvious career of choice in that group. We need to recruit people at that level who have the essential character qualities of integrity, personal value sets, common sense and moral courage and who are leaders, not just managers.

There is one other issue I shall touch on: the college of policing, not the Bramshill staff college. I support it and hope it will see success in coming months and years. It is badly needed to set standards, ethics, style and purpose for the police in a way that has not altogether been clear before. It is something that one hopes will eventually grow to command status and respect like the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, the Royal College of Physicians and so on. In that landscape, PCCs will have a vital role to play. They may find their role difficult at times, but I believe that they will contribute much.