Police Reform

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Tuesday 18th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The power to appoint the chief constable will reside with the appointed person who has responsibility for policing. That could well be the mayor, the person appointed by the mayor as the deputy mayor, or the lead councillor in a policing and crime board. The dilemma that the noble Lord mentioned will still be there, but it is important, given their wider responsibilities, for the chief constable to be appointed by the person to whom they will ultimately be accountable. That is the same as for any chief executive. Political interference on the day-to-day business of the chief constable is an absolute red line that we want to strengthen.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I strongly support the Statement to which my noble friend the Minister is responding. He was right to remind us of the history, which is that the Labour Party opposed the creation of these positions. We were 100% right in doing so, because they failed in their central objective to make policing more accountable. The abysmal turnout for the elections shows that that has not worked. Added to that is the recognition figure in the Statement, whereby only 16% of people can say who the police commissioner is in their area. I have only one rather nosy question to ask my noble friend. With his insight and information, and bearing in mind that this was a decision by the coalition Government, who do we primarily blame for this: the Tories or the Liberal Democrats?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

As a believer in collective government responsibility, which I have to be at this stage, I say that there was joint and several responsibility for the policy. I am very sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady May, cannot be with us today; as Home Secretary at the time, she was the prime deliverer of the policy. I wrote to her to give her advance notice of the Statement. To answer my noble friend, it is a shared responsibility.