Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Hamilton of Epsom Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Condon]

My Lords, I declare my registered interest as a former commissioner and chief constable. I, too, welcome the new Minister to her place and wish her well in dealing with the Bill. I support the sentiment, tone and mood of the suggestions made by the noble Baroness, Lady Harris. I do so with some hesitation. I do not want to undermine the ambition of the Government in the Bill, because I believe that there is ample scope for improving the democratic accountability and performance of local policing. Nor am I in principle against the notion of elected local police and crime commissioners. My anxiety concerns whether the provisions as drafted do as they are intended. Will the new elected police and crime commissioners have the infrastructure to deliver? The noble Baroness, Lady Harris, has served the House well by giving us the opportunity to pause and think again today by her amendments. Have we got the right infrastructure in the Bill which will, as we all hope, improve the democratic accountability and performance of policing locally?

We are all prisoners of our experience, and I refer back to my time as chief constable of Kent, a county I know well, still live in and serve in a number of ways. If in two to three years’ time we had an elected police commissioner for Kent, he or she would be expected to connect in some way directly with over 1.5 million people in Kent. He or she would have to connect directly in some way with 17 parliamentary constituencies, a very large county council and 12 very big local authorities. The current proposal, with an elected police and crime commissioner floating free, is a mission impossible when it comes to connecting in a meaningful way with local people on their fears and aspirations concerning crime and related issues.

My second anxiety relates to the drafting concerning the police and crime panels. We will have a transition from the old police authorities. Some of the checks and balances will be carried forward into the police and crime panels, but in other ways, they will be given a different role. My concern there is that we will have 10 to 15 or more people, many of them locally elected through the democratic process, not engaging directly with the public or the police service to improve policing but all facing narrowly towards the new elected police and crime commissioners and all their energies going into what could be, as others have said, a very adversarial, party-political driven contest between the police and crime panel and the elected police and crime commissioner, who may not necessarily be from the same political persuasion. There is a real danger that that will dilute and dissipate a lot of local energy and expertise which should be used in a more collaborative way.

Therefore, I hope that, as we move forward with this debate in your Lordships’ House, we will move towards a position where, if we are to have directly elected police and crime commissioners, they will be located within a more supportive and collaborative framework locally and will not float freely, as is currently envisaged. I am relaxed about whether they become a chair of the police and crime panel, whose role is redrafted and represented, or the chair of a police commission or a police board, or something that locates them in a more collaborative endeavour which gives them a much stronger chance of genuinely tapping into local feelings, moods and concerns, and gives them a much stronger feeling for how they are going to interact with the chief constable and local policing. My hope is that we will somehow find an agreed way of moving towards this more collaborative framework, which genuinely has a much stronger chance of enhancing local accountability and improving police performance.

For the purpose of today’s debate, I am not going to rehearse all the anxieties that I expressed at Second Reading. However, in addition to all the things that we have spoken about so far, there are still a lot of unknowns concerning national structures and how we are going to deal with terrorism, organised crime, police leadership reforms and police pay and conditions reforms. These new proposals involve a massive act of faith and experimentation in moving away from over 180 years of legacy and performance.

Therefore, I am not against elected police and crime commissioners and I am certainly not against improving local democratic accountability in relation to policing but, as we move forward and change more than 180 years of history and legacy, let us make sure that we take our time to get this right.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, I also congratulate my noble friend Lady Browning on being appointed as a Minister. It is a first-class appointment. Having known her well, like many others, in another place, I know that she will be a doughty fighter and very fair with all of us. We are very lucky to have her.

I very much support the Bill because I do not really take the view that has been expressed in this House this afternoon that, in the words of my noble friend Lady Harris, the British police force is the envy of the world. There may have been a time when the British police were the envy of the world but I am not at all sure that that is still true today. One problem that the police have is that they have succeeded in roughing up the middle classes, who traditionally have always supported them, and there is also a perception that they are doing less and less for the poorest in our society, who of course really are the victims of crime. My noble friend Lady Harris said that these were the people who did not vote, but then of course they probably do not vote for the few councillors on the police authority either, so I am not sure that the concept of accountability works here. I think that a larger number of people would probably vote for elected police commissioners than for councillors, and therefore there could only be an improvement on that front.

I am afraid that this is an issue on which I do not agree with my noble friend Lord Cormack. He and I see life in very much the same way on issues of the constitution but on this matter I think that we have to differ. He seemed to be very concerned that the police commissioners would be party-political animals, but I am sure that people must have deployed the same argument in relation to mayors, as did my noble friend Lord Hurd, who is not with us. Clearly, they are party political creatures: but does that mean that they are not able to serve their community? I do not think that there is any evidence for that. If one does not believe in elected police commissioners, presumably one is in favour of getting rid of elected mayors, because I do not see that there is any great difference between the two. I see that my noble friend Lord Cormack wants to get rid of elected mayors as well. I take the view that the ratchet is operating here and that on the whole London has been better represented by elected mayors than it has been without them. Certainly an elected police commissioner will be known and, as has been established very satisfactorily in the debate so far, nobody has the first idea who runs the police authority or who is a member.

We have a serious disconnect between the police and the people whom they are supposed to serve. Introducing elected commissioners would do something to start reconnecting the British people with their police. This is very important and we cannot do anything but benefit from it. I very much support the Bill and oppose the amendment.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, I first declare an interest as a member and former chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, and also as a vice-president of the Association of Police Authorities. The noble Baroness, Lady Harris, has given good service to the House today by moving her amendment, if for no other reason than that it will enable us to have a free-ranging debate in Committee. I hope that it will be a useful introduction to the Minister in her new role; it will enable us to rehearse the arguments for her benefit as well.

The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, is worried that we might pass the amendment, which would be discourteous. However, it would provide an opportunity for—in the current jargon of the coalition—a pause. Apparently pauses are a good thing because they allow the coalition partners to consider whether they are departing on precisely the right track. This would be useful in the context of the Bill. The central objective that the Government have put before us of improving the democratic accountability of the police service is right. I hope that no one in the House would disagree with the principle. The question is whether the mechanism that has been put forward will achieve that objective, or whether it will have unintended consequences. The work of this Committee over the next few weeks or months may be to look in some detail at how this will work in practice, and whether there could be unintended consequences.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, I have no problem with the principle of direct election. I work on the basis that elections are a rather good way of determining who should have ultimate responsibility for things. However, what distinguishes this proposal is that we are talking about the direct election of an individual who will be given tremendous responsibilities, but without a suitable governance structure to prevent a situation in which the individual might make capricious judgments or seek to trespass on the operational independence that chief constables hold so dear. The Bill would give an individual tremendous authority, but without the governance structures, checks and balances that would be necessary given the importance of the role.

When I chaired the police authority in London, I would have welcomed the additional authority that would have been given to me had I been directly elected to fulfil the role. I was a directly elected member of the London Assembly, but that was slightly different from being directly elected to be in charge of the police service for London. I would have welcomed that additional authority. No doubt it would have been helpful to my relationship with the commissioner of police for the metropolis, the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, who has just left us. It would have been particularly important for my relationship with other elected colleagues such as other members of the London Assembly, local council leaders and so forth. I would have been able to say, “This gives me the authority on behalf of the people of London to say what is necessary”, but I would have been operating in the context of checks and balances on what I could and could not do. I would have had other authority members and the scrutiny processes that were in place with the London Assembly. Therefore, it would not have been untrammelled power. I would have had that responsibility and extra authority, but there would have been these mechanisms around.

What is so striking about this Bill is that those mechanisms are virtually absent. We will be told that the policing and crime panels offer that substitute governance structure, but they are essentially scrutiny bodies after the event. They are not part of the decision-taking structure and are not there, except in extremis, to say that a decision has been taken inappropriately. The spirit of partnership with other colleagues is so crucial in this area.

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[Lord Blencathra]

My Lords, I, too, welcome my noble friend Lady Browning to her new responsibilities. She was a superb Minister in another place, and I am sure that she will be equally good in this House. I say to my noble friends that she is a listener and she has tremendous experience of policing. The noble Baroness, Lady Henig, said in her remarks in her excellent speech, which I much enjoyed listening to, that the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, would hear some examples today of practical policing. The Minister may now be hearing those examples from a different perspective, but if one has been a constituency Member of Parliament in the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary area, I think that one gets practical examples of policing from constituents both happy and unhappy. I welcome her to her new responsibilities.

It was a privilege to listen to the speech of my noble friend Lady Harris of Richmond, who introduced her amendment with a very passionate and well intended speech, but like my noble friend Lord Carlile I think that she is profoundly wrong. I say so to your Lordships as someone who must also declare some form, not from any past responsibilities as Police Minister but from the sabotage that I successfully performed two or three years ago when Cumbria Constabulary decided to amalgamate with Lancashire Constabulary. I am not sure who decided that or who was in the driving seat, but both police authorities—unelected police authorities—were fanatically keen that the amalgamation should happen. I urged the Cumbria Police Authority not to do it, as I think did most other Members of Parliament in Cumbria from all political parties, but the unelected police authority, paying no attention to our views or to the views of the vast majority of the public in Cumbria, proceeded hell for leather with amalgamation talks. I decided that I would do my utmost to stop it because I thought that it was wrong and not what the people wanted. After I challenged the suggested savings of £20 million, they came down a few months later to £10 million and a couple of months later to being cost-neutral. Once they got to minus £10 million, the authority began to think again. When they became a cost of plus £21 million, the unelected police authority finally abandoned all effort at amalgamation. At that point I concluded that there has to be something better than an unelected police authority driving this process forward and not caring what the local people want. Therefore, I do support the main thrust of this Bill and, with all due respect, must disagree with my noble friend on her amendment, which would stop this Bill in its tracks.

Your Lordships will be pleased to hear that I can be mercifully brief, because I entirely agree with the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Dear. I had the great honour of him following me when I made my maiden speech, and he was so generous in his remarks as to be almost bordering on the untruthful. Of course, he was not—but today I can assert with all authority that he has not exaggerated his case in any iota. If we were to remove this element of the Bill today, we would do a great disservice to the agreement made between the coalition parties and to the electorate, because of the manifesto commitments of the major parties.

The only other little point that I shall pick up is one from the noble Baroness, Lady Henig. She said that she was worried that crime might go up with an elected commissioner, but I profoundly disagree, for a reason advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, who was afraid that an elected commissioner might be a bit populist. Well, I hope so; if populist means doing what the people or the electorate want, then bring on populism. If the commissioner is to be populist, he will be bearing down on crime day in and day out, because that is what the electorate will want. They want that in the rural areas, the city areas, the Tory areas and the Labour areas, as well as in the areas where people do not vote or apparently care a fig about politics. They want the police to bear down on crime, as it affects them.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

Does the noble Lord also agree that an elected commissioner might well cut down on the form-filling and paperwork that seems to take place under police forces these days and put the police back on the street where they can cut the crime?

[Lord Blencathra]

I would like to hope that that would be the case, but I suspect that the only means of cutting down on form-filling rests with the Home Office. I shall put down some more amendments to remove some more of the form-filling, if I may.

I remember in my time at the Home Office that every time we asked the police to fill in a new form it was in response to our need to answer a parliamentary Question. When a colleague wanted to know the number of helmets lost in Herefordshire we would ask the police to supply that information, and inevitably the Home Office would then invent the form for every police force to fill in the number of helmets lost. So the responsibility for cutting down on the form-filling rests on us as parliamentarians not wanting to know the minutiae of policing in local areas, but leaving that to the local people.

I have pushed noble Lords’ kindness and generosity too far and will conclude my remarks. I visited Commissioner Bratton in 1996, when I was passing back through New York, and I was impressed by what he was doing. I thought, yes, that is almost as good as what they are doing in the Met already and in most of our county forces. This thing about the broken window syndrome—yes, it was wonderful. Commissioner Bratton overnight got his hands on 7,000 extra police officers, who were not very well trained because they were from the New York Transit Police and Housing Police. But overnight he put 7,000 extra bobbies on the streets, and New Yorkers saw a difference. That was one of his main successes.

The problem we have here is that the term commissioner for an elected commissioner is the same as the term commissioner in New York, but the job is totally different. Commissioner Bratton was a hands-on police officer; he had direction and control and operational policing charge, just like Met commissioners and just like the commissioner in the City of London. The commissioners envisaged in this Bill are political appointees with no direction and control over the police force—that will be the chief constable. Perhaps not today but at Second Reading there was some confusion among some of us that we were electing commissioners who would have hands-on responsibility. They will not.

There is something in what the noble Lord, Lord Condon, has said about having more resources for the commissioner so that he or she can connect with the local people. I disagree with my noble friend Lord Cormack that it would be impossible for an elected commissioner to know the views of the people in Thames Valley. If the chief constable can do it, surely a politician can as well.

I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Condon, who, interestingly, is not in disagreement with the principle of the Bill. I would be very worried if someone of his experience and responsibilities in the past was opposed to the principle, but he is not. He is worried that the elected commissioner may not have enough back up to carry out his role of assessing what the people in, say, Thames Valley, North Yorkshire or other large-spread police areas want. I hope the Government will address that issue and reassure him.

On the basis of what the noble Lords, Lord Condon and Lord Dear, have said, I, too, urge that the amendment not be pushed to a vote. If it is, with all due respect to the noble Baroness, I hope that she will be defeated.

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[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords—

[Lord Dear]

My Lords—

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

The noble Baroness has given way to me. Does she accept that there are some very deprived areas in our inner cities where the police do not patrol at all?

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

That is not my experience of Lancashire or of the other authorities that I know well. I know that there are areas where the police service is stretched to breaking point by the circumstances that they face on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, but my experience in Lancashire is that the service is provided without fear or favour to all the communities there.