Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Lord Hamilton of Epsom and Lord Condon

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.