Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, as vice-president of the Association of Police Authorities and as chair of the All-Party Group on Policing.

Fundamental to the model of British policing is the notion of policing by consent, particularly in our society, where the police are largely unarmed and must rely on the good will and confidence of the citizens to carry out their duties effectively and sensitively. The lifeblood of policing is information, and the reason this information flows from the public to the police can be summed up in one word, trust—trust in the police to act fairly and with integrity, and trust in the police that the information will be used judiciously and without attracting retribution from anyone.

Without that trust, information stops and policing becomes ineffective. To achieve this trust, you must have accountability. Without accountability the police become a controlling force, an oppressive instrument of powerful and self-interested groups. In parts of the world this will be the military, in others local warlords, and in some, perhaps, the senior officers in the police force itself. If policing is thus distorted or dictated to by unrepresentative groups, the trust of the public is gone. The only possible result is a downward spiral that manifests itself in corruption, organised crime and abuses of human rights. So, getting it right matters. But how confident can we be that the Bill does get it right? The drafting is certainly deficient. Take the centrepiece of the Bill—the creation of directly elected police and crime commissioners. The dictionary tells you that a “commissioner” is “one who commissions”, and that “to commission” is,

“the act of procuring, committing or performing”.

So in England and Wales we are to have 41 directly elected police and crime commissioners procuring, committing or performing crime. That is brilliant drafting.

Of course, in London we are not going to get directly elected commissioners, partly because we already have two commissioners: the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis and the Commissioner of the City of London Police, who is responsible for a resident population of around 10,000, the size of a local government ward elsewhere in the capital. Instead, the corporation will continue in its own unique and, I have to say, rather opaque way, and the rest of the city will have the “Mopsy”—the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime. Because we already have a directly elected mayor, we will not have a directly elected individual in charge of the police service; so instead the mayor will appoint a deputy—to be called the deputy “Mopsy”—to run the “Mopsy”. That is what the Bill says.

I have no problem with the principle of direct election. Indeed, when I was the first chair of the police authority in London I would have welcomed the additional authority that direct election would have given me—not, I hasten to add, in dealing with the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, who, as all his colleagues knew, was an absolute pussycat in all such matters. It was much more about authority in relation to other elected individuals, all of whom would otherwise claim primacy in trying to set a general direction for the police force. Therefore, I would have had no problems with that principle, but had I been elected directly to the office of chair of the police authority, I would have been surrounded by an effective governance structure. That would have made arbitrary decisions by myself, or inappropriate directions to the chief officer of police, impossible.

Most of the governance mechanisms that police authorities currently provide are swept away by the Bill. What is also lost is the visible answerability of the chief officer of police. At the last meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority, the Met not only gave and answered questions on its regular operational report and on the policing budget for the year but apologised to the family, present in the audience, of Daniel Morgan, who was murdered in 1987 and whose killers have not been brought to justice because, it is alleged, of police corruption; made a statement about the delays in bringing Delroy Grant to justice for the attacks on elderly people in south London over many years; responded to questions about phone-hacking and the News of the World; and heard from people in the audience about the death of Smiley Culture who allegedly stabbed himself during a police raid.

Where would that happen under this Bill? How would the visible answerability of the police service work under these proposals? The answer is that there is no such mechanism. It may be that the Minister, in response, will talk fondly about the proposed police and crime panels, and say that somehow they will be a substitute. That would be nonsense. If that is the argument she was planning to deploy, I suggest that she does not do so. Those panels will not have authority over the chief officer of police, and they will not even have the power to require his or her attendance at their meetings. Their remit is to scrutinise the elected commissioner, or the MOPC in London. Those forums, by necessity, will be overtly party political, as one group of elected politicians seeks to score points over another elected politician. This is what will happen. It is not clear how the new arrangements will ensure that there is a balanced model of policing everywhere in the country. How will the national policing requirement be enforced to ensure that every force plays its part in delivering effective policing to combat serious organised crime and to counter terrorism? Yes, there will be a national policing requirement, but how is that to be enforced?

There are many other problems. For example, as presently drafted, the Bill makes each chief officer of police a “corporation sole”. This is intended to permit them to employ police staff. Leaving aside whether or not this is a desirable objective—it is a function that could perfectly satisfactorily be carried out by police and crime commissioners, and is currently carried out by police authorities—the function of this corporation sole is not effectively limited to this specific function, potentially allowing chief officers to enter into procurement contracts and detracting from the authority of police and crime commissioners.

The Bill also creates two statutory chief finance officers for each force—one for the police and crime commissioner’s office and one for the force itself. Having two corporations sole for each force will in practice create two auditable bodies, two sets of accounts and consequential cost and bureaucracy, along with a blurring of lines of accountability—the exact antithesis of what the Bill is supposed to achieve. There will be more additional expense and duplication, with a worsening of accountability.

However sound or otherwise the intentions of this Bill, it fails to do what it says on the tin. The risk is that it will weaken police accountability; that the police will be less answerable, not more; and that we will create a system that is more expensive, less efficient, and will in the end undermine that trust on which policing by consent depends.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I am grateful for the generally thoughtful tone of the debate this afternoon and evening, even if it was not especially supportive of the Government’s position. Like other noble Lords, I was struck by the fact that it was graced by three outstanding maiden speeches, from my noble friends Lady Berridge, Lady Newlove and Lord Blencathra. Listening to the speech of my noble friend Lady Newlove, in particular—I agree with those who said how moving it was; indeed, she told a tragic story—I was reminded that this Bill is also a social responsibility Bill. I am sure that the whole House hopes that when enacted it will reduce the likelihood of the sort of incident that she described occurring in the future.

As time is short, I should like to confine the greater part of my closing remarks to Part 1 of the Bill. I hope that the House will understand if I do not tackle all the points made, but I hope to touch on the key themes. Something else that struck me in the debate was the fact that many of the doubts expressed by Members of this House betrayed what I would regard as being a preference for expertise over visible leadership, reliance on robust democracy and indeed the good sense of the electorate—a prejudice that my noble friend Lord Howard warned us against at the beginning of the debate. Reliance on the people is not, as some noble Lords have suggested, naivety. It is actually healthy democracy. As against that, I particularly welcome the offer from those who have considerable experience in policing to work with us to engage constructively on making these reforms work. Of course, I accept that there are ways in which they can be improved.

The core of the Bill, however, is about accountability. It is not about operational policing matters. The Bill will support operational matters and will not, as has been suggested, somehow adversely affect them. That is why your Lordships did not hear from me this evening about many operational policing matters, on which Members on the opposition Benches have touched. I agree with those who have said that we have the best police service in the world, but we do not have the best governance of that police service. It is that aspect that the Bill is designed to improve.

There have been many queries as to why the reforms are needed and why they are needed now. Let me touch on this again; I spelt it out in my opening remarks, but it is worth repeating one or two of the points. A number of noble Lords suggested that the reforms are not needed. We disagree. It is clear, as I have indicated, that there are some philosophical differences between us, as well as, I suspect, differences in the assessment of the quality of the situation that we have at the moment. In our view, the case for change is clear. Police authorities are not sufficiently connected to the public. We know this because only 7 per cent of the public understand that they can approach their police authority if they are dissatisfied with policing. I reject the argument that anonymity does not matter. A typical police authority gets only about two letters a week from the public. When the Mayor of London took on the responsibility of policing in our city, the fact that there was a recognisable figure in charge prompted a significant rise in the amount of correspondence received from the public. The public care and, contrary to what has been suggested, they are not satisfied. At the moment, they simply do not know whom to call. We believe that some of the provisions, which have not received great attention in the debate, for greater transparency in all the proceedings that will take place between the police and crime commissioner, the chief constable and the PCPs, which lie at the core of the Bill, will help immensely in generating greater information about and confidence in the police.

The noble Baroness, Lady Harris, argued that no police authorities had failed their inspections. That is the case, but we do not think that not failing is good enough. As I mentioned, only four police authorities are performing well out of the 22 inspected by HMIC. I think that we all agree that HMIC must be respected in its judgments. We believe that we can do better than that and that the public have a right to expect better performance.

We also think that there is a democratic deficit between the authorities and the public whom they are meant to serve. Only 8 per cent of wards in England and Wales are represented on a police authority. We think that the system of governance, even if it is not broken, is not performing well enough and requires improvement, so we are going to make the changes. We also think that the change is needed now. As I indicated, the Government do not believe that piloting would be helpful. I have no doubt that I will have considerable opportunity in Committee to explain in greater detail why I think that that is the case, but I must inform the House that I will be resisting that idea vigorously.

The coalition parties support the direct democratic reform of police authorities. It is interesting that the Opposition also favour the democratic reform of police authorities. The only difference between the Opposition and the coalition Government is how, not whether, it should occur. That puts a point on some of the arguments that we have heard tonight. Right at the outset of the debate, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, suggested that HMIC be asked to approve the Government’s reforms before they are instituted or that there should be a series of local referenda before they could take effect. If we think, as a House and as Parliament, that direct democracy in policing could be improved, it seems to me odd that we should suggest that HMIC should make a judgment on what is clearly a political matter. That is not what HMIC is there for. As for local referenda, the PCCs are a national policy, and a single system of governance is needed. Policing crosses force boundaries, just as criminals do, and we must have a degree of commonality in how it operates, so I do not think that we can go for local referenda.

In respect of the arguments made to the effect that these reforms will politicise policing—we have heard a great deal of that this evening—I want to be absolutely clear: that will not be the case. There is no reason why there should not be partnership between the PCC and the chief constable. Many of the Bill’s provisions are clearly designed as a failsafe in case there are problems but the whole premise of the Bill is that there should be partnership. We agree with those who say that there should be partnership, and we are confident that partnership will come about. Equally, it is important, as the whole House acknowledges—we certainly support this—that the operational independence of chief officers is not prejudiced. It will not change. Under the 1996 Act chiefs will continue to have direction and control of their staff. Operational independence is already protected, not just by measures in primary legislation but also in common law and the attestation of all constables on appointment, as has been said in debate. It is a cornerstone of British policing and nothing—nothing—in the Bill or any protocol that we produce will alter that, but we shall seek to make the principles of the relationship between the various parties clear in the protocol.

It has been well said that the police are answerable to the law. Indeed, we are all answerable to the law. But the Government see no contradiction between being answerable to the law and being accountable. These two things go hand in hand.

I have no doubt that in debate we will spend some time on the arrangements in London. I am not going to deal with those this evening, but I should like to make a comment on one point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Harris. He seemed to be suggesting—perhaps I have him wrong—that because the precise method of accountability of the chief constable had not been prescribed in the legislation, therefore it could be assumed that there was no such answerability. That is not the case. The PCC has the same statutory responsibility to hold the chief constable to account as he has at present to the police authority. Not everything has to be spelt out in detail in the legislation as if no one is capable—

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, my point was not that there is not a clear accountability mechanism, because that is set out in the Bill; my point is—it applies not just in London but to all the PCCs—that the one-to-one relationship between the elected individual and the chief officer of police does not allow for the visible answerability of the chief officer of police, answering questions in public on matters that affect the locality. That is what will disappear in this Bill.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I do not think that that is the case, my Lords, because there is nothing to stop meetings taking place in public. Indeed, the records have to be put into the public domain, so I do not think that somehow this relationship will be conducted behind closed doors. On the contrary, I think that it will be extremely transparent. One other point I would like to make is that the police and crime commissioner can require a chief constable to report on a particular matter if he does not get co-operation from him, although I do not see why he should not. Both accountability and transparent accountability will be present in arrangements.

I should like to deal with some of the points where it was claimed that this new model would be costly and would introduce unnecessary bureaucracy, and to be clear about what the model involves. The PCP will not replace the police authority, so those costs are gone. The PCC replaces the police authority and indeed will need support staff but, unlike now, they will be held directly to account by the public, so we will require them to publish details of their expenditure and the public will expect them to deliver value for money. This creates a very strong incentive to drive costs down, an incentive which does not exist at present.

If the House is concerned about costs, I say that the alternative models that have been suggested—an elected chair of a police authority or indeed an elected police authority—are no less expensive than what we are proposing, and would probably be more expensive. We also think they would be less effective.

Finally, I should like to put these reforms into their proper context. Some noble Lords have asserted that PCCs will be concerned only with the local agenda, neglecting national issues and protective services. I had hoped that I had spelt that out adequately in my opening remarks, but let me repeat that that is not the case. The Bill starts to rebalance the system from the Government telling local areas what their priorities are to focusing on those issues that are of national importance such as organised crime and counterterrorism. To that end, we have included Clause 79, which gives powers to the Home Secretary, as I mentioned, to set out a strategic policing requirement. That is obviously an important document. The strategic policing requirement will describe the collective capabilities that police forces across England and Wales would need to have in place in order to protect the public from serious harm and maintain national security; that is, the contribution that they would be expected to be capable of making to these national issues. The police and crime commissioners will have to have regard to the strategic policing requirement, which means that they may not ignore it when setting out their police and crime plans. It cannot be the case that their focus can be wholly local.

I cannot see how a police and crime commissioner who wished to be regarded as effective would see his duties as not encompassing the things that he needs when it is quite obvious to the public that he needs to be charged with doing them effectively. When he is setting out his police and crime plans, they will include the discharge by that police force of its national or international functions, and chief officers will be held to account if in any respect they fail to come up to the operational standards that are required. Furthermore, all this will be underpinned by the new backstop powers which currently apply only to the Metropolitan Police Authority for the Home Secretary to enter into an agreement with any PCC or the Mayor of London on their national and international functions, where it is deemed necessary, to direct them to take action. We hope that that is not the kind of thing that is going to be necessary, but clearly the power will be in place if it has to be exercised. At a later time, as the House is aware, we will be introducing the new national crime agency, which will be a framework for the functions of national scope, and these will cover such things as organised crime.

I turn briefly to the points made on licensing, the first of which is the removal of the vicinity test. I know there is a fear that this proposal could lead to an increase in frivolous or vexatious representations, but I have to say that during our consultation a very large number of respondents welcomed greater community involvement in the licensing process, and they were clear that the activity related to licensed premises can have an effect well beyond the immediate vicinity. The objectors, of course, have to make a case which is related to the full purposes of licensing.

On the issue of health bodies becoming responsible authorities, I can confirm that the Government will ensure that in the future this role is compatible with the changes being made to PCTs, but in the short term the PCTs will be the relevant health bodies. As regards the maximum fine for underage sales of alcohol, by doubling it, the Government are sending to retailers a clear message that we will not tolerate the sale of alcohol to children. The noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, asked a number of detailed questions focusing on why the Government were not doing more in other areas, and no doubt we will take those in greater detail in Committee. The point of the Bill is to do something simple, obvious and straightforward, and which is capable of being actioned in a way that we hope will be effective. However, I quite appreciate that there are issues other than those set out in the Bill which add up to an effective challenge to the increasing abuse of alcohol.

As for the levy, it applies across the whole licensing authority area because that is the simplest and fairest way of ensuring that all premises that benefit from selling alcohol late at night contribute towards costs. We have to recognise, as I have just said, that there is a problem of alcohol abuse in this country and it has to be tackled. That is why the emphasis in this Bill is on increasing our ability to do just that.

I hope the House will be willing to forgo responses on the many points raised in relation to Parliament Square and universal jurisdiction. The noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, has promised us a lively debate in Committee on the first and I have no doubt that we shall debate the need for the intervention of the DPP on the second. The DPP has made it clear that he would be willing and would have the capacity to act rapidly in any case and that his intervention would not act as a delay or a bar on issuing a warrant.

The core of the debate has been on the PCCs and I want to make two last points. First, the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, made the point, which I am sure the whole House accepts, that we shall need to come together on this Bill to ensure its passage. Secondly, while I did not accept many of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, he said something with which I profoundly agree; namely, that trust is crucial to the preservation of our tradition of unarmed, impartial policing. In making the changes, the Government are determined to preserve this long-standing principle and great tradition. I commend the Bill to the House.