Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I give notice of my intention to oppose the Question that the clause stand part of the Bill. I will probe the Government on why the clause is in the Bill. I hasten to add that I have no personal interest in this matter; I do not intend to stand as police and crime commissioner for the West Midlands.
The clause states that an elected police and crime commissioner will be disqualified while holding office from sitting or voting in the House of Lords, and that no Writ of Summons may be issued to a Member of the House of Lords while they are disqualified under this section. My reading of this is that, unlike in the case of police authorities, current Members of your Lordships' House will be eligible to stand for election, but if elected they will take leave of absence under the changes in the rules that have allowed this to happen in the past few years. I merely ask the noble Baroness why it is deemed appropriate to exclude elected police and crime commissioners from sitting as Members of your Lordships' House.
It is a puzzle, because traditionally the House of Lords has welcomed Members who are on public bodies and boards. I remind the noble Baroness of the Companion to the Standing Orders. On pages 75 and 76, guidance is set out to Members of the Lords who are employed by executive agencies or other public bodies. After a page of guidance, the Companion states that:
“Experience acquired as a member of a public board will often be relevant to general debates in which the same considerations do not arise, and the contribution of board members who are members of the House may be all the more valuable because of that experience”.
It has been clear ever since I have been a Member that service on public bodies is to be welcomed among Members of your Lordships' House, and that in debates, while a member of a public board certainly is not there to speak on behalf of that body in the Chamber, the general experience from service on that body is immeasurably helpful. Indeed, in the previous debate we heard a very good example of that from the Minister. She served on the Electoral Commission and rightly said that there were matters discussed that she could not disclose to your Lordships' House. However, she was able to make a few apposite points from her experience. If we are to have elected police commissioners, they would be extremely valuable to your Lordships' House in terms of the contributions that they may make.
Perhaps it is considered that elected police and crime commissioners will be doing full-time jobs. Indeed, on our first day in Committee we had a debate about that; and on the second day the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, confirmed that the Government's view was that these would be full-time posts. Although I can see the point, I have to say that I do not know what the elected police and crime commissioner will do when working a full-time job if it is not to interfere in the operational responsibilities of the chief constable. However, we will leave that point.
All I will say is that 26 Members of your Lordships’ House already carry out full-time responsibilities—the most reverend Primates and the right reverend Prelates. I remind the Minister that in the draft Bill on Lords reform—on the assumption that the option of an 80 per cent elected House is chosen, which would mean that 20 per cent of the Members are appointed—the right reverend Prelates are to continue. We therefore have a clear precedent that members of public bodies ought to be encouraged to be Members of your Lordships’ House. We also have an example of full-time Members in other jobs who are also Members of your Lordships' House. I really do not understand this proposal and I think that the Government should take it away.
Baroness Browning
My Lords, I will try to take some of the shock out of the noble Baroness’s reaction to this and explain the thinking behind it. So far as this House is concerned, life Peers do not have the option of standing down, and therefore disqualifying Members of this House from standing as a police and crime commissioner would in effect be a life ban. In this area, we are following the model set out in the European Parliament (House of Lords Disqualification) Regulations 2008. There is a precedent for a similar situation already on the statute book. Further, as hereditary Peers are elected but without terms of office, a hereditary Peer who stood down to serve as a PCC would not easily be able to return once their term of office as a PCC ended. Therefore, rather than disqualifying a Member of this House from standing as a PCC, this clause prevents a serving PCC from sitting or voting in this House. This enables Members of the House to stand as a PCC if they so wish and to return to full membership following their term of office as a PCC. It does, however, allow them to devote all their energy to representing the public that elected them as a PCC.
I would suspect that, as in many other elected offices that the public are involved in, there is quite a mood these days about how much time an elected representative devotes to the task in hand, whatever it is. The public scrutinise, often at very close quarters, the time spent by those elected to that type of office. I must therefore reiterate that whatever people regard as the time commitment made to serving in your Lordships’ House, a police and crime commissioner’s job would be a full-time job in every sense.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her response. I do not wish to detain the Committee. Three points have been raised in this debate. The first is that the issue of the European Parliament is a red herring. We changed the law because there was a problem with a Liberal Democrat MEP who, because of European law, would have been disbarred from standing for and accepting a seat in Europe because she was also a Member of your Lordships’ House. That was why we made provision for a special leave of absence.
The second issue is that many Members of your Lordships’ House also have full-time responsibilities. We have many lawyers. Indeed, I see the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, in his place. He always strikes me as being not only a hardworking lawyer, but also an assiduous Member of the House. The noble Lord, Lord Lyell, mentioned the Lords Spiritual, and we heard from my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Tope. What is of concern is that the Home Office seems to be enunciating a new rule which states that the Home Office is now deciding whether it is appropriate or not for your Lordships to take on another responsibility. It is not for the Home Office to so decide. I should tell the noble Baroness that I am certain of one thing: if this is put to the vote at the Report stage, she would lose it.
Lord Carlile of Berriew
Before we conclude this interesting debate, I thought I might add a few words. The first thing that occurs to me is that we are introducing an entirely new principle which will deprive an existing Member of your Lordships’ House of the right that he or she has acquired by Writ of Summons and under the Royal Prerogative to attend this House of Parliament. That seems to me to be a very serious departure within our own jurisdiction. I agree with the noble Lord opposite that the position of Members of the European Parliament is quite different for European constitutional reasons.
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Hamwee
In addition to this amendment, I also have Amendment 47 in this group. They are two amendments among a number proposing different models of piloting the proposed new policing governance. Before I turn to the substantive issues, noble Lords will be aware that we have quite a difficult day ahead of us in that the groupings of amendments today have been described as aggressive in an attempt to get us to move on more swiftly with the Bill. Apart from one enormous grouping of about 60 amendments, I have been quite happy to go along with this, but I think it may leave the Committee in a difficult position. It is inevitable that on a number of the groupings many of us will make rather more general speeches than we might otherwise have made, and I am just a little concerned that we will not give the word-by-word content of the Bill this House’s normal detailed scrutiny. Perhaps I say that not on behalf of the whole Committee, because I am sure other noble Lords will be more competent than I in dealing with this situation, but just as a disclaimer on my own behalf.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, one way to deal with that would be for the Government to write letters in response to the amendments so that the technical details, which might normally be addressed in the winding-up speech of the Minister, could at least be on the record and placed in the Library. When we come back on Report, the noble Baroness and other noble Lords would then have the benefit of a Government response. I do not know whether that is helpful. It might be one way in which to alleviate the concerns of the noble Baroness.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Browning)
My Lords, in response to the noble Lord’s suggestion, I am very happy to agree to that.
Lord Soley
I share the concern about pilots, but I also very much share the concern expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. The Bill contains so many unanswered questions that we are in danger of causing policing in this country more problems than we need. My profound anxiety is that, having spent the past 10 or more years trying to get the police from where they were 20 years ago, which was not a good place, to where they are now, which is a very much better place, we are in danger of losing that if we do not think this through.
I pick up on the suggestion made by the noble Baroness and echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, that there is a strong case for the Government to go away and think about this. They should think about how they can ensure that this Act will not introduce profound changes to the police that are unpredictable in their outcome and that might move us backwards rather than forwards. The police are in a better position than they used to be. Let us not throw out the good for the sake of something that we think might be better but that does not have the checks and balances that are necessary.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I have two amendments in this group: Amendments 38 and 253. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, who I assume will speak to his amendment in a moment, I propose a system of pilots.
I listened with great interest to the words of the noble Lords, Lord Condon and Lord Dear, who are worried about the impact of pilots. As they said, the feedback that they are getting from chief constables is that the worst thing of all for them is to have uncertainty about the future. I understand that point of view. I declare an interest as chair of an NHS foundation trust and as a consultant and trainer in the NHS. We are going through a similar process in the NHS. Obviously, people worry about uncertainty and about where they are going, but the crux of the point is that made by the noble Lord, Lord Dear; he said that we should see what checks and balances we can get into the Bill and then vote yes or no on the whole thing.
I understand the noble Lord’s point. I have no doubt that if the Minister responds sympathetically to some of the points put by noble Lords in our debates on recognising the need for stronger checks and balances, the argument for pilots would become less persuasive. However, the enormity of the change that is being proposed and the potential politicisation of our police forces are serious matters. There has been no Green Paper and no pre-legislative scrutiny. No evidence whatever has been produced to justify the changes that are being proposed.
On that basis and despite the uncertainties that this might produce for chief constables, I suspect that, retrospectively, if elected police commissioners were introduced without checks and balances, those chief constables might look back and wish that there had been pilots so that some of the most contentious points of the arrangements could have been tested. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has gone for two-year pilots, the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, for three years, and I have gone for four years. However, the substantive point is that they need to be long enough to see how this works out in practice. I also think—and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, really has endorsed this—that there needs to be an independent evaluation as well. That would give confidence that the experiment has been judged and considered, and it would give Parliament time to consider the matter again. Above all, it would raise issues around governance, checks and balances, and the role of the panels, which the Government might wish to consider in the light of experience of those pilots.
In reflecting on and understanding the point about uncertainty, and given the Government’s position at the moment, the case for pilots is pretty persuasive.
Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington
I also support the amendment, because if the argument is that police commissioners are elected, surely the deputy must also be elected if he acts in their place. There is nothing more bizarre than if someone was appointed to the power, bearing in mind that a commissioner might be ill for six or nine months. That surely would be a recipe for disaster.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, the Minister spoke earlier about recognising the need for checks and balances, and I regard this as a very important issue. I do not think that we can let the Bill stand as it now rests on the appointment of an acting commissioner. Clearly, the reason for it must be the architecture. Of course, the architecture is of the concept of an individual, a corporate sole, having huge powers. One can see the difficulty: if you do not place it within a proper corporate governance structure, what do you do? The Government clearly have no answer so have come up with the extraordinary idea that if a commissioner becomes incapacitated or no longer holds office a staff member can take over that responsibility.
Will vacancies arise in the circumstances of Clause 62(1)(a) to (c)? I rather think they will. As the noble Baroness said earlier, people are frail, and I am pretty certain that out of the 41 or 42 potential elected police and crime commissioners, one or two bad eggs will be elected. I am also pretty certain that the media will be very intrusive in looking into the backgrounds of people so elected. Given the position that they hold, they and their families will come under intense scrutiny, and it is likely in those circumstances that some elected commissioners will find themselves in a position to no longer hold office. Yet one of their staff members is to be appointed to take their place in those circumstances.
What sort of staff are these elected police commissioners likely to have? I would have thought that they would be likely to be media people and people who will help the commissioner be re-elected. Who is it going to be? Will it be the chief media person or chief pal of the elected police commissioner? Will it be the chief of staff? Who knows? What is likely is that this person is woefully unqualified to be an acting police commissioner. When we come back on Report, I think the Government will find that the House will require them to be willing to amend the Bill in this regard. This is a very important part of the checks and balances that are required.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, we recognise that the whole question of checks and balances is a matter of much concern throughout the House and that a number of amendments which we will be discussing deal with the checks and balances built into these new arrangements, and with the relationship between the police and crime commissioner and the police and crime panel. We will be discussing those throughout several more groups from now on. The architecture of the Bill is in principle that one identifiable individual, elected and accountable, should be clearly responsible for oversight of the police. I think that noble Lords would all recognise the difference between an assistant commissioner appointed when there is a vacancy or due to incapacity, and a deputy commissioner who is appointed from the outset. That builds a very different relationship into the structure which we are designing.
I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, on the amount of care that he has put into these amendments but I am sure he also recognises that having a deputy—particularly one who comes from the PCP—also builds a potential basic tension into a structure which has been designed to do something rather different. The checks and balances should come between a separate police and crime panel and a directly elected police and crime commissioner, rather than blurring the relationship between the two. The panel is appointed by local authorities and, under our model, is clearly distinct in its origin and role from the police and crime commissioner.
The provision which we have put into Clause 62 is intended to provide a reasonable one for a temporary expedient when the elected police and crime commissioner is unable to act. We have conceded that, in such circumstances, as set out—
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, perhaps I might add to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, in that this is not just blurring the distinction between the police and crime panel and the police commissioner. What the amendment proposes is that a power of patronage be given to the police commissioner over the panel whose purpose is to be a check and balance and to call him to account. Surely that does not extend the logic which I have heard so often in your Lordships’ House: that power is being concentrated in one person. This amendment would in fact give even more power to that person and confuse the relationship even further between the commissioner and the panel.
I submit to the Committee that it would only make sense to have some kind of election within the panel which would keep the roles distinct. In the circumstances mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham—of suspension on the grounds that the commissioner has been charged with a criminal offence—surely the patronage that was previously exercised to appoint someone from the panel to deputise could, in the eyes of the public, be polluted by the fact that the commissioner is now standing charged with a criminal offence. Therefore, the function of deputy could again be polluted. To have the panel itself perform some kind of election is a matter of regret, having heard so many representations about the need for independence in policing. It seems from the Committee’s discussion of this amendment that co-opted, independent members would not be eligible to be the deputy commissioner, so I query the logic behind this amendment. It could pollute and give even more power to the commissioner in those circumstances.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, perhaps it would help if I came in because that was an interesting point about the issue of pollution and people being tainted if the police commissioner had to stand down, or was suspended or incapacitated in any way. Take the example of a police commissioner where the charge was corruption: the idea that a member of that person's staff could then be appointed the police commissioner is just not going to run. Would the Minister be prepared to take this away? I accept that my noble friend Lord Beecham has put a suggestion forward as to how you emerge with a credible acting commissioner. There will be other suggestions; I do not think he is suggesting that he has all the answers and I do not think that anyone does. What we are pretty convinced of is that the approach in the Bill will just not do.
Lord Harris of Haringey
My Lords, I put my name to Amendments 156 and 165, which deal with the panel arrangements in London. It is worth reflecting on the way in which the London arrangements will be substantially different from those in the rest of the country. The Bill replaces the panel responsibility on the London Assembly. Therefore, one will not be able to make—in the way that one will elsewhere in the country—the automatic assumption that every relevant local authority will be represented on that forum. There will be representatives from various parts of London, but it is possible that some parts of London will not be represented on the London Assembly panel. Therefore, it is worth remembering that the London arrangements for the panel are significantly different.
This highlights also the importance of Amendment 156 in dealing with co-opted members. It is designed not to frustrate the Government's intention but to tidy it up. If there are such co-opted members, they should be appointed by a resolution of the whole London Assembly, which would avoid some of the complexities that the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, highlighted. I support the points made by her and by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, about who could be summoned to a panel. This is a particularly important issue, not just in London but around the country.
In the past, I talked about two particular difficulties with some of the arrangements in the Bill. First, where is the visible answerability of the police service in any particular area to those who are holding it to account? I understand the Government's argument, which is that in London the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime will hold the police service to account, and that outside London it will be the police and crime commissioner—or the police and crime commission, if the House’s preferred option goes forward. However, the scrutiny process will be very strange if the only scrutiny that is possible will be of the actions of the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime—or the deputy MOPC, because the mayor will almost certainly appoint a deputy—and, in areas outside London, of the police and crime commissioner.
There are a number of problems with that. It will mean that the entire focus of discussion will be about political debate. One elected politician will appear before a group of other elected politicians, possibly with one or two independents. Discussion will focus on the political decisions that the policing and crime commissioner, or the mayor’s office, have taken. That is all well and good: people may say that that is as it should be. However, I suspect that one will lose a lot of the granularity around what has happened in the police service in that area in the intervening period with which the panel is concerned.
We are told that the chief officer of police—the commissioner of police in the metropolis—may attend meetings of the panel. However, they will not be obliged to attend, but may attend by their own grace and favour. The importance of Amendment 165 and parallel amendments is that they would ensure an expectation that certain senior police officers could be required to attend. That will be critical to ensure that the discussion moves away from the political knockabout that all of us in Committee enjoy and have participated in at various times in our life, and towards scrutiny of important policing issues. The panel will have the power to call before it senior police officers who are responsible for the area of policing that is being debated. This will be critical to remove some of the political knockabout that will otherwise happen and to provide at least some, though not all, of the visible political answerability that is so necessary to policing.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I am very sympathetic to many of the amendments, particularly concerning the need for recall and, as my noble friend Lord Harris said, clarity on the ability of panels to summon people to appear before them, particularly chief officers of police, in order to ensure that serious discussions take place. If the conversation is only between elected councillors who are members of the panel and the elected police commissioner, two things will happen. First, as my noble friend said, the discussion will become almost entirely political. Secondly, if it is only the elected police commissioner who stands or sits before the panel, they will be drawn into discussing detailed operational matters of policing. That is why we are so fearful of the Bill. It will be essential as a matter of course for the chief constable and other chief officers in their own right to appear regularly before the panel. I hope that the Government will be sympathetic to that.
The amendments concerning the openness both of the panel and the elected commissioners are important. An important point was raised about co-opted members on the London panel. I will focus in particular on Amendment 34A, tabled by my noble friend Lord Beecham. The incidental powers given to the commissioner in paragraph 9 of Schedule 1 are considerable. It is right that there should be scrutiny, and that the panel should be able to question the commissioner and, if necessary, amend or reject decisions. Those are the kinds of checks and balances that we wish to see.
We will come later to other amendments that deal with the panel's responsibilities in relation to the appointment of chief constables and to precepts, where it will have veto powers. The problem is that the exercise of that veto will become almost impossible if the threshold is put at 75 per cent. It is not even 75 per cent of those present and voting but 75 per cent of panel members. Therefore, I was very glad to see my noble friend's suggestion that, particularly in relation to the incidental powers contained in paragraph 9 on page 107, the threshold should be reduced to a two-thirds majority. That takes us some way towards a more realistic relationship where there would be at least some possibility of the panel being able to act as a check and balance on the elected police commissioner. Whether two-thirds is sufficient, I do not know. I would be tempted to reduce it to 60 per cent. Indeed, I find it difficult to disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who suggested that 50 per cent plus one would be a more reasonable figure.
I hope that we can have further discussions on this matter. What I am clear about is that, in relation to the incidental powers, the panel should have a role in scrutiny and, in some circumstances, be able to exercise a veto. However, although the Bill provides for a veto, the figure of 75 per cent needs to be reduced to make it a realistic veto.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, this has been a very useful debate on a lengthy collection of amendments. Having complimented the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, on his skill in drafting amendments, I should add my compliments to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, on her deeply conscientious and detailed scrutiny of all aspects of the Bill.
We are discussing with considerable care the right balance between the PCC and the PCP and the distinction between accountability and scrutiny. I know that is a concern across the whole House. We need to strike the right balance between the need for the police and crime panel to scrutinise effectively and the police and crime commissioner being inundated with requests for information to the point that his, or her, ability to discharge his duties effectively is limited. In the design of this Bill, it is the role of the police and crime commissioner to scrutinise the chief constable and the role of the police and crime panel to scrutinise the police and crime commissioner. The intention of the Government and the elected House is that policing is for the chief officer of police to deliver and it is for the locally elected body—the PCC or the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime—to ensure that public priorities are met and that performance is appropriately high. That is the dynamic of a single individual responsible for this to the electorate. It is not intended that he or she will share this role with the police and crime panel. Its role is to advise and scrutinise the police and crime commissioner, especially in respect of the annual policing and crime plan.
The details of how one works out that relationship and exactly what reporting is required are what these amendments investigate further. The public already have access to street-level police performance information thanks to the introduction of a police website. It is, and will continue to be, the role of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary to provide the public with information on force performance, including an annual report on the state of policing nationally.
Amendment 87 is scarcely necessary because of course the principle should be that everything should be made public except matters that relate to national security, personal safety or the prevention or detection of crime, which are the only caveats in the Bill. Otherwise, the exemption does not apply.
The majority of the work the panel will undertake will be done in public and will remain accessible to the public. The Bill states that the panel must hold a public meeting to review the annual report it receives from the police and crime commissioner, must publish all reports and recommendations it makes to the police and crime commissioner and must hold public confirmation hearings for new chief constables prior to making recommendations for their appointments, but there may be good reasons why the panels will, on occasion, want to meet without the public present. None of us would wish to block that completely.
We will need to write about some of the further amendments. There is nothing in the Bill that prevents the panel requiring the police and crime commissioner to explain and justify any decision that he or she has made. That is a natural part of the relationship between the two, but—
Baroness Hamwee
I am sorry to interrupt my noble friend, but surely the problem is on the other side. There is nothing to stop the panel requiring. It is the obligation on the recipient of that request or requirement to respond. Will the Minister take that away and think about it?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, might you not have a situation where the elected commissioner has made it clear that he does not expect police officers to go to the panel? That would permeate through, and even though police officers received a summons, they would know that they would incur the wrath of the commissioner in going. Some people who were elected might very well take the view that because they were pursuing what we might regard as perverse or bizarre policies they would not want senior police officers to appear before the panel because the police officers would disabuse the panel about the policies being pursued by the commissioner. I worry if the only relationship is going to be between the commissioner and the panel. Surely we must have senior police officers at those meetings.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I appreciate that concern. It was evident in the debate and is clearly something that we need to take away and consider further. The exact relationship in this triangle, the extent to which we maintain the operational independence of the police and the relevant accountability and scrutiny are at the heart of what we are all concerned about with this Bill. It is a fundamental principle of this Bill that the buck stops with the police and crime commissioner. The police and crime commissioner can delegate functions to others but cannot delegate responsibility.
There are some very useful amendments here on the London Assembly, which I think I should probably not delay the Committee with, but we will consider further whether the police and crime panel should be a particular committee of the London Assembly or whether the London Assembly as a whole should take a range of decisions. We argue that it is for the London Assembly as a democratically elected body to decide for itself how the membership of the panel should be chosen and that the existing arrangements are sufficiently robust for the scrutiny of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime.
We will have further discussions on some of these issues off the Floor. I thank noble Lords for the careful and often detailed and technical contributions to this debate. I ask the noble Baroness not to move her amendment.
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, this has been a very interesting and important debate. My noble friend and other noble Lords raised very pertinent questions about the status of the elected police commissioner and chief constable as corporations sole, the financial consequences of the proposed arrangements, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and the financial relationship between the commissioner and the chief constable. I will start with that. Since it is the commissioner who will set the precept and ultimately sign off the plan, he will have considerable influence over the chief constable, because he who controls the resources tends to pull the strings. It will be rather like the relationship between Her Majesty's Treasury and the Home Office. My experience of friends in the Treasury over 10 years as a Minister was that they delighted in micromanaging the affairs of departments, which they did not think could organise a you-know-what in a brewery. It will be inevitable that the commissioner, who in the end will have total control over how much money the chief constable gets, will be able to exercise considerable operational control. We should bear that in mind when we consider the construct of the Bill.
My other concern is about the lack of good corporate governance when it comes to the concept of corporation sole and issues of expenditure, contracts and the employment of staff. As I said on our previous day in Committee, it is puzzling that the party opposite, the Conservatives, who 20 years ago were very concerned about ensuring good corporate governance both in the public and private sectors, seem to have forgotten all this when they came to construct the Bill. This has been a very good debate and noble Lords have used their experience of how the police service currently operates to tease out some of the issues.
The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, talked about the chief officer as chief executive. He thought that it was probably a good thing, provided that it was done in the right way. The problem I have with that is that, as I read the Bill, the chief constable, being corporation sole, is not just the chief executive; he or she is also the chair and the non-executive directors. It is the realisation of a Gilbertian fantasy: the Lord High Everything Else. The chief constable is not just the Lord High Everything Else; he is the Lord High Everything. Of course the noble Lord was right to ask the Minister whether there will be structures, such as good employment practice and all the other constraints and necessary safeguards, and I am sure the Minister will seek to give an affirmative response, but, in the end, it will be down to the chief constable as a corporation sole. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, said, in the end those who make, for instance, employment decisions will be employed by the chief constable, the corporation sole, and that must have an impact on their behaviour.
This corporate governance structure, or the absence of it, would never be contemplated by the Government if this were a private sector operation. The idea that you can have one person without some kind of board structure and without non-executives to give the check and balance would not be contemplated. Why is this kind of structure being contemplated in this part of the public sector? It is a puzzle to me. I have always paid tribute to the previous Conservative Government for the emphasis they gave to good corporate governance, the encouragement they gave to the Institute of Directors and the CBI and the work by Cadbury. The previous Conservative Government encouraged all these things. Why are they ignoring that when it comes to this Bill?
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Browning)
My Lords, I am grateful. This has been a very constructive debate on a very important part of this legislation. In her opening remarks, the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, mentioned the corporation sole, and I shall begin by setting out where the Government are coming from on this. As Members of the Committee will know, a corporation is a body that has its own legal personality distinct from that of its members. This means that a corporation can own property, enter into contracts and take part in legal proceedings in its own capacity and that its assets, rights and liabilities are those of the corporation rather than the members. Typically, corporations have more than one member. Such corporations are called corporations aggregate. Local authorities are a typical example. However, a corporation can consist of only one person: the corporation sole. The sovereign is a corporation sole, as are various ecclesiastical figures, such as bishops, and various other public offices have been created corporations sole by legislation, such as the Treasury Solicitor, the Information Commissioner and the Children’s Commissioner, so this is not something completely new that has been contrived for the purposes of this legislation.
The amendments concerning this part of the Bill and particularly concerning the chief officer’s status as a corporation sole remove or limit the status to apply to employment matters. They also remove the chief officer’s ability to enter into other contracts and agreements, including the ability to borrow money and sell property. The Government are clear about the need to establish chief constables as corporations sole. This legal status will allow them to employ staff in their official capacity and thus have greater control over running their forces. We believe that it is a very important move for chief constables to be able to have that more direct link with the employment of the police. I accept what noble Lords have said about the status of existing police officers who are not employed as such by any one particular body. It is quite right that that has been mentioned. But this does not in any way detract from the oath that they take or from their status. They would go into a direct employment situation as far as the chief constable is concerned.
My noble friend Lord Carlile of Berriew clearly set out what I thought was exactly spot on as to why we want to do this. In terms of the increased capacity that the chief constable would have, particularly in the employment field, we want to ensure that a PCC is also enabled to focus on accountability rather than on running the force. Those two roles are quite distinct. We believe that the corporation sole allows the chief constable to fulfil that clearly defined role. The legal status that allows them to employ staff in their official capacity is very important in its vital function in the context of providing greater autonomy over the day-to-day management of the force. It is at the heart of clear operational independence, about which a lot has been said in our deliberations so far. This clearly, we believe, would contribute to it.
However, noble Lords have raised issues that are of concern and I hope that I can reassure them. As currently drafted, there are parts of this part of the Bill that we intend to change. Perhaps I may set them out. The noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, and my noble friend Lady Harris raised the concern that chief officers will have significant powers to enter into contracts and agreements. It is our intention to consider this further. We will consider laying amendments which would prevent the chief constable from borrowing money and require him or her to obtain permission from the police and crime commissioner before entering into any contract other than a contract of employment. I hope that noble Lords will accept that we have already revisited this. They have made some important points around this aspect and at later stages of the Bill we will bring forward government amendments to try to correct this.
The amendments tabled by my noble friends Lady Hamwee and Lord Shipley and the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, would mean that, while the chief police officer would be able to appoint a chief finance officer, they would not be required to do so. Nor would they be required to appoint someone suitably qualified to hold that role. Currently, the Bill will require each chief police officer to appoint a chief finance officer of the force and require that person to be a member of a chartered financial institute. This is not about gathering chums around; it is about making sure that there is proper professional support for the role. I understand that the requirement for separate chief finance officers reporting to the chief police officer and the police and crime commissioner may on the face of it seem like duplication. Several Members of your Lordships’ House have mentioned that tonight but I stress that this is not the case. The noble Lord, Lord Dear, made the point that there is a situation here with the police authority and the chief constable.
The Bill makes key changes to the current system of financial governance for the police, flowing from the fact that it will be the chief police officers who employ the police staff currently employed by police authorities. The Bill provides for chief police officers to be corporation sole so that they can do this in their official capacity. As two distinct bodies both legally capable of holding moneys and entering into contracts, it is right and proper that chief police officers and police and crime commissioners both have suitably qualified people responsible for the propriety and efficiency of their financial affairs.
The provisions in the Bill set up two distinct bodies whose financial responsibilities will have to be formal, clear and accountable in law and to the public. I want to clarify any confusion between the role of the two. The chief finance officer to the force will be primarily involved in the propriety of operational spending and employment. The PCC’s chief financial officer will have the overall oversight of spending, including grant-making functions. I can confirm that there is no reason why there cannot be group audits of these two functions.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I may have misheard her, but I thought that the Minister hinted or said that amendments would be brought forward which would make it clear that contracts would have to be approved by the police commissioner. I can see why the Government have come back with that proposal, but to my mind, it just gives the commissioner that much more control over the chief constable. Because the commissioner is being given so much power with regard to money, whatever a protocol says about the relationship between the commissioner and the chief constable, the fact is that the person who holds the dosh usually controls what goes on. I hope the Government will give this further thought.
Lord Harris of Haringey
I want to question whether my noble friend has got the correct nuance of the argument. We have to be very clear about what we are trying to achieve with this Bill. My understanding is that the Government are trying to achieve stronger accountability, and that the mechanism for accountability is an elected police and crime commissioner—or we may end up with some other model. The danger is that, inadvertently, that accountability will be weakened. While my noble friend is right to say that being able to set the overall budget and strategy provides some degree of control, it does not provide the full picture. If you have a situation in which the corporation sole status of the chief officer of police is untrammelled—I was very pleased to hear what the Minister said about putting some limits around that, and I think it would be helpful to see those sooner rather than later—the danger is that chief officers of police will ignore what the body to whom they are supposed to be accountable will say are the key strategic issues that matter to their local communities. We would not want every minor arrangement in respect of an individual investigation to be referred to the accountable body, but we should have some system that ensures that those key decisions lie clearly with the body to which the chief officer of police is being held accountable.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
I am interested in the concept suggested by my noble friend of different people being elected to a position in the same authority. What does he think about the Government’s proposal to appoint shadow mayors? Can I take him from the great city of London to the equally great city of Birmingham and the situation whereby the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government is intending to nominate Councillor Mike Whitby, the Leader of the Conservative-Lib Dem council, to be the shadow mayor of Birmingham at the very time when it is clear that he will lose control of the council next May? We have a bizarre situation of having a shadow mayor with all the powers of the mayor, and the council being Labour-led. What does my noble friend think about that?
Lord Harris of Haringey
I think that that is a consequence of extending discussion in your Lordships' House past our normal finishing time of 10 pm, when we tend to range more widely on subjects.
My noble friend raises an important point. Neither I in my amendment nor the Government in their original proposal were doing anything as bizarre as seems to be suggested under the Localism Bill. Had they followed the same principle, no doubt we would have had chairs of police authorities all over the country suddenly becoming shadow commissioners of police and crime for their areas. Although many chairs of police authorities would no doubt have relished that transformation and enjoyed their brief period in that role, we are not in the Bill being offered the same arrangements that are being offered under the Localism Bill for the creation of mayors in major cities. The Localism Bill also envisages that there would then be a referendum of the local community. Some of us had hoped that we would have an interesting debate on that, but my noble friend chose to deny us that opportunity and is perhaps, by the back door, trying to give us the opportunity to have such a debate now. I shall not be lured down that path.
The purpose of my amendment is that, if the principle is clarity—that the person who holds the police to account should be directly elected and visible in that role—that individual in London should also be directly elected. In the Bill, we have a system where the Mayor of London is elected but, effectively, will automatically delegate an individual who need not be directly elected—and certainly will not be directly elected to fulfil that function—to carry out the role of the police and crime commissioner. That is wrong. It is a mistake. It runs against the entire premise of the Government's proposals, which is that there should be a directly elected individual who holds the police to account. I beg to move.
Lord Soley
I am not too worried about that but my view would be that it ought to be before the election.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, this has been a short but interesting debate. I am very grateful to my noble friend. This series of amendments concerns police and crime plans. These are clearly very important because they set the strategic direction for how the police force is to be run. Clause 7(1) sets out the requirements for matters to be put in the plan, including,
“the elected local policing body’s police and crime objectives”.
As my noble friend Lord Soley has said, there is no mention in Clause 7(1) of anything to do with crime prevention. The points that he raised are very pertinent and we look forward to a positive response to them. My noble friend is also right to point out that there has been a very encouraging reduction in crime over the past decade or so. However, those trends are being reversed. A report to the West Midlands Police Authority last week showed the first rise in crime for many years, which is an extremely worrying trend. I agree that crime prevention needs to be an important part of the focus of any police and crime plan.
I have a series of amendments in this group, which are partly probing. I specifically ask the Minister about the rationale for Clause 5(4), the provision that says:
“A police and crime commissioner may vary a police and crime plan”.
Of course, I understand the need to have flexibility. However, my concern is that the ability of the police and crime commissioner to vary the plan at will may be used to exert undue pressure on the operational decisions of the chief constable.
Lord Soley
That was a disappointing reply. I really do think that the Government need to go away and put crime prevention in the Bill. We all want to reduce crime but simply saying that we want to do so is apple pie and motherhood. This is an important matter because, if you simply have a crime plan under an elected system, the loudest voices will decide what is done. The crime prevention plan needs to be drawn up on the basis of the crime statistics throughout the police area. If that does not happen, the loudest voices in any electoral system will make the decision and they will not address the type of crime that is most prevalent in the poorest areas.
We will, to some extent, come to the other matter that is not addressed when we reach Clause 9. We can see what is going to happen—indeed, the notes on the Bill give it away in a sense. They say, as does the Bill, that the money can be paid into a scheme to reduce crime. We know what will happen. The Home Office will currently be funding one plan, or this or that organisation will be funding it, and will then say, “It is over to the police and crime plan now”. Where will the money come from? You have to have a crime prevention plan that actually addresses those issues and allows MPs to look at it as well and say, “If the Home Office is going to stop funding this, will the crime plan fund it instead?”.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way and am sorry that it is so late but is not the point that the Government are doing that to get them out of responsibility for crime issues? It is clear that crime will go up over the next few years and that the Government will wash their hands and say that it is the responsibility of elected police commissioners. That is what it is about.
Lord Soley
My noble friend anticipates me because I was going to finish on this. It is a relevant point. Leaving aside some of the wider issues of accountability, election and so on, my fear is that we will lose what has been gained over many years by many groups, including local authorities under different party control. We will lose that if we do not have a clear requirement for a crime prevention plan. This is when amendments from Back-Benchers are not as good as government amendments. We must address the issue of crime statistics in the area, not simply rely on the electorate to tell the chief officer what they want done. Does the Minister not see the problem that the loudest voices will determine the priority, instead of the statistics of the crime perhaps determining the policies towards reducing those crime patterns? Do I make sense?
UK Border Agency
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Browning
I hope that I can reassure my noble friend. At the time when the inspection of the UKBA was being conducted, the agency was in fact part way through a programme to assess how it manages intelligence. My noble friend is right to point out that intelligence is absolutely key to securing our borders. That is why the agency is willing to accept the report because it will inform the action that will be taken to ensure that intelligence operations are improved. My noble friend also asked about reports made by the public. One of the recommendations in the chief inspector’s report deals with that. We have accepted the recommendation and intend to take action on it.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, it is welcome that the recommendations are accepted, but does the noble Baroness accept that they are one of a number of responsibilities being placed on the UK Border Agency that include the immigration cap, the student visa system and the policy of preventing the children of failed asylum seekers being held in detention, which the Government have still to implement, as well as the issue that we discussed yesterday, that of returning asylum seekers to the Democratic Republic of Congo and other countries? Yet the UK Border Agency’s budget is being reduced by 20 per cent. Is the noble Baroness confident that the UKBA can do all this and at the same time cope with the massive disruption brought by reductions in budget and staff?
Baroness Browning
I hope I can reassure the noble Lord that I do believe that that is possible. That is why the emphasis on intelligence and the way it is gathered and disseminated has been a key plank of the new Government’s negotiation with the UK Border Agency over how it operates in future. We regard security of the borders as a very high priority for all the reasons that the noble Lord mentioned. Intelligence is so important here that making sure that the agency maximises the efficiency of its intelligence operation is why we have quite openly accepted the recommendations of the chief inspector’s report. We are anxious to improve security with all the help we can get, including from this report.
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, all those who are interested in this Bill will be aware that, last Wednesday, a short debate took place that, at certain times, became quite philosophical about how we should continue Committee stage. I thought that it would be entirely fair and appropriate for me to move this Motion and explain to the House where we are and why we are here in terms of process and procedure.
Last week, the Committee of the Whole House, to which the Bill has been committed, took an unusual decision. On the very first amendment, on the first day in Committee, the Committee decided to leave out from the Bill the very principle of elected police and crime commissioners, which was, as I think the House will know, the essence of the Government’s policy. As the Opposition Chief Whip said at the time,
“It makes a mockery of the discussion and debate on this part of the Bill if we continue as though this has not happened … Having ripped the guts out of a piece of legislation, I cannot see how we can intelligently proceed as though nothing has happened”.—[Official Report, 11/5/11; col. 961.]
He was right. Last week, through the usual channels, I put a proposal to the Opposition to secure a better process for scrutiny of Part 1. I suggested leaving it out of the Bill completely at this stage; I suggested facilitating discussions on the policy off the Floor of the House; and I suggested making time available for detailed consideration in Committee of Part 1 in whatever shape the Commons might send it back to us. The Opposition’s response was to reject that suggestion in favour of continuing with the Marshalled List in the usual way or, at most part, taking Part 1 in a few days’ time at the end of Committee stage. We thus find ourselves resuming Committee in the faintly unreal world where the Bill no longer reflects the principle of the policy which the Government and the House of Commons support. The Government remain in favour of elected individuals as police and crime commissioners. The Government cannot support any of the amendments on the Marshalled List which relate to those parts of the Bill affected by last Wednesday’s vote on Amendment 1. The Government cannot therefore support the scheme of Part 1.
The Committee will thus work its way through the Marshalled List. The Minister’s replies will be limited, but, as the House would expect, she will approach the debate as constructively as she can. But the House should understand that, by voting so early on the principle of the Bill, it has restricted its usual function of scrutiny and revision in respect of Part 1. That is the decision the Committee took, and the Opposition rejected our procedural alternative to where we find ourselves today. For the Government’s part, we will do our best to be constructive as we proceed through the Committee, but we do not accept the new principle of Part 1.
I hope that that explains sufficiently where we are and I therefore beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into a Committee on the Bill.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will welcome the presence of the Leader of the House and thank him for his words. We welcome the Government’s decision to be constructive. The noble Baroness the Minister will know that we very much welcome her and the approach that she has taken in this House since she was appointed a Minister in the Home Office.
The remarks of my noble friend the Opposition Chief Whip were related to the situation which appertained immediately after the defeat of the Government on Wednesday last when he suggested that it might be advisable to adjourn for the evening in order that all Members might consider the consequences. We believe it is best to carry on with the Marshalled List. I hear what the noble Lord says about the principle. He will be aware that consequential Amendment 31 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, sets out a construct of a police commission with two elements: the first element is a police and crime commissioner; the second element is a police and crime panel. Many of the amendments to be debated apply as much to that situation and the relationship between a police and crime commissioner and the police and crime panel as they would between an elected police commissioner and a police and crime panel. They embrace issues such as whether there should be pilots, whether the operational independence of the chief constable should be enshrined in statute, and the role of the police and crime panel in being able to veto any decisions of the police and crime commissioner.
It will be worth while for the House to debate these matters. We look forward to the response of the noble Baroness and welcome the fact that she will be as constructive as possible—I never doubted that. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, for allowing us to have this short debate before now moving into Committee.
Baroness Hamwee
I am not sure that that question should be directed to me or to the noble Baroness, but the noble Lord is absolutely right that this is a multifaceted issue.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, we have had a very interesting debate. I know well the views of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, on the licensing legislation and the point he makes about pilots. I hope that we will come to the question of pilots later on. I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, that there should be no complacency about the level of crime or the effectiveness of the police force. However, it is accepted and a matter of record that the last 10 to 15 years have seen dramatic reductions in the number of crimes committed, including violent crimes. This has been confirmed by independent surveys such as the British Crime Survey. However, I also have to say that we are seeing elements of crime rising again. The latest figures for the West Midlands police force, published last Thursday at a meeting of the West Midlands Police Authority, show that the trend is reversing.
I still do not understand why the party opposite has such a downer on the police; it is a great puzzle. That is clear from the statements made during our discussions. There seems to be a real sense of angst in the party opposite about the police service which I just do not understand, and it is part of the problem we face in debating the Bill. Having said that, let me turn to the issue. Whether you have an elected or appointed police commissioner, I believe that what is needed is strong and effective corporate governance. That point was made by all of my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, talked about checks and balances. It is the absence of proper corporate governance or checks and balances that is so worrying and inexplicable.
The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, said that the Government have some form in this area and tried to invite the noble Baroness to respond on House of Lords reform. On Monday I tried to do that without any success, and I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, is going to be any more successful. But let me try another area, that of the National Health Service. Here I declare my interests as set out in the register as a consultant trainer and chair of the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust. The proposal for GP consortia is shocking in relation to the absence of proper corporate governance. The original proposal was for £80 billion to be given to GPs. That has now been reduced to £60 billion, but it is still an awful lot of money. It is to be given to one profession which would then decide where it should be spent. Again, that was done in the absence of proper and effective corporate governance. Yet the party opposite has a record to be proud of in its work before 1997 on enhancing corporate governance in both the public and the private sectors. I well remember the initiatives sponsored and supported by the party opposite when it was in government. It set up a number of reviews and initiated developments to strengthen corporate governance. It encouraged the IoD and the CBI. I remember well the Cadbury report, which I know that the Conservative Party strongly supported. So it is a puzzle to me why the Government now seem to be moving away from effective corporate governance.
Lord Harris of Haringey
I am grateful. I understand we are constrained; I am worried that we should not be even further constrained by the fact that when the Bill emerges from here at Third Reading, in whatever form it is, it is then not possible for the other place to look at those issues about which the Minister has given reassurances simply because there are no extant amendments to those clauses where a concession might be appropriate. I am not suggesting that the Minister should try to address that matter today—I realise that a lot of work will have to be done on it—but it is an important point.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
It would probably be useful if there were further discussions in the usual channels about this. My experience is that, when there is a desire through the ping-pong process to achieve an agreed change, then the ways of this place and the other place seem to find a way to do it.
Baroness Hamwee
I want briefly to add a word. We all seem to be of a mind to find a way to make the procedures work for us and not to be overburdened by them. I hope that, in whatever order we do things, there will be a proper opportunity, whether through a fairly prolonged ping-pong or not, to contribute the experience and expertise all round the House, as the noble Baroness said. Nobody has a monopoly of wisdom on this. We need to collaborate.
Lord Shipley
I shall also speak to Amendment 52. Amendment 16 is very short. It has only six words and I hope I will be brief in moving it. In our view, it is, despite its brevity, very important as a principle. It lies right at the very start and at the heart of the Bill.
The amendment says that the police and crime commissioner for a police area must,
“in conjunction with the chief constable”,
secure the maintenance of the police force of that area and ensure that the police force is efficient and effective. It makes clear that the principle of the central involvement of the chief constable in securing the maintenance of the police force and ensuring it is efficient and effective is seen as a matter of co-operation and partnership as opposed to being simply the responsibility of the police and crime commissioner. The words “in conjunction with” are important because they are stronger than simply saying that the commissioner must consult or the commissioner must co-operate with the chief constable; “in conjunction” means it has to be much more of an equal partnership between the two. It is as simple as that. It may seem a very small amendment but in principle it is extremely important because it clearly defines the responsibility of the commissioner to work in conjunction with the chief constable. I beg to move.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
We have effectively moved back to the first group of amendments as Amendment 15 was not moved and we moved onto the second group. I have rather a lot of amendments in this group—Amendments 20, 21, 29, 36B, 37ZA, 37ZB, 40A, 55A, 64D and 249. This is a very important group of amendments. They are as relevant to the Government’s original proposals as they are to Amendment 31, the consequential amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Harris.
The House will know that there is concern about the relationship between the police commissioner and the chief constable and the possibility that the commissioner will seek, one way or another, to intervene in operational issues which will be the responsibility of the chief constable. Indeed, the noble Baroness rather anticipated some of our discussion in a very helpful response to the previous group of amendments. This is a very genuine and realistic concern. It is held by many responsible organisations and people who have experience, expertise and judgment in areas of police, crime and justice.
Let us think briefly about the role of the commissioners. They will be full time, rather well paid, working entirely on their own with no other responsibilities. What are they going to do? The Home Secretary said yesterday, in her speech to the Police Federation, that the result of introducing police commissioners would be to reduce bureaucracy. I wonder. I suspect that chief constables are going to have PCCs crawling all over them. After all, they are going to have a manifesto if they are elected and even if they are appointed by the panel, as the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, suggests, they are going to be appointed, I should have thought, on the basis of some kind of statement about what they would do.
Commissioners will set their own targets. They will call for all manner of reports and reviews. Indeed, in our previous debate, when we discussed public engagement, it was clear that any commissioner worth their salt is going to have lots of public meetings. When you have public meetings you write notes and you go back and you talk to the chief constable. There is going to be an enormous amount of traffic between the commissioner, who has nothing else to do except be the commissioner, and the chief constable. The commissioner is full time and will spend countless hours worrying about this and talking to the chief constable. The chief constable is going to have a hell of task in trying to run a service and deal with this commissioner.
This is what is so worrying to us about how this is going to operate. I think about my experience as an NHS non-executive chair. I must again declare my interest in that and as a consultant in the health service and as a trainer. One of the reasons I do not try to run the trust is because it is a part-time role. There is a clearly accepted corporate governance understanding of what non-executives do. In essence, we are appointing an executive commissioner on some kind of programme or manifesto and they are bound to want to influence, in a very strong way, what the police will do. I am sure the noble Baroness will respond by saying that that is fine because they are there to set the strategic direction. That is a very good answer but I believe that inevitably commissioners will be drawn into operational matters.
One of the great problems here is that whether elected or appointed they will have political labels. Under the noble Baroness’s amendment they will be members of the police and crime panel so they will be local councillors under the current construct of the Bill. Regarding elected commissioners, I am still hopeful that the Government might listen to your Lordships’ House—my goodness me they will have to listen if it is elected under PR. Just on the current basis, surely it is going to be very difficult to constrain those commissioners as they will have political banners. I am afraid forces will be known as Labour forces, Conservative forces and Lib Dem forces—they are bound to be. This is our real concern about the proposals. It is not about the Government’s efforts to enhance accountability. Indeed, if they had come forward with proposals around police authorities, which could have done many of the things they are seeking to do, that would have been a much more satisfactory debate. These are real concerns about day-to-day politics intervening in the affairs of the police force.
I want at this point to refer to the draft protocol. I acknowledge that this is a draft. I am grateful to the noble Baroness for ensuring that we received it before the first day of Committee. She will know that there have been comments which seem to suggest that it does not ensure operational independence. I have also received comments that the commissioner’s control over the budget may be used unduly to influence operational matters. I think of our good friends in the Treasury and their control over departments. Maybe life has changed but I rather doubt it. I found that the Treasury took an unhealthy interest in the affairs of the departments I had a responsibility for. It was able to do so because it had the dosh. Again, there is a concern here that budgetary control, in the end, will ensure that the chief constable has to take account of what the commissioner says and that in turn could lead into areas of operational business. I think, for example, of where the chief constable is well aware of the national priorities in relation to policing but the commissioner really wants to spend more money in another area. Again, one could see a case where the chief constable felt that he was being unduly pressurised.
My amendments do three things. First, they make the protocol into a statutory form in one way or another. Secondly, they reinforce the benefit of the police form of declaration. I do not want to read out the form of declaration, although it is a very impressive declaration indeed. It says that the police officer,
“will serve the Queen in the office of constable without favour or affection, malice or ill will”,
and so on. I understand, of course, that nothing in this Bill would affect that oath, but my amendment just seeks to reinforce its importance. Thirdly, they set out a set of principles to which I think it desirable for the Home Secretary, commissioners and chief constables to have regard. These are probing amendments that seek a response from the Minister about this issue of the line between commissioners and the chief constables. I am very glad to have taken part in this debate.
Viscount Eccles
Where does the Bill say that the commissioner has to be full time? I could not find it.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, the Minister may help me on the salary intended to be paid to the commissioner, but my understanding is that we are talking about a six-figure salary.
Baroness Browning
It is a matter that we believe the Senior Salaries Review Board should determine.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
I cannot anticipate what the board will decide, but I would have thought it inconceivable that anyone would be elected who said that they would treat this post as a part-time post. I think we have all been working on the assumption that this will be a full-time responsibility. I would much prefer it to be a non-executive appointment around a strong corporate governance structure. That would be most satisfactory. In the construct that the Government had in the original Bill, before noble Lords sought to improve it last week, it would inevitably have been a full-time job. My great fear is that to justify re-election, if the commissioner is to be elected, or reappointment, if the commissioner is to be appointed, the commissioner will spend day after day interfering in the work of the chief constable.
Viscount Eccles
The noble Lord may be right—I do not know—but I suggest, certainly in the light of how this Bill has gone so far, that we do not jump to too many conclusions. After all, I know that my noble friend on the Front Bench has said that she was willing to discuss anything and everything. We seem to be getting to the end altogether too quickly.
Lord Dear
I wonder whether I might help the House with a personal set of experiences gathered over five years as chief constable in the West Midlands. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, has said that the new PCC will be all over the chief constable like a rash—and I think he would be. During my experience in the West Midlands in the 1980s, it is true that the police authority was rather different. Nevertheless, the individual as the elected chairman would broadly in this context replicate the PCC. It was in the era of extreme political interest in police forces. Noble Lords will remember how the press hung avidly around the doors of Greater Manchester and Merseyside police at that time, and the quite difficult relationships that those two forces had with their chairman or chairwoman. I found broadly the same thing in place when I took over the West Midlands in 1985. I found that I spent quite a lot of time talking to, being with, or walking around with, the chairman, but I did not find that it was a problem. I made it clear to him that the operational responsibility was mine and reminded him—not that he needed reminding—that all the buildings, the pay and rations, the precept and budget and so on, were his. He had a role to play. My experience of that situation, which required political acumen both sides, from him and from me, was that if we were successful on some operation or other, as we frequently were, he would want to be in the limelight as well. That was perfectly understandable. If things went wrong, as they frequently did, he was nowhere to be seen, and I carried the can, because it was an operational decision.
The only point that I make from that experience—and I do not want to try to prove the general from the particular, because that is always wrong—is that however we manage this in future there will always be the PCC that wants to swarm all over the chief constable. It is how those two individuals relate that is important, and there will be some bad cases when they do not get it right. However, it is quite likely that most of those sets of individuals will get it right and will hammer out a relationship with each other. One has to wait and see.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
As this is Committee and we are allowed to bounce up and down, can I respond to the noble Lord? He was, of course, an outstanding chief constable of the West Midlands and is long remembered for the work he did there. Of course, he is right that there is a normal relationship between the chairman and the chief executive, if I can put it like that, and I recognise that some chairmen like to take the credit but put the blame on their chief operating officer, although not all. The essential difference here is that the election under a manifesto and the appointment under a programme would change the relationship. That is what I am trying to focus attention on.
Lord Harris of Haringey
My Lords, by giving us the benefit of his experience, the noble Lord, Lord Dear, has highlighted what I think will be the crux of some of the discussions that we have to have on this Bill and highlights why this is the most difficult area of some of the issues that we have to look at. Perhaps I can add my experience as chair of a police authority for four years and then, since 2004, as a member of a police authority. I hope that is helpful.
The noble Lord, Lord Dear, made a very interesting point when he talked about the relationship that he had with his chairman of the police authority. He talked about reminding him of his responsibilities in pay and rations, buildings and setting the overall strategic direction. One bit of this Bill that we have to address—and there are amendments on this matter that we might reach today or tomorrow—is where it takes away the responsibility from the commission, the commissioner or the authority for pay and rations and for buildings. We might as a result create a situation in which the commissioner, whom the White Paper certainly envisaged would be full time in his role, would have nothing else to do but intervene in matters that we would otherwise regard as being the responsibility of the chief constable. The balance of responsibility between the commissioner or the commission, or whatever we want to call it—whatever we end up with—and the chief officer of police will be exceptionally important.
I believe that police accountability is important and I take the view that whoever discharges that responsibility, whether it is an individual commissioner or a commission, there must be some levers that can be applied. That is why I think we will want to return to the question of exactly what is transferred to the chief officer of police. My experience says that it is not always terribly helpful to define what is or is not operational, because it will depend on the personal chemistry between the chief officer of police and the person who fulfils this role—the commissioner or the commission.
There was a transition period before the new Metropolitan Police Authority came into being in 2000; it was not quite as long as the one that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, suggested last week, but it was certainly a matter of months. A few weeks after that came the Notting Hill carnival, which is the largest street festival in Europe, involves policing costs of £3 million to £5 million, and is a major issue for relations between the police and the community. At that stage, the police authority, of which I was the new chair, had an interim secretariat that, despite the fact that many of them had been seconded from the Home Office, was less experienced in these matters, and which advised me that as the chair it was completely improper for me to say anything about the policing of the carnival.
My first response was to say, “Well, it’s interesting that you say that, but I've already done three radio interviews this morning on precisely that topic”. However, I took the view that because of, first, the sum of money involved and, secondly, the pivotal issues about relations between the police and the community, there were of course matters which the police authority chair—or, in future, the commission or the commissioner —would expect to comment on and have some say over. That is right and proper. It should not be the responsibility of the commissioner, the commission or a police authority chair to say, “At this stage, you should put your NATO helmets on”, or, “At this stage, you should block this street rather than that street”, because that would be intervening in the operational responsibility of the police. However, to take no role at any stage on one of the biggest policing operations would be wrong.
Looking at what has happened more recently in London, where I sit as a member of the police authority, I have watched the new administration since the election of the mayor who came in. A number of things happened for which that new administration could properly claim credit. For example, a much more rigorous, aggressive anti-knife policy, Operation Blunt 2, was introduced after the elected politicians who came in after an election said, “We believe that knife crime is a matter of such public concern in London that you, as the police service, should be ratcheting up what you do”. Again, that seems to me to be a legitimate concern and not intervening in operational matters.
More recently there has been the attack dogs issue and whether the police service in London should take it much more seriously. Again, that is sometimes presented as a personal preoccupation of the current police authority chair, Kit Malthouse, when it has actually concerned the police authority for some time. When I walk through the park near where I live, early in the morning, and see young lads hanging their dogs off trees by the jaws to strengthen their jaws and make them more effective as attack dogs, I think it is of concern to Londoners. In both instances—knives and attack dogs—the Metropolitan Police probably recognised what should have a higher priority, but elected politicians came in and said, “Actually, this is what concerns us”. The danger in trying to avoid inappropriate intervention in operational matters—such as saying, “Investigate this case rather than that case”, “Arrest this person rather than that person”, or, “Close that street rather than this street”—is in undermining the principle of accountability that the Government want to achieve.
The protocol has turned out to be a slightly better document than many might have expected, but it was extremely difficult to write. I pay enormous tribute to those who spent many happy hours trying to get that document right, but there is a real danger with it. The more a chief constable or we in this House or the other place say, “We've got to protect against this”, and write it into that document, the more enforceable we make it and the more difficult we will make the sensible arrangements of accountability that we are trying to put in place.
The Minister raised the intervention last week on the Madeleine McCann case and properly explained the process that was being engaged in, which was not an instruction. Despite some of the press briefing that might have gone on beforehand, there was simply a conversation. As I understand it, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police simply said, “Yes, of course, that is something that we should and could do”. I will not get into any questions of whether that is the right or wrong thing to do.
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville
My Lords, I apologise for taking us back by two or three speeches, but the Committee really should be grateful to my noble friend Lord Eccles for making his observation about the assumption that the Official Opposition’s spokesman was making, when there is in fact nothing in the Bill to confirm it one way or the other. I am extremely grateful myself for his doing that. Earlier this afternoon the noble Lord, Lord Harris, said that the arguments in our debate at the end of the evening last week were metaphysical, but the speeches which my noble friend Lord Eccles picked up on were being hypothetical in that there was no definitive reference to this in the Bill.
I go back to my own experience on the Greater London Authority Bill, a not dissimilar Bill to the one that we are discussing, when the Minister in charge of that Bill kept saying again and again that it was a breakthrough in local government legislation because, for the first time, the Mayor of London would have advice from advisers that would remain totally confidential and would not be available to anyone else in the authority. It was a novel development in local government affairs, but again and again I asked the Minister—no names, no pack drill—“Where is your legislative cover in the Bill for what you are continuously reiterating to the Committee?”. Eventually, he broke down and said, “The right honourable gentleman is quite right. We haven't yet put the amendments down”.
Given the particular circumstances in which we are debating this Bill, with which one is familiar because of the action of the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, last week, we will inevitably find ourselves debating a number of hypotheses throughout. It is extremely difficult for some of us to follow exactly what is happening, not least that we are now going backwards in the Bill in an Alice in Wonderland way to a group of amendments that were put down earlier. All I seek to plead is that if people are going to be hypothetical, they should say that they are being hypothetical so that the rest of us know where we are.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
I do not quite know what the noble Lord means about going back. Amendment 15 was not moved. We therefore moved on to the group starting with Amendment 15A. We are now debating the group starting with Amendment 16.
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville
I totally understand what we are doing, but the fact remains that it can be difficult to follow. There are a lot of people taking part in these debates—that is a tribute to the Bill—and the easier that those taking a lead on it can make this for the rest of us to understand, the more progress we should make.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, responds to this important debate, I shall make just two comments. First, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her comments about discussions over whether the draft protocol could become statutory in due course. I also say to my noble friend Lord Harris that I understand the point that he has raised. There is always a dilemma over the wish of Parliament usually to dot the “i”s and cross the “t”s to safeguard a position—in this case the operational independence of the chief constable—without creating such a list of items that it inhibits a good relationship. I am very mindful of the balance to be drawn here. A discussion between noble Lords and others who are interested would be very welcome.
Secondly, there is a difference between making representation to a chief constable as a Member of Parliament and doing so as a police commissioner who is appointed or elected on a programme. That changes the relationship considerably. I say to the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, that it is quite fair to take the Bill and speculate about how it might work in practice. That is why I am pretty confident in saying that a police commissioner will be working full-time and will be on the back of the chief constable.
Lord Shipley
I thank the Minister for her comments. I still have some residual concerns about the nature of the relationship and partnership between the commissioner and the chief constable. However, there is now to be, I hope, a substantial discussion about how the protocol will work. Given this proviso, and the fact that the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, raise some very important issues—which I hope we can develop, maybe to improve the Bill as a whole—I beg leave to withdraw the amendment in my name.
Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I shall speak to my Motion, which,
“regrets that Her Majesty’s Government have not made sufficient information available to judge whether the Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules (HC 908) is likely to achieve its policy objectives”.
In speaking to this general debate on the two Motions, I say first that the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, raises some very important points about the effect of the changes on survivors of domestic violence and the negative impact on the Government’s commitment to end violence against women and girls. In particular, there is an inconsistency, as he pointed out, between the Home Secretary’s statement on domestic violence and the consequences of this statement of changes. Even if the number of cases is likely to be small, there is clearly a matter of principle to be discussed here.
My own Motion arises from concerns that a statement of changes has been laid without an impact assessment. As a result of this lack of information, the Merits Committee has drawn the statement of changes,
“to the special attention of the House on the grounds that it gives rise to issues of public policy likely to be of interest to the House and may imperfectly achieve its policy objectives”.
The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has already referred to this point and I want to emphasise the points that he made.
Clearly, there are several important questions that remain to be answered, and the Merits Committee has identified eight or nine of them. I will not read through its list of questions—I have no doubt that the noble Baroness is well able to answer them—but there are two or three that I would highlight. First, will the changes contribute to reducing abuse of the student immigration system? Secondly, what will be the costs and benefits of the changes for the education sector? We have debated at Oral Questions and on Statements on several occasions over the past few months the impact that this is likely to have on the education sector. The noble Baroness will be aware that the Opposition’s concerns have very much focused on the unintended consequences for several of our educational institutions. I should be glad of some further information about this.
A third specific question for the noble Baroness is what impact the changes will have on the UK economy. When these proposals were first set out by the Government some months ago, we understood that several countries were gleeful at the thought that students who would have come to the UK would now go to those other countries. We are in a competitive situation. We are talking about the kind of students that we need to attract to our country.
The noble Baroness will probably be aware that I have a background in the health service. There is clear evidence that overseas students who come to our medical schools and go back to their own countries continue to maintain important links with the UK, which has had real benefits for the stimulation and sharing of medical knowledge, and the ability of British companies to sell their goods to other medical systems. I am very concerned that these changes could impact on the ability of our country to do business with other countries, and about the more general economic impact that that will have.
We then come to the core of the concern. The Explanatory Memorandum states:
“A draft Impact Assessment of the changes to Tier 4 has been prepared, however it is awaiting final clearance by the Regulatory Policy Committee. The Impact Assessment will be published in due course, once it has been finalised”.
We now know from a further report by the Merits Committee that,
“The UK Border Agency … has now confirmed that they do not intend to publish the IA until June”.
The statement of changes came into effect on 21 April. We were given it without the impact assessment, which we are now not to have until June. The Merits Committee considers this approach “highly regrettable”. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said that it is quite unacceptable. I agree. I am sure the Regulatory Policy Committee is a very august body, to which I defer and pay due acknowledgement. However, it takes the biscuit that this committee has to deliberate for months before Parliament is allowed to see the initial work on the impact assessment. This is unacceptable.
I say to the noble Baroness, whom we are all delighted to see in her place, that the Home Office has previous form in this area. Indeed, on 3 May we debated the statement of changes in Immigration Rules HC 863. The Government were rightly criticised for not publishing a comprehensive explanation of the findings of the consultation on that statement. These debates are valuable. I hope the noble Baroness will be able to provide some assurance that the points are taken to heart by her department, and that when there are future statements rather more information will be given.
The previous time we debated this, I am afraid I went down the cul-de-sac of discussing statutory instruments and House of Lords reform. I certainly do not expect the noble Baroness to respond to me if I go down that route again. I do not intend to push this to the vote and I doubt the noble Lord does either. However, it will be a pity if tomorrow, in the Statement, the draft Bill and the White Paper, very little is said about the powers of a reformed second Chamber. One of the reasons why I am a little doubtful as to whether the Government’s House of Lords reform proposals will make considerable progress is the failure to tackle the issue of powers. I have no doubt that, were this House to be 80 per cent or 100 per cent elected, the noble Lord and I would not hesitate to put this to the vote tonight. We would certainly feel that we had the legitimacy to do so. I do not expect the noble Baroness to join me in that debate. However, the day before we get the Statement, it is irresistible. I am glad to support the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury.
Baroness Hussein-Ece
My Lords, I follow my noble friend Lord Avebury in his comprehensive introduction to our reasons for raising this matter tonight—the problems that we envisage in the changes and their impact, particularly on women who may suffer through domestic violence. I shall confine my remarks to that and I will not keep the House too long.
I welcome the Government’s announcement that, from 1 April next year, women on spouse visas who experience domestic violence will be able to access mainstream welfare benefits for a short time while their application for indefinite leave to remain is decided by the UK Border Agency. This is extremely positive. It is in line with the Call to End Violence against Women and Girls action plan launched by the right honourable Home Secretary a few months ago. It included a commitment to finding long-term solutions to support those who have had no recourse to public funds. As we have heard, last week she restated her commitment that domestic violence must be taken seriously. However, my big concern about the statement of changes is, as set out by noble friend Lord Avebury, about the impact and, indeed, the unintended consequences of these changes as they apply to women in abusive relationships. We fear that those women may not come forward as a result of these changes. We know that women in abusive relationships are vulnerable—that is a given—and often do not come forward for a considerable length of time. Those women already live here and are British, but imagine women in these circumstances for whom their immigration status is an additional factor. They are even more vulnerable and subject to abuse.
We know that half the women in UK prisons say that they have suffered domestic violence. We also know that perpetrators of domestic violence often make false allegations about the victims of abuse to the police, which can result in criminal proceedings and possibly a conviction. The convictions cited could be for minor offences. I will give an example. As I mentioned in the debate we had some time ago on International Women’s Day, I set up the first domestic violence project for women with a Turkish and Kurdish background in Hackney and Islington nearly 20 years ago. I saw the full range of abuse suffered by the women whom we helped, in all its horrors. Many of these women were often too scared to come forward and get help because of threats from other family members and for fear of being ostracised by their immediate community if they reported their abusive partner to the police. For example, a woman may be trapped at home looking after her children and be totally reliant financially on her partner. He could refuse to give her money to buy food. I know that such cases have happened. I have dealt with a similar case where, in these terrible circumstances, a woman who took food from a shop—she stole food to feed herself and her children in a quite desperate situation—went on to receive a conviction for shoplifting. These already vulnerable women would be further disadvantaged if a minor caution or conviction, such as the failure to have a valid TV licence, became a deterrent to seeking help. I have dealt with a lot of these heart-rending cases. One involved a woman who finally found the courage to report her violent partner to the police only to be murdered on the streets of Hackney after he had been let out on bail the next day, without her being informed.
The UK Border Agency has said that it will continue to provide leave when needed to help protect women and girls. However, there remain huge concerns that this is insufficient, and that the rules will deter women from coming forward. We have already heard about the quality of some of the decisions taken by the UK Border Agency, and this is another big factor. In light of this, the wider context and the evidence that we are hearing and know about on the ground, I would ask my noble friend the Minister to reconsider this issue and to take it back. It does, and will, affect a relatively small number of women who are victims of domestic violence, but surely protecting all women must be our paramount concern.
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts(12 years, 12 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Cormack
My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, because when I had the great fortune to be chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee I saw at first hand what she had achieved. She speaks with a quiet authority—as, indeed, do the noble Baronesses, Lady Harris and Lady Henig.
Like other noble Lords, I congratulate and welcome my noble friend Lady Browning. I served with her in the other place and I know her to be a woman of calm judgment and true determination. Above all—and I saw this when she had high office in the Conservative Party—she is someone who truly listens. I hope the House will give her the opportunity of its views today and I know that she will reflect upon what she hears in this Chamber. For that reason, I appeal at the outset to some of those who I believe are considering breaching a convention of this House and calling a vote today. I would beg them not to do so, out of courtesy to the new Minister. I have learned in my brief time in this House—although I observed it for 40 years from another place—that the hallmark of this place is courtesy.
Lord Cormack
What I have learned in my time here is that the convention is that issues are thoroughly discussed in Committee and that when we come to Report, Ministers having had the chance to go away, think and come back with answers, we decide whether we will vote—as we did last night, when I found myself, for the first time in my time in this House, in the Content Lobby. I give way to the noble Lord.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, the noble Lord comes to this House with great experience and we have all enjoyed his interventions. I would gently point out to him that there is no such convention. Votes do take place in Committee and any such vote would not be a matter of discourtesy to the Minister, whom we all welcome to her place today.
Lord Cormack
I am glad for that assurance but I still hope that there will be no vote today, because there will be proper opportunity both for my noble friend the Minister to reflect and for noble Lords in all parts of the House to put their points of view.
I have always been extremely sceptical about this policy. This is no new attitude; I remember having a vigorous discussion with Mr Dominic Grieve, when he was the shadow Home Secretary, telling him that I very much hoped that this would not form part of official Conservative policy. Although it has been rightly said that it is the official policy, many members of the Conservative Party are truly concerned about the implications, as I know well from my private conversations in this place and elsewhere. We are seeking to elect on a party ticket—it would be in almost any case on a party ticket—a man or a woman who we expect to have the pastoral wisdom of a bishop, while we give him or her the powers of a commissar. That is not a very good combination.
I speak as others speak, because we all talk from our own experience. For 40 years, I represented a Staffordshire constituency and have worked with six chief constables. I had the great benefit of a long discussion a couple of weeks ago with one of those, John Giffard, who said that I could mention his name in this House. I know that John Giffard was an exemplary chief constable, not at all afraid of accountability or of talking to a police authority and recognising its remit. Yet he is very wary of having an elected party politician as an immediate boss.
This policy is a very brave step indeed and if we are to take that step, we ought at the very least to have some pilot projects to see how it works and just how it reacts. There are other amendments on the Order Paper to this effect. I know that my noble friend Lady Browning will consider what is being said and I hope that she will discuss with the Home Secretary and others that to have pilot projects is in no sense to wreck the Bill. It is, rather, to make haste slowly, which is often the best way of moving forward.
If party politicians were elected, imagine a Derek Hatton being in charge of the police on Merseyside. One does not need to elaborate to realise that implicit in any election is a danger that that sort of thing can happen, particularly if it is a mid-term period when the Government of the day are excessively unpopular. We all know, from last week and other examples, that when people vote in elections other than a general election they are not always entirely motivated by the local issues. The noble Baroness, Lady Henig, talked—I think I remember the number right—about 23 constituencies in West Yorkshire.
Baroness Hamwee
Perhaps I will be not quite the last noble Lord to give a very warm welcome to the noble Baroness. I am not sure whether she expected a rerun of Second Reading. I hope that she has found it helpful, because there have been some very perceptive, interesting and thoughtful speeches. I cannot resist saying that she will have noticed that we are right behind her.
In view of the time, I will edit my remarks as I go, and I hope that they are not too disjointed. The longer the debate goes on, the more I wonder whether it will be possible to have sufficiently strict checks and balances on an individual, and the more we expose the nature of the position of an individual with so much power, with all the characteristics that are often intrinsic to an individual in a powerful position, some of which—but not all—need to be guarded against. I am in no position to comment on whether bishops may sometimes operate as commissars. However, I can see that the commissioner would be in a very distinct position from that of a chief constable, who has the eyes and ears of a police force on the ground.
Chief among my fears is that of moving towards the politicisation of the police. I fear that this will be difficult to avoid, not just because of the likelihood of candidates having a campaigning infrastructure of political parties behind them—as elected mayors have, with whom they may well be confused. That is perhaps an issue for another debate. The very nature of a democratic mandate involves policy, and one cannot separate policy from a budget because the money facilitates the implementation of the policy. Like other noble Lords, I fear that what is populist may sometimes be dangerous, and may not reflect the needs of those who can shout less loudly.
However careful and detailed the protocol—it seems to be a useful summary of the Bill which I wish I had had when I started reading the Bill—it is not a great deal more than that, and cannot change the statutory structural framework. Nor can it apply the governance. I was chair of the London Assembly budget committee when the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, was chairing the Metropolitan Police Authority. Who was the check and balance on whom, history may tell.
I wonder whether, ironically, this is a move against localism. I have a question for my noble friend. I very much welcome the fact that she has enabled the House to have a debate at this stage of the Bill. Democracy has rightly been mentioned often. Her proposed structure involves panels. Perhaps she can tell us how she envisages democracy being used in connection with the panels.
Lastly, I will be wary throughout the Bill of appearing to be either promoting or opposing the interests of a number of sectors, but particularly the police. I, too, would like to see us achieve the production of a collaborative framework. Most importantly, my noble friends and I are on the side of citizens.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, first, I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, to her position. She will already have got the message from the House that we very much welcome her appointment. She comes from the other place with an excellent reputation and we very much look forward to working with her. Four years ago, I was appointed Minister for Health, and three or four days later I found myself on the first day of Committee in your Lordships' House, so I know a little of the challenge that she faces. I am grateful also to the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, for allowing us to have this very important debate.
I do not stand here pretending that our police forces are without blemish, or that there are no areas of performance that could be improved. I agree with the final point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. I, too, have read the report of HMIC assessing police authorities' performance that was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Dear. However, in the past 15 years we in this country have seen both a dramatic fall in crime and an improved relationship with the public and local communities. My noble friend Lady Henig gave many examples of this. More than that, there is in our police, with their political impartiality, tolerance and philosophy of policing by consent, something precious that we undermine at our peril.
Why is this being put in peril? The Government argue that police reform is needed because the current governance arrangements are not working, and because police forces look too much upwards to the Home Office. However, as far as concerns policing and crime, I do not think that the public really worry about police authorities or the name of the chairman. They are concerned about the performance of the chief constable and of the force. Surely it is right that that is where their focus is concentrated. I see no appetite among the public for this change, and certainly not for the perverse consequences that could come about. My noble friend Lord Harris described some of them. Perversely, accountability may be reduced and police forces in future may come with a political label. The noble Lord, Lord Hurd, said that there was a possibility of non-political people being elected police commissioners. Of course, that is entirely possible. However, the electoral areas are so large that it is almost inevitable that only those on party tickets, with the support of a party machine, will be successful. One should consider the cost of the elections. I suspect that it is only political parties which will be able to support candidates.
On the question of the Home Office and targets, I confess that I was once Minister for targets in the Department of Health. I once asked officials to add up how many targets we had set. By the time we got to 435, we thought we had better stop. However, some targets are important. We have drastically reduced waiting times because of targets, and I have no doubt that Home Office targets in relation to reducing crime have had a dramatic effect for the better on our communities.
Surely the role of the Home Secretary is balanced against the work of the police authority and that of the chief constable. We call it the tripartite relationship between operational independence, local accountability and national strategic direction. I have not yet heard any convincing argument that suggests that we should upset that relationship. The problem is that the Bill risks the politicisation of our police forces; conflict and confusion between the role of the police commissioner and that of the chief constable; the marginalisation of local government, and a loss of public confidence. I really regret that these proposals have not been subject to a Green Paper, a White Paper, pre-legislative scrutiny or even an assessment by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary.
Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts(13 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
To move that this House regrets that the Government have not published a comprehensive explanation of the findings from the consultation on Tiers 1 and 2 relating to the Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules. (HC 863)
Relevant document: 27th Report from the Merits Committee.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, this Statement, HC 863, makes a number of significant changes to tier 1 and tier 2 of the points-based system to implement the Government’s strategy for reducing non-EEA economic migration. The change follows a public consultation and a number of other notable statements of changes in immigration policies.
The key changes to tier 1 are as follows: to close the in-country category, other than for extension applications for migrants who are already in the UK in that category or one of the categories now proposed that preceded the introduction of the points-based system; to create a new category in tier 1 of the points-based system for exceptionally talented economic migrants with a limit of 1,000 grants of entry clearance in the first year of operation; and to implement changes to the tier 1 categories for entrepreneurs and investors, including provisions for accelerated settlement.
The key changes to tier 2 are: first, to implement changes to the tier 2 intra-company transfer category, including differing requirements for transfers depending on whether they are to be for more or less than 12 months; secondly, to implement changes to the tier 2 (general) category, including a limit of 20,700 overseas applicants who can be sponsored under it in the first year; and, thirdly, to revise minimum skill, salary and English-language thresholds.
The Merits Select Committee has made the point that the parliamentary scrutiny process for this type of instrument is unusual, yet with any policy changes of this importance the Government should always be aware of the need to allow the House full opportunity to scrutinise the changes. The committee was previously critical of the lack of information presented to Parliament to explain why HC 698 effectively ended tier 1 (general) to overseas applicants. As a result, the Merits Committee wrote to Damian Green, the Minister for Immigration, saying that it would have expected to see an evidence-based explanation of why the Government were changing tier 1, some measurement of the impact of the changes and a more comprehensive explanation of the findings from the consultation on which the changes were based. The committee also asked for assurance that a better package of supporting information would be provided when the full migration limits were introduced in April.
The House will be aware of the Opposition's concern about the approach that the Government have taken and the impact of the migration cap on business, the arts and the university sector. Indeed, we have debated that on a number of occasions in the past few months. We have also been concerned about the reputation of the UK and the potential advantage that we are giving to other countries to recruit highly skilled migrants. Tonight, however, I want to focus specifically on the points raised by the Merits Select Committee, to which the House is once again indebted for the quality of its scrutiny and the advice which it gives to the House on matters which it considers ought to be debated by your Lordships.
The Merits Select Committee, as I have already said, has been consistently concerned about the lack of evidence-based information provided by the Government. It is a matter of great regret that, despite the committee writing to the Minister to ask for a better package of supporting information, the fact is that, as the committee has reported, the Government have made only limited information available from the outcome of the consultation on this policy. The Explanatory Memorandum says that the changes to tiers 1 and 2 have been developed following a full public consultation. It refers to Limits on non-EU Economic Migration—the title of the consultation, which ran from 28 June to 17 September 2010—with a summary of the findings published on the UKBA website.
However, the summary shows that there is a high level of interest in the development of the policy, since more than 3,000 responses were received to the questionnaire during the consultation period from a range of organisations including accountancy firms, manufacturers, telecommunications, universities, transport, retail, the media, the health sector, third sector organisations, trades unions and professional bodies as well as private individuals. Yet the summary is limited to a two and a half page numerical breakdown of the responses, with a few unattributed suggestions, and an annexe providing a list of the 571 responding organisations that provided their details. Unfortunately, as the Merits Committee says, there is no information about the rest of the respondents who were the great majority of those more than 3,000 respondees. The committee goes on to say that it considers that this does not provide a sufficiently detailed account of what has been learnt from the consultation exercise, and therefore allows only a limited understanding of the resulting decisions.
I would be grateful if the Minister would specifically respond to that criticism and perhaps give the House a rather fuller flavour of the consultation outcome. I put it to her that the paucity of information might perhaps reflect that the Government did not find much support for their proposals from respondents to the consultation. I would also like some reassurance that the Government will respond to the committee’s request for fuller information.
I would also like to ask the Minister about the impact assessment. The Merits Committee thinks that, because of the challenging nature of the policy objectives, the impact assessment has an important role in providing reassurance that the migration cap policy is indeed based on solid evidence. The problem is that the assessment does not provide that, as the committee identified; there is inadequate information about the relationship between migration and social cohesion, little evidence of the impact on employers and silence on how the Government will manage any perceptions of unfairness as a result of the changes and how that would apply particularly to the Indian subcontinent. I would be grateful if the Minister commented on those criticisms. How will the changes made by this Statement be monitored and reported to Parliament in due course?
I invite the Minister to comment on some of the points raised in the incredibly useful briefing that noble Lords have received from the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, which is particularly concerned about the process for selecting migrants for inclusion in the tier 1 “exceptional talent” category and for the identification of highly trusted sponsors in relation to tier 2. The association’s concern is the absence of a structured framework in which judgments can be exercised so that cases can all be treated in a like way. Any help that the Minister could give on this would be much appreciated. I should also say that the ILPA has raised a number of other interesting points, and I would welcome the Minister’s assurance that her officials will commit to discussing them with the association.
It is concerning that a Statement introducing a significant change of policy in such a sensitive and important area is being introduced on the basis of less than adequate information being given to Parliament. This is not the first time that this point has been made to the Minister about the Home Office’s approach to statutory instruments and rule changes—I am indebted to the Merits Committee for identifying these issues—and that approach means, inevitably, that there will be a prayer against those changes or SIs and we will have these debates. It would be appreciated if the Minister gave some sense that the Home Office has reflected and is reflecting on these criticisms so that fuller information is given on SIs in future, which would then mean that we would not necessarily have a continuation of these prayers, which at the moment are on what seems to be a weekly basis, on the number of SIs that are coming through to your Lordships’ House. I beg to move.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness and to other noble Lords who have taken part in this important debate. The noble Baroness referred to the previous Government. I am sure that we can trade experiences of previous Governments, and that is always good sport, but one thing that the previous Government did do was to take the reports of the Merits Select Committee very seriously. One of the important conclusions of our debate is our asking the Government to reflect on the experience of this SI in relation to future changes that may be made in the Immigration Rules and the way in which information should be given to Parliament.
As my noble friend Lord Haskel said, this is a very important change. I am sure that he is right to reflect to the House on the potential impact that these changes might have on some of our most of successful institutions. The noble Baroness referred to the comments of the CBI director-general. Of course she is right to suggest that, as a result of the consultation, some changes were made in the Government's approach. We are very glad that that happened. She will be aware of the very high level of concern—particularly in the business, university and arts sectors—about the impact that the original proposals would have on them. However, as my noble friend Lord Haskel suggested, there are still concerns in those sectors about the impact. He referred to Imperial; he also referred to BIS and its role in promoting UK interests. Clearly there is concern that the proposals, as now enunciated in this statement of change, will none the less have an adverse effect on British interests.
I would say to the noble Baroness that my experience in the health field and in the Department of Health is that whatever the tensions—and there have been tensions—about the recruitment of overseas students into our medical schools, the fact is that for very many years the NHS has depended on those students becoming doctors and working in the NHS. Also, the evidence suggests that when those doctors go back to their home countries, the links that they maintain with UK medicine and the UK medical and pharma industries have been immensely valuable to the UK. It is very important that we do not lose those contacts. The noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, had a very good point to make about the need to analyse the economic and social impact of these measures—I think she suggested by the end of the year. I very much hope that that point is taken to heart.
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts(13 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for introducing the Bill. I warmly anticipate the maiden speeches of the noble Baronesses, Lady Newlove and Lady Berridge, and the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra.
The police in this country play a vital role in underpinning our democracy. We have a long and proud tradition of tolerant policing which is by consent of the British people and which is free of political partisanship. That has always characterised the tripartite arrangement between the Home Secretary, the police authority and the chief constable of every force—a balance between operational independence, local accountability and national strategic direction.
I believe that all this is at risk through the Bill, which will lead to the politicisation of our police forces, conflict and confusion between the respective roles of the elected police commissioner and the police constable, a marginalisation of local government and a loss of public confidence. The Government have in no way sought to mitigate these risks by the publication of a Green Paper, by pre-legislative scrutiny or even in a modest way through risk assessment by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary. Indeed, the Government have no mandate for this proposal, no evidence base and precious little support from either the police or the public.
I find little to convince in what the noble Baroness has said to us this afternoon. She argues that the police reform was needed because the current governance arrangements were not working and police forces looked too much upwards to the Home Office. I agree with her that police authorities do not exactly make front-page news all the time, but why should they? When the public think about policing and about how crime is to be tackled, their focus is not on glossy leaflets or grandstanding by the chairman of the police authority but on the force and the chief constable, as it rightly ought to be.
Of course we should always be working to improve the relationship between the police and the local community. The way to do it, surely, is to enhance the arrangements through neighbourhood policing, which the last Government introduced so successfully. We did it in a way that respected the independence of the police from direct political interference and ensured broad-based accountability to the police authority across the whole of a police area.
As for Home Office targets, which, by implication, the noble Baroness is criticising, targets can be intrusive but the House should be in no doubt that they had a hugely positive impact on efforts to reduce crime. That was surely graphically illustrated by the BCS figures on violent crime of a 50 per cent reduction from its peak in 1995 to 2009-10. The noble Baroness was rather silent on that.
The noble Baroness talked about the transfer of powers to local government, but I hope that this is not a signal of the Government’s intention to absolve themselves of responsibility for the crime figures and from the draconian cuts now taking place in police budgets. She said that the cost of these elections would be only £50 million, but I think that the public would rather that that money was spent on front-line policing.
What does the noble Baroness have to say to Jessica de Grazia, New York’s former chief assistant district attorney, who came over here and said that elected police commissioners in England and Wales would damage public faith in the legal system? She added:
“There is always a risk of police corruption, but there is both a higher risk and incidence when you place the police directly under the control of an elected politician”.
Does the noble Baroness understand that putting in the place of a low-profile group of members of a police authority a full-time politician with a party label seeking to justify a well-paid position is a fundamental change that risks overturning a 170-year tradition of independence? Does she really suggest that, under the current provisions of the Bill, the police commissioner will not seek to involve himself or herself in operational matters? How can that be denied when the elected police commissioner can direct police priorities, hire and fire chief constables and take on political advisers to do his or her bidding? I fear for the operational independence of chief constables and I fear for the consequences of national policing requirements. What does the noble Baroness have to say to Assistant Commissioner Yates, who in a speech only five days ago to a counterterrorism conference said that elected police chiefs would face difficulties in trying to reconcile national counterterrorism demands with,
“local and more immediately obvious crime priorities”?
We have been promised a memorandum of understanding on the relationship between the elected commissioner and the chief constable. I hope that we can see that soon, but I doubt its effectiveness given the levers that the elected commissioners will have over the chief constables. Nothing short of statutory guidelines will do.
I would have more confidence if the proposed police and crime panels had more teeth. The noble Baroness talked about strong checks and balances and said that the panels were not toothless, but the Bill contains a power of veto in only two circumstances—the precept and the appointment of chief constables. For such a veto to operate, 75 per cent of the panel have to vote in favour. Noble Lords should remember that the elected police commissioner will carry a political banner into that role. Seventy-five per cent is a higher threshold than Her Majesty’s Government propose for the Dissolution of Parliament. Indeed, the hurdle is so high that it may never be used. In itself, that gives rise to grave doubts about the influence that the panels will have. As we go into Committee, we shall certainly propose to strengthen the powers of these panels to hold the elected commissioner to account.
I make it clear that we are resolutely opposed to the principle of the Bill as it relates to the police commissioners. I believe that at the very least we should ensure that the Government have to satisfy three tests before the Bill is enacted. First, her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary should undertake an assessment of the impact of these proposals and the Act should not be commenced until that has been considered. Secondly, the proposals should have support among the local community. We propose that a referendum should be held in each police area before a police commissioner can be introduced. We are, after all, in the middle of a rather riveting—at least on this side of the House—referendum and we will shortly debate the Localism Bill, which promises referenda up and down the country. If the Government think that a referendum is important in relation to mayors of cities, why on earth is it not important in relation to the police service and local police forces? If you ask the public which they thought was more important, I suspect that many would say the effectiveness of our police forces. I do not understand why the public are not being given a say in that matter. The third test that I would apply is for the scheme to be piloted. Why not pilot this in two or three areas for, say, three years, evaluate it and then consider the scheme’s general introduction? I certainly hope that these tests will find favour in your Lordships’ House.
There are of course other items in the Bill. The Opposition support extra licensing powers to enable local communities and the police to keep public order. We are sympathetic to temporary banning orders for drugs offences, as proposed in the Bill, but we will probe strongly the future role and membership of the advisory committee. We believe that the law on universal jurisdiction should be changed to address the problem where private citizens can secure an arrest warrant even when there is no evidence for, or prospect of, a prosecution. However, I also reiterate the Opposition’s strong belief in the importance of universal jurisdiction. We will certainly scrutinise the details effectively.
In conclusion, I return to the proposals on the police. The political independence of the police is, I believe, as important to us and our democracy as the independence of the courts. I have no doubt that a single politically motivated police and crime commissioner will make it increasingly difficult to ensure that that political independence is maintained. I strongly urge the Government to think again.
Accession (Immigration and Worker Registration) (Revocation, Savings and Consequential Provisions) Regulations 2011
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts(13 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
To resolve that this House regrets the lack of detailed information contained in the explanatory memorandum on the Accession (Immigration and Worker Registration) (Revocation, Savings and Consequential Provisions) Regulations 2011 (SI 2011/544).
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, the regulations before the House tonight revoke the Accession (Immigration and Worker Registration) Regulations 2004, which regulate access to the UK labour market by nationals of eight of the states that acceded to the European Union in 2004. This is required because the treaty governing the accession of those states to the EU provided that existing member states may restrict such access to the labour market for up to seven years following accession, and this period expires on 30 April 2011.
The UK signed up to the right to the free movement of people within the EU, as codified in the EU directive 2004/38/EC, which included provision for free movement of workers within the territory of member states and the European Economic Area. Since the expansion of the EU on 1 May 2004, the UK has accepted immigrants from central and eastern Europe, Malta and Cyprus. There are restrictions on the benefits that members of those countries can claim, which are covered by the worker registration scheme. The significance of that is that the consequence of revoking the regulations, as we are doing tonight, is the closure of the worker registration scheme.
The scheme was introduced in the UK as a transitional measure to monitor accession states nationals’ access to the UK labour market. The scheme did not place any restrictions on the access of nationals of accession states to the labour market in terms of numerical ceilings, resident labour market test or a skills test, but it did make employment subject to a requirement that workers register their employment under the scheme within one month of starting work. Workers ceased to be subject to the requirement to register after 12 months of continuous employment in the UK in accordance with the 2004 regulations.
The reason that I have sought a debate on the regulations is to seek from the Government an assessment of their impact. This matter was raised by the Merits Committee in its 26th report. In that report, the committee drew this statutory instrument to the special attention of the House. The Explanatory Memorandum to the SI states:
“The impact on business, charities or voluntary bodies is negligible. The lifting of the registration requirement imposes no additional costs on business, charities or voluntary bodies and means that employers will no longer need to be compliant with the requirement to ensure that an accession State worker requiring registration has registered their employment … The impact on the public sector is that the UK Border Agency will no longer incur the cost of administering the Worker Registration Scheme. This impact is negligible for the public sector because these costs were recovered though the fee charged for applications”.
We are informed in the Explanatory Memorandum that no impact assessment has been prepared.
The Explanatory Memorandum is silent on assessing the impact of the termination of the worker registration scheme on the benefits system. That is what particularly caught the eye of the Merits Committee, to which I pay tribute for the thoroughness of its work and the help that it gives Members of your Lordships' House in understanding what are sometimes the mysteries of statutory instruments. It will be seen from the 26th report that the Merits Committee followed that comment up in correspondence with the Department for Work and Pensions. That response is helpfully published as Appendix 1 to the 26th report, which states that the DWP says that,
“over 11,000 claims from nationals of the eight countries for income-based Job Seeker’s Allowance were refused last year, but which may have succeeded with the end of the WRS and the transitional arrangements under the Accession Treaty”.
The Merits Committee informs us that,
“DWP say they are still working on the potential costs following the end of the WRS … DWP also say that rules are in place to prevent abuse and they have an expert team scrutinising the quality and consistency of decision making on claims from nationals of the eight countries”.
As the Merits Committee comments, it is disappointing that the Department for Work and Pensions is still working on the potential costs following the end of the worker registration scheme.
This debate is an opportunity, first, to encourage the noble Baroness’s department to be more forthcoming in its impact assessments in future. Secondly, I hope that the noble Baroness will update us and the House on whether the DWP has made any further progress in its work in analysing the potential costs following the end of the worker registration scheme. I beg to move.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, this statutory instrument was drawn to the attention of the House because of the public policy likely to be of interest to it, not because of a defective Explanatory Memorandum. It is not so long ago that we had no Explanatory Memoranda to orders, only Explanatory Notes, which still exist but which are much narrower, technical and often, I must say, opaque. It has only been since 2004, when the Merits Committee was formed, that we have had this type of assistance. I should declare that I am a member of the Merits Committee at present. I should like to take this opportunity to congratulate the committee's advisers, Jane White and Grant Oliver, who pursue with a quiet doggedness issues which arise on too many of the literally thousands of SIs which come before us: things such as lack of reporting on the outcome of consultation, and very often the late presentation of an order so that there is no proper time to investigate before it comes into force.
It should go without saying—although I had better say it—that accountability and access to what the Government do is of the utmost importance. Transparency may be a little overworked as a term, but the concept is not. Information must be available and accessible, not least to avoid any suggestion that what we have—this is not my term, although I wish it was—is not evidence-based policy but policy-based evidence. The Explanatory Memorandum is important, because it is a public document, but I think that this Explanatory Memorandum is clear. It is detailed within its own terms. Perhaps it would be good to have an impact assessment to accompany statutory instruments, but, as things are at the moment, that is not usual.
My greater concern is the usual—the importance of joining up different parts of government. The SI comes from the Home Office; it was announced by the noble Baroness. Her statement dealt with the procedures affecting people coming into the UK from the accession states, not the wider impact. The report notes with disappointment that the DWP has not provided an estimate of associated costs. It had seven years to do so. I cannot resist the basic arithmetic, which tells us when six of those seven years were.
The noble Lord has raised a number of interesting questions, and I will, to an extent, repeat them. Given the time that there has been, why have the Government not sought to develop a more accurate measure of the likely numbers? The noble Lord referred to the 11,000—it may be almost 12,000—claims rejected in the past calendar year which apparently would have succeeded with the ending of the transitional arrangements. How confident are the Government that those figures are close to being accurate? How will they seek to verify them? Newspaper articles use the figure of more than 100,000 migrants. If I were to ask the Minister whether she knows where the newspapers got the figure of 100,000 from, that would probably be an unfair question, because we all know that newspapers are not necessarily the most accurate reporters.
Have the Government worked out the cost of the increased access to benefits? It would be helpful if the Minister would say a little about the Jobcentre Plus team to which the noble Lord referred. Is it dealing with just these accession state nationals? I hope not, as I hope this is all in a wider context. I also hope that it is not just the DWP but, for instance, BIS or Communities that have considered the implications of this change. I am not suggesting that they have not.
The point of the transitional arrangements was to monitor accession state nationals’ access to the UK labour market. We are told that by paragraph 7(2) of the Explanatory Memorandum. What was the result?
The best argument for a full Explanatory Memorandum dealing with the impacts is yesterday’s Daily Express, whose front page screamed, “Migrants Flood Back to Britain”. I know the reluctance to let the facts get in the way of a good story, but perhaps fuller Explanatory Memoranda on this sort of issue would assist in ensuring accuracy rather than raising the temperature so unnecessarily and unpleasantly.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I am very glad to respond to this short debate tonight.
I think the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, is absolutely right about the powerful help that we receive from the publication of Explanatory Memorandums. She will be aware that I was the first chairman of the Merits Select Committee. When we first met, relying simply on Explanatory Notes proved very insufficient, so the publications of EMs for all statutory instruments has been very helpful. I very much agree with her comments about the argument for very full Explanatory Memorandums. I certainly support that, and I certainly endorse her comments about the work of the Merits Select Committee. It is very difficult for Members of this House to scrutinise statutory instruments properly without the kind of help that we receive from the Select Committee. I am very grateful to it for the work that it does, and I sympathise with the noble Baroness for the no doubt weekly delivery of statutory instruments that have to be read.
At the end of her speech, the noble Baroness referred to six out of seven years, the implication being that if the DWP had had seven years I ought to accept responsibility for six-sevenths of the failure to produce the figures. It is, of course, in the final year that one expects most of the work to be done, which falls under different management.
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, for explaining the difficulty in achieving reliable budget figures. I understand the particular challenges that face the DWP, particularly in the light of the data protection issues that she mentioned, and I certainly fully accept the complexity of these matters, but I think that the Explanatory Memorandum would have benefited from the kind of explanation that she gave tonight. The problem is that the EM was silent; paragraph 10(2) simply describes the impact on the public sector as negligible. It would have been helpful if reference had been made to the potential cost of the benefits, and it would have been entirely acceptable to have said that it was not possible at this point to quantify that cost for the reasons that the noble Baroness gave.
I hope that this debate has been helpful and that when the Home Office comes with further SIs, as no doubt it will—it always does—it takes that particular point to heart. I am glad to have raised the matters contained in this statutory instrument tonight, and I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.