Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Lord Imbert and Lord Elystan-Morgan

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elystan-Morgan (CB)]

My Lords, I am sure that it will come as no surprise to the Minister that I take exactly the same view as that put forward with so much restraint and moderation by the three noble Lords who have spoken. I considered the appointment of police and crime commissioners a tremendous mistake on the part of the Government and the Opposition. Both parties, I think for the best reasons in the world, believed that there had to be some supervision of the police force that would satisfy certain doubts and fears rampant among the public at the time. I believe with all my heart and conviction that they were wrong. It was wrong to consider that a commissar—for that is really what a commissioner is—could be introduced into a force that has a structure of disciplined hierarchy without defeating the very basic element of discipline in that force. You could not do it in the armed services unless it happened to be the Red Army or the army of the People’s Republic of China. You would not think of doing it in the armed services. It has the effect of eating like acid into the morale of the police—we have already seen very many instances of how the life of a chief constable can be made absolutely impossible by a commissioner, and we will see worse.

I am no prophet or son of a prophet but I am sure that as time runs on and the period of a commissioner’s tenure comes towards its end, where that person gave huge promises and undertakings as a candidate that have not been delivered, he will turn round and say, “This is all due to the chief constable. This man”—or this woman—“has to be removed”. I cannot imagine anything that would eat into the morale of the police service in a more destructive way than that. If my noble friends had proposed cancelling the powers in Clause 126, I would have supported them. I would support anything that diminishes the authority of a commissioner and, for that reason, I support this amendment.

I say, with great humility, that my attitude has everything to do with what I conceive a police service to be. I had the very high honour—believe it or not, 45 years ago—to be police Minister in the other place, serving under James Callaghan. James Callaghan would say very often, “Do you know what the police service is, as far as I am concerned? It is a case of citizens in uniform”. The powers that the ordinary constable has today have been increased over the past 45 years but they are still moderate in relation to the general powers and responsibilities that the ordinary citizen has. The powers of arrest are not immensely greater, but I am not here to lecture the House on that matter.

I will say that the concept of a commissioner was wrong. Anything that can dilute those powers will be right and anything that would give him the power that is possibly inherent—there is dubiety about the matter—in the execution of Section 126 is to be very much welcomed.

At the moment we have a clutch of scandals in relation to the police. It gives me no pleasure at all to make that point. The situation was not very different in the early 1960s, when the royal commission under Sir Henry Willink was set up. The work that was done was brilliant and imaginative. It led to the Police Act 1964, which was one of the most progressive advances made in relation to policing in the United Kingdom. I think that such a study is due again, and should examine very carefully whether we need the office of a police commissioner.

I will end with an edited quotation from Oliver Cromwell, to his Long Parliament: “Consider that you may yet be wrong”.

[Lord Imbert (CB)]

My Lords, I support my noble friends Lord Blair and Lord Condon. As we know, they were both commissioners of the largest, most envied and most copied police service in the western world, the London Metropolitan Police, as was I for six years from 1987 to 1993.

The amendment is about Section 126 of the anti-social—and, it seems, in some respects anti-police—Bill that is before us. No, I have not made a mistake. This Bill and other legislation that the Government have brought forward in the past few years accurately reflect their disdain for the police service in this country. Indeed, it reflects the contempt in which the Government hold the service that other Governments and police services throughout the world hold as the example and model, and which every country I visited during my career wished to emulate.

These countries include in particular the USA, where they wanted to know about the British way; Russia, where I was asked to speak to senior personnel about policing in a democracy; South Africa, Malawi, Kenya and other African states; France, Italy, Germany, Australia, Japan and Argentina. I shall not go into detail at this stage as I do not wish to detract in any way from the articulate, intelligent, sensible and persuasive way my noble colleagues have put the case for this amendment, on serious—indeed, very serious—security grounds.

If your Lordships do not care about the future security of this country, or the essential exchange of vital security intelligence with other countries and their security services around the world, you will reject the amendment.

If you leave the clause unamended, you may well be closing the door to the exchange of vital intelligence and information, which is likely to spell danger to this country and make impossible the duty facing our security services and police in their task of keeping us free, or as free as they possibly can, from terrorism and serious, violent and organised crime.

I therefore implore all noble Lords to take note of what my noble friends have said and accept this most important amendment. In my opening remarks, I said that this and other legislation brought forward by this Government reflected the disdain and contempt in which the ruling political party holds the police in this country. I cannot, like many thousands of serving police officers, whose morale is at the lowest ebb since the 1950s, refrain from concluding that some clauses are there because someone has said, “Yes, go on. Put that in. That will give them a bloody nose and show who’s running the show”.

Your Lordships may not be surprised that the first example of that disdain—forgetting about the “f” word being used by a senior member of the Government in a disgraceful incident at the gates of Downing Street—was the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill, which made provision for the election, at enormous cost, of so-called police and crime commissioners. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, referred to those persons as commissars. It was intended that those individuals would hold the chief constable to account and have the power to dismiss the chief officer and appoint someone of their choice—even someone of his political party—as the chief constable. Shades of the situation in Nazi Germany in the early 1930s, when traditional policing had to give way to political chief officer appointments. We know how that progressed. It could not happen here, of course, could it?

I speak as a Cross-Bench Member of your Lordships’ House, but I admit to being a failed Conservative. The first step on that path to failure was during the time of the YouGov poll at the same time as your Lordships were discussing the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill, designed to bring about the appointment of police and crime commissioners, together with a large staff and not inconsiderable salaries. Although no less than 65% of those polled did not want the system and only 15% did, the Government took no notice of that demonstrable public opposition. At the same time as the NHS closed a number of accident and emergency departments on the grounds of cost, the Government somehow earmarked £100 million for the introduction of the PCCs.

The Government remained unmoved although, on the day when the public were given the opportunity to vote for their PCCs, we found that the majority of the electorate decided not to vote—most of those who I know, as a protest, they said. That was a clear indication of the public’s mood which the Government laughingly put down to bad weather keeping those entitled to vote at home. Or was it that the Government did not care what the public thought? Was that yet another example of the Government’s intransigence, demonstrating that they are the ones who make the rules? If they want the rules changed, they change them. After all, they are the governing party and we are mere constables or PCs.

There have certainly been mistakes with the introduction of these ill advised and unbelievably costly, unwanted and unnecessary schemes. Let us not make further mistakes which will not only be costly but may well be a danger to the public—those whose protection should be of paramount importance to any Government. I therefore urge your Lordships to support and accept the amendment tabled by my noble friends.