King’s Speech

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I declare my interest, as set out in the register, as a non-executive director of the Metropolitan Police Service. I warmly welcome the noble Lords, Lord Hanson of Flint and Lord Timpson, to this House. This House values experience, and both Ministers have relevant experience in abundance. I also warmly welcome this Government and their declared principles of security, fairness and opportunity for all.

I welcome the Government’s commitment to make streets safer, although I believe it will take more than just legislation to strengthen policing, to give the police greater powers to deal with antisocial behaviour and to strengthen support for victims. It is the implementation of such measures, and the holding of police forces to account for achieving these laudable goals, that may prove difficult.

We still have 43 operationally independent chief constables, almost all of whom are overseen by elected police and crime commissioners or elected regional mayors, each of whom has their own political mandate. The former tripartite arrangement of chief constable, Home Office and police authority that was in place when the noble Lord, Lord Hanson, was previously Minister for Crime and Policing, no longer exists. The current complex governance arrangements not only allow the Home Office to absolve itself of responsibility, as happened under previous Conservative Governments, but make it much harder for the Home Office to drive change, achieve savings and focus policing on the Government’s priorities.

The operational independence of chief constables and the political independence of police and crime commissioners, who now appoint chief constables with little Home Office input, together create a potential barrier to national policing reform if police chiefs and PCCs decide to resist them. In His Majesty’s gracious Speech and in the accompanying documentation and commentary, including the very useful Library briefing, the Government apparently intend to introduce a crime and policing Bill as one of their first laws, enabling the Home Office to take a “more active” approach to crime and policing. Can the Minister explain how that can done within the current governance arrangements?

The Government’s determination to tackle knife crime is also welcome. Can the Minister explain how executives of online companies that break new rules on the supply of ninja swords, lethal zombie-style knives and machetes online will be personally held to account if those companies are based overseas, as many of them are?

The neighbourhood policing guarantee is also welcome and crucial in a policing system based on policing by consent, where trust and confidence in the police is inextricably linked to police effectiveness. New police officers, police community support officers and special constables are to be paid for by setting national standards for procurement, and by establishing shared services and specialist functions to drive down costs. Can the Minister explain how this is to be done when the financing of police forces is in the hands of elected mayors and police and crime commissioners, and the deployment of those resources is a matter for operationally independent chief constables? Similar constitutional difficulty appears to lie in the proposal to compel operationally independent chief constables to follow the recommendations of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services.

As the noble Baronesses, Lady Doocey and Lady Royall of Blaisdon, have said, the breathtaking extent of violence against women and girls, as set out by the National Police Chiefs’ Council yesterday, is deeply concerning. Can the Minister say what, if any, evidential test will be applied to the proposed automatic suspension of police officers being investigated for domestic abuse or sexual offences, or whether an uncorroborated allegation with no supporting evidence would be sufficient?

I only raise these issues as matters which I respectfully ask the new Government to consider, in the earnest hope that any difficulties can be overcome, so that they can achieve their policing goals, which I wholeheartedly support.