Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Lord Prescott Excerpts

Monday 28th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prescott]

My Lords, I should perhaps declare my interest as standing as a candidate, if elected by my party, for police commissioner. That has caused me to look closely at what the Government are proposing. If doubts have been expressed in this debate and by the Constitution Committee about the courts and the role of the police commissioner, they reflect not uncertainty in the Government but a contradiction. On the one hand, they say that there should be local control of policing; on the other, they make sure that the control lies at the centre with the Secretary of State. It is the biggest centralisation of our police that we have witnessed for many a year. All you have to do is read what the Home Secretary said to the previous Police Federation conference—not the last one; she had difficulties there. On starting out on this road, she said:

“I’m not interested in running the police”.

She later said:

“That principle—that we are best served by a police force run by professionals rather than politicians—is at the heart of this Government’s plan to cut crime”.

Since crime has fallen by 50% less than under the previous Administration, and it is now being proposed to break up the system then in place, perhaps that is not the best example.

The Home Secretary talks about a change in the policing landscape. She has announced in this Bill the establishment of the National Crime Agency. People have pointed to the conflict between the powers given to the director-general of the institution and those given to other bodies and the chief constable. If you look carefully at this Bill, you see that it is undoubtedly true that power is given to the director-general to direct the chief of police—that is set out in Clause 5. Curiously, the only exception, where you have to seek the permission of the Secretary of State, is the British Transport Police. I do not know why that is so. I understand that it is a separate organisation, but it has a right, if a direction is given by the director-general, to get it confirmed by the Secretary of State. If that is the case, it should apply to other areas.

We have to reflect on what the Government are doing in this transfer of power. I have heard the noble Lord, Lord Condon, and others talk about the fight against terrorism. There is an article in the Telegraph—I got it by mistake; it is not my usual paper—by a man people will not be surprised to learn, given my background with the Met, for whom I do not have great admiration, John Yates. Entitled “A British FBI won’t make us any safer”, it argues that taking responsibility from the Met—I am not a great fan of it either—and distributing it to another body will break up that co-operation of the willing that the noble Lord, Lord Condon, talked about, where chief constables in an area get together with the director-general of the crime agency. That seems common sense to me; I have no objection to the crime agency. All Governments have tried to co-ordinate efforts when crime has gone beyond an area of operation, nationally and internationally—terrorism, drugs, et cetera. That is right and I have no dispute with it.

However, I do not believe that the Government are merely confused in what they are doing; I believe that it is a deliberate policy to centralise power and to give less power and fewer resources to the regions. Who is going to be responsible for that? As the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has pointed out, local responsibility belongs to the commissioner and the police chief. I assume that they will have a five-year plan for dealing with police and crime. The power is given to the commissioner to sack the chief of police if necessary. It would be rather interesting if the chief of police was operating on what he thought was a nod and a wink from the Secretary of State. I hear that ACPO has not been abolished yet, but apparently it is on the way. That will be set up by the council of chief constables who advise the Secretary of State. Do you think that this Secretary of State might advise those chief constables on what her priorities are? Will they have to go back and change the plan that has been agreed with the police commissioner? Who is running the local crime strategy and the policy for delivering it? I know what will happen—it is called localism under this Government. They do not give you the resources and they then say, “You’re responsible”. They will then blame the commissioner and the chief constable for not achieving a reduction in crime. The very policy that they are pursuing is to reduce resources by 20%, the police by 16,000 and achieve the increase in crime that we are already coming to. But they will not be blamed any more; rather, it will be these wonderful new commissioners. That is probably why we are asked to swear a pledge of impartiality. Cor blimey, if you held this Government to that pledge of impartiality, you would have difficulty.

The Government claim on the one hand that the police force should be run by professionals and then create on the other a system that elects politicians. Even the police and crime panels being set have councillors on them. Of course the commissioners will have background and of course they must be impartial—I would not for a second think that any judgment that I would be involved in would not be impartial—but they would be judged by the electorate because they would have to stand for election again. That is what the Government say is one of the important democratic accountabilities of the new system.

This is a policy that has been thought out. It is about keeping the power at the centre, leaving the responsibility for the local area and then stripping the system of powers and resources. In my authority, Humberside Police will lose £30 million out of its budget and 400 police. Will that it make it easier to carry out the crime policy in the area? Of course it will not, but the force will be blamed for it.

ACPO had a reasonable amount of independence; there are people here who know how it works. That is now being stripped down to the council of chief constables, and it will obviously be influenced by what happens in the relationship between the Secretary of State and the chief constables.

The other matter of concern is privatisation. I heard the noble Lord, Lord Condon, say that he has worked in the private sector, which has, I am sure, done a lot of things to achieve the efficiencies that are necessary. But this privatisation programme, whether it is in the back office or the front office, is really about reducing the police from a public police force to a private police force. That is what is believed; that is what is likely to happen; and it is all about getting a cheaper kind of labour to replace the traditional force. That raises questions and concerns over whether we are replacing a public police service with a private one, which, of course, many people feel is the case. All this leads to grave concern about the role of the commissioner.

I am not resigning because I have discovered this; I think that you will find that I might try to prevent some of it. Unless I am crossing the line of impartiality, I would think that if I am fighting for my community and it tells me to reduce crime, I am going to be doing all the damn things that I can to see that that happens, even if it means arguing with the Government about it. That is a reality of people being elected by the community and who are accountable to it.

While the crime agency would not be involved in tackling corruption in the police force, there is a worry here. The report that Parliament has received from the IPCC only this week, Corruption in the Police Service, makes it clear that corruption is on the rise. The 178 allegations of officer corruption recorded by the Humberside Police force have been a headline today in my local paper, Hull Daily Mail; I saw it when I got on the train. The figure in the Met is 1,800 because it is a bigger force. Of course there is a certain amount of competitive unfairness—corruption can occur with a league table—so the report proposes more resources and powers to investigate some of the claims of corruption and police complaints which are not being put forward. I hope the poor Government are reading this report and will give a response to it.

The report also highlights concern about contracts that are being agreed between the police and the private sector. The commission said that it could not get access to the information to make a judgment about such contracts. That is very worrying because a number of senior policemen have joined these private companies and are involved in the bidding. That is wrong. The Government should make it clear to them that they should not be involved in areas where they have expertise and where contracts are involved. This report makes it clear that the commission wants more information on resources. That will be an issue for the commissioner. I strongly think that is what is happening, and that was evident in Surrey. In north Lincolnshire a complete police station has been taken over—it is not just a bit of backroom work; the whole lot has been taken. We have now got C4 Security doing the high-profile work as well, all rejected by the public and very contestable. I think there is a growing concern about these matters.

The Government want to get people into this field as commissioner—and at the moment they are worrying whether they can get independent people, and are trawling businesspeople to encourage them to come out and do this job—but why is the Home Office, as opposed to in elections for the mayor and local government, prepared to pay for information about the candidates? Why is the Home Office doing what we already do for MPs, MEPs and indeed other candidates? But why is there a refusal to give out that information about the candidates? I know they say you can get it on the website. Some 7 million people do not have access to the website, according to the Electoral Commission. Let us look sensibly at what we are doing. Of course there will be arguments. This is about the centralisation of the police. It is actually nobbling local policing, whatever they say, and that is going to be an argument. Forgive me if I think that is kind of political attitude and view. Judge it on the evidence and that is what the election will be about.