Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Rosser]

220ZZA: After Clause 78, insert the following new Clause—
“Standards Board guidance
(1) Section 57 of the Local Government Act 2000 (Standards Board for England) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (5) for paragraph (b) substitute—
“(b) may issue guidance on matters relating to—(i) the conduct of chief commissioners, members and co-opted members of police and crime panels and the Police Commissions in England and Wales; and(ii) the qualifications and or experience that monitoring officers should possess.”(3) In subsection (5) omit paragraph (c)”

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, I hesitated before speaking because I intend to be very brief and I was of the view that I would probably finish before everybody had managed to leave the Chamber if I started straight away.

Police authorities currently are covered by the Standards Board for England, but this will not be the case with the new police and crime panels provided for in the Bill. The amendment provides for guidance to continue to be given by the Standards Board for England in relation to the conduct of chief commissioners, members and co-opted members of police and crime panels and the police commissions in England and Wales, and also on the matter of the qualifications and experience that monitoring officers should possess. The current legislation states:

“In exercising its functions the Standards Board for England must have regard to the need to promote and maintain high standards of conduct by members and co-opted members of relevant authorities in England. … The Standards Board for England … may issue guidance to relevant authorities in England and police authorities in Wales on matters relating to the conduct of members and co-opted members of such authorities”.

If the situation is that while police authorities are currently covered by the Standards Board for England but that this will not be the case for the new police and crime panels—indeed, I understand that it is the Government’s intention to abolish the Standards Board—the purpose of this amendment is to ask what the Government intend to do in future in relation, for example, to the new police and crime panels. Is it intended to replicate the functions currently carried out by the Standards Board as far as, for example, the new police and crime panels are concerned and, if so, by which individual, body or organisation? One would have thought that since one of the key functions of the Standards Board for England is to have regard to the need to promote and maintain high standards of conduct, that would be even more important in relation to the new bodies and organisations that will be established under the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill that we are discussing. One finds it difficult to believe that the Government do not intend to provide some sort of substitute for the Standards Board for England, if it is their intention to abolish it, and that they do not intend to ensure that similar guidance is not going to be issued in future in order to maintain high standards of conduct in relation to, among other bodies, the police and crime panels. The purpose of this amendment is to seek to ascertain from the Government what their intentions are in this regard. I beg to move.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, I rise first to speak in support of the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Rosser. To some extent, we touched on these matters at an earlier stage. The absence of a standards regime for these new bodies which are going to be responsible for the oversight of the police service in England and Wales is really rather extraordinary. In the previous day in Committee, I gave an example of the sorts of things that could happen where having a robust standards regime would be a better solution than one that says that, if these individuals step over the line and actually break the law, they can be investigated by the police—for whom they have a direct responsibility, of course, which raises some interesting questions—and, if necessary, prosecuted. A standards regime that is going to protect the integrity of those individuals and provide assurance to the public that they are acting properly and appropriately is clearly important. It will be interesting to hear from the Minister how the Government envisage that this will be dealt with.

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[Baroness Browning]

In reply to the noble Lord, standards and governance would not be something we would wish to put in the Bill. It might well be something that would come out later in guidance, but I would not expect it to be in the Bill itself.

[Lord Rosser]

First, I thank all those noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, which has clearly raised a number of serious and important issues. I am left with the impression that the Government, in their enthusiasm in the Localism Bill to abolish the Standards Board, probably overlooked the significance of that decision for this Bill. I think that is why the Minister has been a little on the defensive during these exchanges. I do not think there has been as much joined-up thinking as the Government would sometimes wish us to imagine that there is. A fairly powerful case has been made for continuing guidance in order to promote and maintain high standards and conduct by the members of the bodies that we are talking about within this particular Bill.

I have to say I am not entirely clear—and I would be grateful if the Minister could clear this up—what she has or has not agreed to do. She has made references during this debate to still being in discussion with colleagues. However, I am not clear what the Minister is saying she is still looking at and, by inference, whether she might be coming back to this House at a later date; or even if she is saying that she is looking at some of the issues that are raised by my amendment and will be coming back to the House with further thoughts. There may be no further change at all, but will she be coming back to this House to let us know the result of these discussions she is having with colleagues?

[Baroness Browning]

I am grateful to the noble Lord and perhaps I can just clarify that. These discussions between the Home Office and CLG are ongoing and I cannot give the House a definitive answer today as to the conclusions. However, I will promise that as soon as they are concluded—which I hope will be shortly—I will write to noble Lords and place a letter in the Library.

[Lord Rosser]

Will the Minister just say what issues these discussions are covering?

[Baroness Browning]

My Lords, I do not want to be too defensive on this but it is a matter that we are looking at. With the abolition of the Standards Board, we need to make sure that that piece of legislation does not have an adverse effect on this particular Bill, therefore there are some discussions going on as to how we resolve the matter and in which piece of legislation we may or may not want to make any changes. It is on that basis that discussions are being taken forward.

[Lord Rosser]

I will at this stage leave it at that. I thank the Minister for that further information. I hope that it does lead to some changes to the Bill because the case has been made fairly strongly and powerfully for at least the continuation of guidance on promoting and maintaining high standards of conduct in relation to panels that certainly will be subject to a high level of public scrutiny, bearing in mind the role that they are going to have. However, I will at this stage leave it at that and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 220ZZA withdrawn.

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[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I must apologise to the Committee for not being here when Clause 5, on the requirement on the police and crime commissioners to issue police and crime plans, was discussed. Had I been here, I would have referred to Clause 79, on the strategic policing requirement. The police and crime plans, whoever draws them up, must always be an amalgam of national, international and local policing requirements. It is always going to be a difficult balance to decide which of those has priority and how the resources are to be allocated to them. That is one of the reasons why I have always been a supporter of the dissenting comments of Dr Goodhart in the 1962 police commission on the need for a national police force to cover the fact that crime does not observe local boundaries.

The time has come to look nationally at these issues and then to make certain that they are covered properly. The question is who will cover them. You could be forgiven for thinking that the proposal for elected police commissioners in areas around the country is putting the local policing issue at the top of the pack. Is that actually so? The Home Secretary, quite rightly, will insist that international terrorism or international drug dealing, for example, are given due recognition. What worries me is that I do not see this issue being resolved by the Bill as drafted or the guidance. I had hoped that I might have found it in the draft protocol. It states that local police commissioners have the,

“legal power and duty to … set the strategic direction and objectives of the force through the Police and Crime Plan … which must have regard to the Strategic Policing Requirement set by the Home Secretary”.

That does not resolve the issue, either.

My concern is that the person who will lose out, if we are not careful, is the person who will have to carry the can through the heat of the day—the chief officer of police or the chief constable. To my mind, there is only one person in an area who should draw up these plans—the chief constable. It should be done necessarily in draft and then it should be cleared with those who have to provide the resources. However, it should also be cleared with those with responsibility for influencing the balance between the international, national and local requirements of policing in that area. We will be doing a great disservice to the chief constables and chief officers of police if we do not make that clear and if we set them the problem of having to resolve something that is not resolvable, with a whole lot of competing people around them who may not necessarily come together in a way that will resolve the matter. This issue is too important for the public to be left not properly resolved.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, I, too, wish to speak to amendments in my name—Amendments 220ZC, 221A, 225ZB and 228A. Clause 79 provides for the Secretary of State to,

“from time to time, issue a document (the ‘strategic policing requirement’) which sets out what, in the Secretary of State’s view, are … national threats at the time the document is issued, and … appropriate national policing capabilities to counter those national threats”.

I am not quite sure what “from time to time” means in this context, but perhaps the Minister will be able to throw some light on it. The Bill provides for the chief officer of police to,

“have regard to the strategic policing requirement”,

in exercising their functions. One of my amendments adds that the police and crime commissioners must also take into account the Secretary of State’s strategic policing requirement document in exercising their functions.

A further amendment to Clause 79 provides for Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary to report annually on how each police and crime commission and the mayor’s office is fulfilling the strategic policing requirement. The clause places a requirement on police and crime commissioners and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to have regard to the findings of the HMIC report. The final amendment would retain a requirement, which appears to be deleted under the Bill, for HMIC to report to the Secretary of State on the efficiency and effectiveness of police forces.

Under Clause 5(5), a police and crime commissioner must, in issuing or varying a police and crime plan, have regard to the strategic policing requirement issued by the Secretary of State. My amendment, however, makes it clear that account of the strategic policing requirement has to be taken by the police and crime commissioner not just in issuing or varying a police and crime plan but in exercising all their functions. For that reason, it would provide a much clearer and stronger form of words. I do not wish to repeat the points made by my noble friends Lady Henig and Lord Harris of Haringey, but it is surely necessary to have some checks against any potentially maverick police and crime commissioner and, in short, some acceptable consistency in strategy and approach.

Yesterday, the Government announced their proposals for a national crime agency. In the Government’s view, the new agency represents a major change. It is surprising that in the middle of the Committee stage of the Bill the Government should announce proposals that could, depending on what their intentions are, have a significant impact on the powers and functions of the bodies and organisations that are referred to in the Bill, including police and crime commissioners. Perhaps the Minister can tell us whether the Government see the national crime agency as the creation of a new enhanced national policing force or whether it simply brings together under one roof a number of key organisations that are largely working well at present and will not be helped by the distraction of the cost and time of the creation of a new organisation and its associated bureaucracy.

The Government have said that the national crime agency will be a crime-fighting organisation that will tackle organised crime, defend our borders, fight fraud and cybercrime, and protect children and young people. With a senior chief constable at its head, it will harness intelligence, analytical capabilities and enforcement powers and will have strong links to local police forces and police and crime commissioners. The Secretary of State yesterday said that the national crime agency will comprise a number of distinct operational commands, one of which, the organised crime command, will,

“tackle organised crime groups, whether they operate locally, across the country or across our international borders. Fulfilling a key pledge in the coalition agreement, the border policing command will strengthen our borders”.

Other commands will be border policing, economic crime and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. The Secretary of State also said that the national crime agency will,

“use … intelligence to co-ordinate, prioritise and target action against organised criminals, with information flowing to and from the police and other agencies in support of tactical operations”,

and that,

“the NCA will have the ability and the authority to task and co-ordinate the police and other law enforcement agencies”.

She continued:

“For the first time, there will be one agency with the power, remit and responsibility for ensuring that the right action is taken at the right time by the right people—that agency will be the NCA. All other agencies will work to the NCA’s threat assessment and prioritisation, and it will be the NCA’s intelligence picture that will drive the response on the ground. That will be underpinned by the new strategic policing requirement”.

The Secretary of State concluded by saying that all areas of the country suffer the effects of organised crime,

“from the very poorest communities to the most affluent, from the smallest villages to the biggest cities”,

and that we owe it to them to tackle it. Her penultimate phrase was:

“The National Crime Agency will do all those things and more”.—[Official Report, Commons, 8/6/11; cols. 232-34.]

That is quite a build-up for an organisation that will have no more money than the aggregate cost of its predecessors, which already face significant reductions in their budgets, including a cutback in a number of front-line staff as a result of cuts made by the Government that are too deep and too fast.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, that this is one of the most important debates we are having in Committee and raises some of the important underlying issues with which we need to come to grips in the Bill. I know that we have covered some broad and important issues which concern the balance between local, regional, national and, increasingly, international policing. There is a whole range of issues about the balance between flexibility and direction. There is a constant tendency in almost every issue with which we deal in Parliament to demand devolution of power with very detailed direction from the centre as to exactly how that devolved power should be used. If I may say so, we have heard quite a lot of that over the past hour. Then there is the question of accountability. Several noble Lords have asked where the checks and balances lie and how inspection is conducted. Again, there are some important issues there.

The strategic policing requirement will support police and crime commissioners in effectively balancing local and national responsibilities and driving improvements in their force’s response to serious cross-boundary criminality, harms and threats. How that is done and how tightly that is drawn is, again, a question of balance. I remain of the view that “to have regard to” is the correct way to deliver that balance. The phrase “to have regard to” has been used in a great deal of previous policing administration. It is intended to provide that that is something that you must take into account, but you have flexibility in how you take it into account on a day-to-day basis. That seems to us to be the balance that we need of giving direction but not tying people down too far.

The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, asked about the balance between the local, the regional and the international. With much less knowledge of policing than most of those taking part in this Committee, but having looked at the growth of the international dimension of police co-operation—particularly the European dimension—over the past 25 years, I am struck by how much the balance has changed. Before the Berlin Wall came down, the number of policemen in this country who dealt with international dimensions of crime was relatively limited. When I was at Chatham House and first met the external department of the Metropolitan Police, it was a relatively small body.

As we all know, the international context of policing has been transformed over the past 25 years by the continuing growth of international travel, by the continual revolution in communications, and by the arrival of the internet. Every local policeman has to have some regard to the international dimension. I recall reading in the Yorkshire Post not long ago about a well-known criminal in Liverpool who had been followed by the Dutch police in Amsterdam and arrested and convicted in Jersey, but the crime he was engaged in impacted on Liverpool. That is local and international crime. I was concerned with the question of who would pay for him being sent to prison in England from Jersey. Those are the sort of difficult questions we get engaged in.

The answer, we know, having had a debate about whether we should move towards a national police force or yet another round of amalgamation of police forces down to about 20 rather than 40 in England and Wales, is to promote co-operation. We have a range of shared regional units, and I have happily visited a number of them in recent months, which deal with the specialised units—for example kidnapping, helicopters, dog units, organised crime units and counterterrorism units, all of which are shared by the smaller police forces. To us, that is the way forward.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, that the announcement of the formation of the national crime agency yesterday was not a further stage towards a national police force; it was part of the continuing process in which we have to handle the balance between international policing and national, regional and local policing. The creation of SOCA and the whole growth of that dimension has been part of the response over the past 25 years to dealing with international co-operation. It was not an important factor for policing 40 or 50 years ago. A balance has to be struck, although no doubt it will change again. The duty to have regard is one that we defend as striking the right balance between flexibility and direction. I cannot answer the many questions which the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, raised about the NCA, but we shall return to it in more detail.

[Lord Rosser]

Surely the noble Lord is not telling me that he has not read the paper that the Secretary of State published yesterday? My questions are simply based on what she has written.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The noble Lord asked about 65 questions and I fear that it might take a great deal of time to answer them all in detail. We shall extensively discuss the exact role of the NCA on a later occasion. I hope that, in general terms, I have answered the question about this not being a road to a national police force.

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[Lord Rosser]

When the Minister says that we will discuss the national crime agency on a later occasion, does he mean as part of our discussions on this Bill? If he is not quite sure of the answers to my questions, I can tell him that they relate to the potential impact on, for example, police and crime commissioners. Can he assure us that we will have a discussion about the impact of the national crime agency on the Bill that we are currently discussing, or is he talking about discussing it only after we have dealt with this Bill?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Perhaps I may remind the opposition Front Bench that we could have taken the Statement on the national crime agency yesterday but that the opposition Front Bench declined to have the Statement repeated in this House. We could have usefully discussed that yesterday. We shall take the whole issue of the role of the national crime agency further. We can certainly give answers in writing to some of the questions that he has raised on the Floor of the House.

[Lord Rosser]

It is certainly true that we did not take the Statement yesterday but there was other rather important business to discuss. I hope that the Minister will accept that, even if the Statement had been taken, it would hardly have been a substitute for discussing the implications of the national crime agency on the provisions in this Bill, which can be discussed properly only during the discussions on the Bill.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Serious Organised Crime Agency already exists and the national crime agency will be an expansion and revision of the role of the Serious Organised Crime Agency. This is evolution and not revolution.