Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Harris of Haringey

Saturday 10th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, like many, I remember watching the Queen’s Coronation in 1953 on a small black and white television. As we have heard, the world today is very different from the world of that post-war period. But, although it has changed dramatically, the values of our society have remained constant, as our new King reminded us last night. The Queen promoted those values through her absolute commitment to parliamentary government, through her dedication and sense of service, through her loyalty and through her resilience.

Among her many achievements, two stand out for me. First, she was our Head of State, with a clear constitutional role. She was an extremely successful Head of State, understanding the requirements and limitations of the role. But, in truth, she was something more: she was the head of our nation. She reflected us—our country, our people and our society—and she knew when to provide support, such as in the recent pandemic. She had the gift of being able to bring people together—witness her visits to Germany and Ireland and the symbolic importance that those visits had.

Secondly, when she sensed a need for change, she made it happen—for example, in managing our transition from Empire to the Commonwealth, whose current strength owes so much to her leadership, as we have heard. She became the most widely travelled Head of State in the world, which I feel is a tribute to her resolution to build the Commonwealth.

Her Majesty visited my home city of Newcastle upon Tyne on many occasions to undertake official engagements. I remember her opening Eldon Square shopping centre on her Silver Jubilee in 1977 and distributing the royal Maundy money in St Nicholas Cathedral in 1990. She opened several of Tyneside’s major infrastructure projects, such as the Metro and the A1 western bypass. She also opened our new city library and the Great North Museum. In Gateshead in recent years, she opened the Gateshead Millennium Bridge and Sage Gateshead. I was present at many of these visits and several things stood out: her genuine interest in what she was seeing, her desire to learn from those she was meeting and, when she did walkabouts in the city centre, the happiness with which she was greeted by the thousands of people who had made the journey to welcome her. I remember their cheering, the flags and the flowers, which always made for a memorable occasion.

When her father died, the Queen promised to devote her life to the service of our country, but, as the King pointed out last night, it was her personal commitment that defined her life. It was not just a promise; it was 70 years of personal commitment. So we express our profound sorrow on Her Majesty the Queen’s death. We thank her for her lifetime of service and achievement. To our new King, we express our loyalty and support.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords—

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Harris of Haringey

Wednesday 29th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I shall make two comments on quite a fundamental matter. First, I am clear that there needs to be a memorandum of understanding. I am less clear about whether it needs to have statutory force. However, the public will expect to understand what the powers of a chief constable and a commissioner are when they are being asked to vote for a police and crime commissioner. That seems a basic point; the public must have a clear understanding of the two roles. Unless this is written down in the form of a memorandum of understanding, it will be difficult for them to do so.

Secondly, there is also an operational aspect to this. Amendment 4A asks in particular,

“how the operational independence of chief constables and police forces will be protected”.

This relates to the joining point between the operational independence of the chief constable and the power of the police and crime commissioner over both the budget and the annual plan. In other words, the chief constable is to be required to undertake, with operational independence, the work in a plan that was agreed by the police and crime commissioner. The budget for that plan will be agreed by the commissioner and supplied to the chief constable. There is a clear joining point that must be bridged here. There is a grave danger that there will be operational interference by the police and crime commissioner when that commissioner feels that the budget and plan that he or she created is not being implemented. Unless this is clearly written down in the form of a memorandum of understanding, that operational independence will not be clear to anyone and trouble will ensue.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, we should not get too carried away over what this memorandum will do. My noble friend Lord Hunt quoted some remarks that I made when I said that if the memorandum is referred to more than twice in any interaction between a commissioner and a chief officer of police, it will look as though the relationship between the two has irredeemably broken down. It will be too late by that stage. The draft of the memorandum that has finally emerged from the Home Office is helpful in setting these things out. Its value lies in striking a balance between the legitimate role—to question, challenge, set an overall strategy and direction and so on—of those who hold the police to account and the operational professional decision-making that chief officers of police must exercise all the time. It is helpful to have that in the background to avoid the mavericks and to put constraints on those who might press a matter far beyond where any of us in your Lordships’ House, or any other sensible people, might see this balance being struck.

However, we should not see this as some magic wand that will solve all the problems and issues that might arise from these new systems of governance. Therefore, it is helpful to have the memorandum. It would be helpful, as my noble friend suggests, for there to be reference to it in the Bill. However, we should not believe that it is a magic wand. It will not prevent circumstances in which chief officers of police find that they have lost the confidence of those who are responsible for their governance. Those individuals, when they have lost that confidence, will in effect be unable to continue. This measure does not prevent that, but it draws some lines in the sand for what are or are not acceptable areas in which those responsible for oversight and governance should get involved.

In Committee, I think I mentioned my experience of being told firmly that the policing of the Notting Hill carnival was entirely an operational matter in which it was inappropriate for the police authority, as it then was, to be involved. I do not accept that advice and did not at the time because this is a major policing decision that impacts fundamentally on the relationship between the police and the community and involves substantial expenditure of resources. However, that was not the same as a chair of a police authority in this case—it could be an elected police and crime commissioner—saying, “I am quite clear that you should close such and such a road”. However, I can see that it is helpful to have set down somewhere something that reminds people that there are lines that you should not cross and that it is not appropriate, when you are responsible for oversight and governance, to say, “In this investigation you should arrest this person or not arrest that person”. We all accept that, but perhaps, just occasionally, some people will need to be reminded of that.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Harris of Haringey

Thursday 9th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

While I am on my feet, I will make one or two points before the Minister responds. The noble Viscount, Lord Astor, made an interesting point. As a number of speakers have said, we will have to come back to this from time to time during debates on this portion of the Bill. I sense around the House an acceptance that, as a society, we have not really grasped the evidence before us that there is a need now for an overarching policy on all psychoactive substances, including drugs, tobacco and alcohol. If we do not grasp that opportunity now, we will all suffer. I accept what the noble Viscount said—that in this case there will be an element of drugs—but the greater problem is that we are not dealing with this in a holistic way.

Secondly, the figures that we have heard today about how alcohol influences our society are really terrible. They are growing and getting worse, and we must do something about it. The frustration I have also heard around the Chamber is that there has not been a scheme—or schemes—that we could get behind which would really have an impact. In that sense, the sobriety scheme seems an appropriate and attractive way to go forward. We will be supportive of that if the Minister is minded to take it further. It seems to give a triple win: it reduces alcohol-related crime and disease; it reduces the costs to our public services, particularly to those of the police and health; and, most importantly, it will help to shift our culture. For those reasons, taken together, one would want to support it.

Having said that, one of the arguments used to persuade your Lordships’ House was that the Mayor of London wants to introduce this as a pilot and would be giving his full support to it. Of course, that name, attached to any project, does not commend itself to this side of the House, but we will be gracious and not oppose it on this occasion.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, I also support this group of amendments. When Kit Malthouse, the deputy mayor of London—for those who are not aware, he is the putative deputy MOPC for London, so clearly a person of great relevance to these discussions—first raised this matter with me, I admit to being rather cynical about it; first, for the reasons my noble friend Lord Stevenson alluded to about this being just another mayoral gimmick, but also because I did not immediately see that the experience of South Dakota was necessarily relevant to London. However, having looked in detail at the proposals that have come forward from the mayor’s office, and the thought that has gone into them, I think that it is worth reflecting on the fact that nothing is lost by going down this road, having a trial in one or two London boroughs and seeing how it works. If it is useful, you can extend it and use it more widely. That is its basis.

Given the cynicism that sometimes surrounds mayoral initiatives in London, it was interesting to note that when the measure was presented to a cross-party grouping of colleagues in the Metropolitan Police Authority, after people had got over their initial cynicism they said, “This is an idea that is worth trying. Let’s see how it goes. It would certainly be worth supporting and we hope that the Government will support it as well”. Therefore, we have an entirely unanimous debate in this House.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I wish to put on record the support of my noble friend Lord Palmer for this amendment as he is not able to be here. We agree that this would be a very useful trial to undertake.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Harris of Haringey

Monday 6th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for his intervention, because that is absolutely true. Insufficient work has been done on the impact of having an elected mayor in some cities but not in a whole police area. Of course, the boundaries in London are coterminous, but they are not coterminous in the larger urban areas in the rest of England. That is a potential problem. I take the noble Lord’s point. How the situation can be properly addressed, should there be a mayor, has to be talked through.

As to Amendment 137, the Bill states that a local authority member is excluded from being co-opted. I think that the opposite will prove to be the case. There may well be a need for a local authority member to be co-opted, perhaps to demonstrate political balance but, more likely, to demonstrate diversity or geographical interest. Preventing a local authority member who has not been directly appointed by the local authority from being a member of the panel is a potential mistake.

Finally, Amendment 138 states that:

“Panel arrangements may not include provisions for the approval of any member other than by that member’s nominating authority”.

This simply makes it clear that the power of appointment should lie with a member’s nominating authority.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, I hope that our discussion has highlighted to the Minister why the composition of these panels is a complicated matter to which a great deal of thought should be given. Earlier, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, waxed eloquently about how wonderful these panels would be, how they would have a member from each relevant local authority in an area, how all this was going to be fine and that this meant that this would be the channel by which all the necessary consultation and discussions could take place. However, the reality is that the panels as envisaged in the Bill will not deliver that in that way. They will end up being cumbersome because of the other things that need to be taken into account as a consequence.

The Government cannot have it both ways. In one part of the Bill there are proposals for panels, but in London there is a proposal for a panel of Members of the London Assembly. Therefore, none of the 32 London boroughs will have an automatic right to be represented on the panel that will scrutinise the actions of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime. There may be one or two Members of the London Assembly with a dual mandate—something of which many political parties disapprove, but many members have a dual mandate—and, by chance, some people may represent an individual local authority. However, the norm will be that the members of the panel in London will not cover all local authorities in the area. Indeed, there may not be an elected Member of the London Assembly panel who covers a particular part of London, because the constituencies of the London Assembly Members may preclude that. It is also possible that none of the London-wide members may be elected. Therefore, in one part of the Bill there is a proposal for a panel that does not cover every local authority, while in the rest of the Bill panels are proposed for England and Wales that cover every local authority in the area.

The Government must address the question of which is the important principle. If the principle is that every relevant council should be represented, why does that not occur in London? If the principle is not so important in London, why is it more important outside London, where there is the additional complexity of districts, counties and unitary authorities? Also, if the Localism Bill goes through, there will be a whole series of directly elected mayors in addition to those we have at the moment.

These are questions that have to be resolved, as do the questions of proportionality and the balance between different geographical areas, because under the current Bill you could end up with all sorts of inequalities in terms of the balance of power within those panels. I am sure that that is not what the Government intend, which is why I am sure they will want to revisit this in our limited time available before Report.

The other point on which I wanted to pick up related to Amendment 123B, spoken to by my noble friend Lord Beecham, about the importance of having panels with separate panels to review the audit issues relating to the actions of the police and commissions in their areas. I chair the equivalent of the audit panel for the Metropolitan Police, and I have to say that this is not a small responsibility because of the number of audit issues that arise on a regular basis. These are matters that for the purposes of good governance must be addressed properly. There must be a route whereby internal and external audit can report, and it must be seen that those issues have been properly addressed. The danger of the present arrangement is that there is a vacuum regarding how audit issues can be properly dealt with. We discussed this briefly at an earlier stage in Committee, and I know that Ministers are having to think about this again. However, the principle remains that there should be some clear mechanism whereby these audit issues are considered, and if we are looking to strengthen the work of the police and crime panels, a requirement for there to be separate panels to consider audit issues would be a sensible way forward.