Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2011 Lords Chamber

In the absence of any indication that the Government will accept the amendments that my noble friends, particularly my noble friend Lady Henig, have tabled, we are right to support this amendment. I have no doubt that my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey will wish to comment on the respective merits of his amendments and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. Certainly, if the noble Baroness presses her amendments to a vote, I would have no hesitation in supporting her.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we all recognise the importance of quality of governance for any new arrangements to oversee policing. Quality of governance is very much at the heart of all that we are concerned about. Part of what we are discussing is what we mean by the continuing process of scrutiny and the extent to which an overall package provides us with checks and balances that those responsible for holding the police to account are aware of every day. I respectfully suggest that noble Lords opposite underestimate how far the Government have shifted on the role of police and crime panels. That is the direction of travel in which we are increasing responsibility.

We recognise that police and crime panels will work with, as well as check, police and crime commissioners, and that police and crime commissioners will have to work with their panels. That is the model. Nothing in the Bill prevents a police and crime commissioner or MOPC forming a non-executive board. We see the PCC and the Mayor of London appointing a chief executive and a chief finance officer who will, first, have professional qualifications and backgrounds; secondly, be governed by the Nolan principles; and thirdly, themselves be subject to confirmation hearings by the PCP. That is the direction in which we have shifted. It will be open for a police and crime commissioner to consult more widely for professional advice. The question is: how much detail do we want in the Bill about what sort of professional advice he or she should consult?

We have moved away from what the noble Lord, Lord Condon, described as “a doctrinaire position” of individual election and personal accountability and responsibility. The direction in which we have moved is towards stronger PCPs and a relationship between the PCP and the PCC that will have to be a continuing one of mutual confidence. We hesitate to insist on to some extent duplicating that relationship by writing into the Bill the necessity of having, in addition to this, a non-executive board.

We all recognise that we are talking about the risk of mavericks or irresponsible populists being elected. I know and respect the Mayor of Watford, who is an excellent elected mayor. There are several such mayors. However, I travel past Doncaster twice a week and am well aware of the issues that are at the back of people’s minds.

It is the Government’s aspiration that in cases where relations break down, the PCP will step in at that point. It will have the role of reviewing or scrutinising every decision of the police and crime commissioner. In particular, it will have a right of veto over the precept and the appointment of the chief constable. It will have a say in the police and crime commissioner’s appointment of senior staff by holding confirmation hearings. It will play a significant part in the complaints procedure around the police and crime commissioner, and it will hold the police and crime commissioner to account for his or her role in the complaints procedure of the force. Therefore, we have strengthened the position of the PCP.

We look to a model in which the PCC and the PCP will work together and the police and crime commissioner will take the police and crime panel into his or her confidence. The panels have been enlarged and have the ability to appoint independent members in addition to local authority representatives. That answers the question of providing governance in the round. I suggest that the House is now underplaying the concessions that the Government have made and the consequent role of the police and crime panel. We have listened and we share the concerns that have been expressed around the House from a range of positions. However, we are not persuaded that we should put in the Bill any further mandatory requirements from the centre, or seek to constrain the police and crime commissioner, when there is a proportionate degree of advice, guidance and scrutiny that is accountable to the public already built into the system. Having, I hope, provided reassurance on these issues, I respectfully request that the noble Lord withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, I am enormously grateful to those noble Lords who have contributed to this short debate, which has been extremely interesting and powerful. I am particularly grateful to the trio of former Commissioners of Police of the Metropolis who, in varying degrees, lent support to my amendment. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne, for reminding me of our many productive—or nearly productive—discussions in the past on all sorts of other matters.

I do not claim that this amendment is perfect. I suspect that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, accepts that her amendment is not perfect. She said that it talks about consulting PCCs. One of the dangers is that by the time PCCs are in a position to be consulted they may well already have taken a whole series of decisions around good governance. I suspect that if your Lordships were to support any of the amendments in this group we would need to revisit those amendments at Third Reading or when the Bill comes back from the Commons, but the important point is the principles that have been raised.

The key issue that has been highlighted as an argument for not proceeding with this measure concerns the changes that are being made to police and crime panels. I have listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, say that the Government are listening. However, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, then stands up, says that he has listened but then describes exactly what changes are being made. What changes are being made to PCPs? We have moved from a threshold of three-quarters having to vote on an issue to a threshold of two-thirds. During my four years on the London Assembly, and in the succeeding seven years, I do not think there has been a single occasion when the London Assembly has achieved the two-thirds threshold needed to do anything about the mayor’s budget, so two-thirds is a high threshold. The threshold has been lowered from a monumentally high one to a high one. That is a very big concession for which your Lordships will, of course, be grateful.

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, talked about the direction of travel, working with people as well as checking them and the introduction of confirmation hearings for a small group of officials. That is all very positive stuff but it does not constitute significant movement in this area. There are two principal problems with PCPs as regards providing a structure of robust governance. First, they will by and large exercise that role after the event. Where there is a need to improve governance it is important to have intervention in advance of those decisions being made, which is where non-executive boards could come in. The second problem, which I do not think has been mentioned so far, is the nature of PCPs. They will still be essentially highly party-political bodies. They will be made up either of the direct political opponents of the PCC or of people from the PCC’s own party, who are often the sternest and most difficult critics, as many elected and former elected politicians will testify. They will constitute a political forum in which these decisions will be batted backwards and forwards, not a forum where robust governance can be implemented.

We had a flight of fancy from the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, regarding where all this might lead. He referred to conferences and associations and complained that the amendment was too prescriptive because it says that there should be between four and seven members on a non-executive board. However, he then complained that all sorts of things were not included, so in fact he was arguing that it was both too prescriptive and not prescriptive enough. I do not think that that flight of fancy is terribly helpful to us. However, if the noble Lord was prepared to come forward with the precise balance of words which would be prescriptive enough but not too prescriptive, I am sure that we would all be very grateful and very pleased to receive it.

Do we want proper governance around these individuals, who will have very substantial personal mandates with all the authority and perhaps arrogance that that brings? Do we want a proper structure whereby the people who have elected them can see that they are carrying out their functions properly and appropriately? I am not satisfied with the Government’s response. Therefore, I wish to test the opinion of the House.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I recognise the concern for good governance in the broadest sense that lies behind these new amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, since the Committee stage to ensure that the PCC and the MOPC are bound by regulations set by the Secretary of State for managing the appointment and dismissal of staff, and how they should manage disciplinary action. The question of Doncaster has come up again. I can only add that for five years I was president of my party’s Yorkshire region, so I have a long acquaintance with the problems of Doncaster. However, problems with local politics in Doncaster existed long before the experiment of an elected mayor, and unfortunately that move has not resolved those problems. But let us be clear that no magic answers lie in changing institutions in order to solve some of the underlying problems in local politics we face around Britain.

The noble Baroness is concerned with the worst case analysis of what might happen and would like to supply belt and braces for every possible way through it. What I have to say on behalf of the Government is that of course we recognise that it is necessary for a standard to be set for the conduct of the police and crime commissioner and the staff attached. The Home Secretary shares that view, and that is exactly why she will state in the protocol that she expects all parties to abide by the principles of public life set out by the Nolan committee and the core principles of the Good Governance Standard for Public Services. Furthermore, the protocol she will issue, drafts of which I know that some noble Lords have already seen, will apply to every police and crime commissioner and chief constable in England and Wales. The staff and chief constables of each force are expected to have regard to the principles and spirit of that document. The police and crime commissioner will be held to account for ensuring this by the police and crime panel and by the public.

As to setting out a regulated appointments, dismissal and disciplinary process, these matters are well established in employment law and we argue that it is not necessary to replicate in this Bill what already exists. The PCC will no doubt be held to account for the way in which staff are appointed by the PCP, including the steps it takes to ensure fairness and diversity. Further, the PCP will scrutinise appointments to the crucial statutory posts by means of a confirmation hearing, as we have already set out in another amendment. Accordingly, while these amendments are well grounded in the position they take, as the noble Baroness has already anticipated, to us they seem unnecessary. I therefore ask her to accept the assurances the Government are providing and hope that she will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness Henig]

I have listened carefully to the Minister’s reply, but I must confess that I have not studied the protocol in great depth. I am reassured that if it covers this area—and since early this afternoon I think we have been given an assurance that there will be a mention of it on the face of the Bill—that will provide a basis for the provision of redress or assistance of some sort for senior executives who might feel that they are facing difficulties; let me put it that way. I also take heart from the reference to the police and crime panel. We are strengthening the panel incrementally and I believe that I can now see the circumstances where the panel would be able to find ways of asking the commissioner about difficulties with senior staff and perhaps being able to refer to difficult situations in order to get to the root of them. While I think there may be some ways around this, I am not totally satisfied. We could have dealt with this better, and I do not think that it would take that much to do so. However, I sense that I am not going to be able to persuade the Government to put more in the Bill. Having voiced my concerns and having been given a partial meeting towards what I am aiming at, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.