Immigration Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Rosser

Tuesday 12th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am a little reassured but I have to say that I am still left in much confusion as to how the Government intend to get from here to where we all wish to be. The ability of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, to raise a very large number of fair questions about what is intended by all this simply demonstrates how unclear many of us in this House and outside are about how the Government will ensure that the extra skills are provided from within this country. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Green, that there is a long-term problem of companies in Britain finding it cheaper and easier to recruit direct from abroad rather than spending money on training their own employees. That applies not just to the Indian IT sector but also to long-distance truck drivers and all sorts of occupations in the private sector.

However, in the public sector the Government are responsible for training. As regards when we introduce this charge, I simply point out that it takes two or three years to train a nurse and longer to train a doctor, let alone a good maths teacher. Therefore, a year is not enough. We will find in the interim period that schools and hospitals will pay sums out of their flat budgets, out of which they are already paying for additional pension increases—so budgets are being squeezed—before any new training schemes have provided the additional skilled recruits from within the United Kingdom. That is part of the argument we are making about phasing in for the public sector.

I very much hope that we will have Labour support on this occasion. As I understand it, the Labour Party supports the public sector. I have heard reports that the Labour Party in the Commons has instructed the Labour Party in the Lords not to support this measure because it is a Liberal Democrat amendment and it is a bit queer about supporting Liberal Democrat amendments. I very much hope that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, will be able to bring his party along. However, I appreciate that sometimes in the Lords the Labour Party Front Benchers have to defend positions they are not entirely happy about, as, indeed, do the Conservative Party Front Benchers.

[Lord Rosser]

I reassure the noble Lord, who is clearly very concerned about my present state and what I have had to say on this amendment, that I fully support an agreement—obviously, to his surprise—regarding what I said from this Dispatch Box. Interestingly enough, the noble Lord has not responded to the objections that I raised on his amendment.

Brussels Terrorist Attacks

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Rosser

Wednesday 23rd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made in the House of Commons earlier today. We share fully the abhorrence and condemnation expressed in the Statement about the attacks in Brussels yesterday, which were in reality yet another attack on all Europe. We support the Government in confronting this threat. Our thoughts are very much with the families of those killed and of the missing British person, with those injured and their families, and with the people of Brussels and Belgium—and indeed the people of Ankara and Istanbul, who have also been the subject of attacks in recent days.

I have a few questions and points to raise. Can the Minister say what guidance is being offered to our citizens who were intending to travel to or through Brussels over the holiday period in particular? Can he say more about the collaboration that is taking place with Belgium and other European partners, including the support or expertise that had already been given or offered to Belgium prior to this attack? If ever the case still needed to be made for closer working and collaboration and sharing of intelligence to combat these acts of terrorism, this is it.

On the issue of border security, we welcome the steps that have been taken to step up checks at our air, sea and rail borders with Belgium and France, and security on our own transport network. Are all passports now being checked on exit from the UK, as the Government said they would be by the end of last year, and were 100% passport checks in place between the UK and Belgium in advance of yesterday’s attacks?

Border Force operates juxtaposed controls at, I believe, six locations in France, covering ferry services, the Channel Tunnel and Eurostar. As I understand it, however, in respect of Belgium juxtaposed controls cover only Eurostar foot passengers and not ferry terminals. Is that the case and if so, will there be a review of our borders with Belgium with a view to strengthening them?

Further cuts are coming following the spending review. The Border Force has faced years of cuts and is already stretched. Are further cuts to the force going to be made in 2016-17? Surely now is the time to strengthen our borders, not to go in the reverse direction.

We know that a number of terror plots have been foiled in the past year and we take this opportunity to express our gratitude to all those in the police and security services who work so determinedly to keep us safe. The public, however, will want reassurance about our ability to thwart a Paris or Brussels-style attack. We know about plans to improve firearms capability in London but there is concern about the ability of cities outside London to cope. Last year a Home Office report on police firearms capability found that the number of armed officers had fallen by 15% since 2008, including a fall of 27% in Greater Manchester and 25% in Merseyside. Have the Government reviewed the ability of all major cities to respond, and can they provide reassurance that, if there were a Paris or Brussels-style attack outside London, our police and fire services would have the necessary capability to respond?

In his statement on the strategic defence and security review, the Prime Minister promised a new contingency plan to deal with major terrorist attacks, with up to 10,000 military personnel available to support the police. Can the Minister update the House on those plans and say when the full 10,000 military personnel will be trained and in place?

We know that at moments like this, great anxiety will be felt in the British Muslim community over fears of reprisal attacks and hate crime as a result of the acts of terrorism in Brussels—which are simply that, and a perversion of Islam. Do the Government recognise that concern, and will they send an unequivocal message that anyone who seeks to promote division or hate on the back of these attacks will be dealt with severely?

Will the Government also condemn the ill-informed comments from Donald Trump on UK television today and take this opportunity to distance the Government from them? Mr Trump appears to have suggested that Muslims do not come forward to report concerns in order to assist our security authorities in combating potential acts of terrorism. Generalised slurs, from whatever source, on all Muslim people, who have the same revulsion over what happened yesterday as everyone else, serve only to drive a wedge between the Muslim community and the rest of our diverse country. This is a time for maximum unity among people of all faiths—and none—in rejecting those who preach extremism. We stand together as a united country, and we stand with our neighbour Belgium in its time of need, determined that whatever it takes, and however long it takes, we will face and defeat this threat to our way of life together.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, if I may start on a personal note, while watching the television report on the Istanbul attack I noticed that it took place only a few days after I had walked down that street between meetings in Istanbul. To see the pictures of Brussels, where my wife was walking through the site the day before this happened, is to make one feel that we are not cut off from all this. This is part of our world. I find it despicable that the Brexit campaign should have tried to suggest that we could cut ourselves off from the world and that what happens 100 miles away from London, in Brussels, is no concern of ours. This was, after all, an attack by Belgian citizens in Belgium. We should recall from the IRA campaign in Britain that what was in many ways a domestic terrorist campaign also included cells and co-operation in Spain, Gibraltar, France, Belgium and Libya and that, in dealing with a series of global terrorist threats, we are forced to co-operate with others as closely as we can.

Perhaps the Minister would care to confirm this: if we were to try to secure our borders completely, we would have to return to the sort of controls that we had in the 1960s. I first began to travel between Britain and France then; all bags were opened and it often took 10 to 15 minutes for each person to go through passport control. Given the enormous increase in cross-border travel between Britain and the continent, it would be a severe disincentive to all our citizens—and, incidentally, an intense inconvenience to the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, in travelling each week between his home in France and the House of Lords. It would also be very difficult given the large Middle Eastern presence we now have, particularly in London. There are not just people from the Middle East working here and living as refugees but rich Arabs from countries from which money flows, unfortunately, to mosques and madrassahs in Britain to support a radical version of Islam. We all have to be deeply concerned about that.

I second everything that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, said about visible co-operation and contact with our Muslim community. I was extremely proud to take part in a service in Westminster Abbey some months ago in which an Imam read from the Koran, as a representative of one of Britain’s faiths in one of our national Christian institutions. I suggest to the Government that they need to do more in demonstrating how far we accept British Muslims as part of the British community, and the moderate version of Islam as the appropriate representation of their faith.

Can the Minister say a little about the importance of the Prüm convention and British participation in it, in terms of the rapid exchange of information among different services across Europe on suspected terrorists and others? I noted the reference to the counterterrorism group in the Statement which, as the Statement recognises, brings Britain together with other EU members and with Norway and Switzerland, as all are concerned with this. Can he say a little about further moves that we think may be necessary towards the closer exchange of intelligence, information and co-operation among national police and security agencies with our neighbours, all of whom are also members of the European Union?

Counter-ISIL Coalition Strategy

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Rosser

Monday 20th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement already made in the other place by the Secretary of State updating the position in Iraq and Syria in respect of action against ISIL. The Secretary of State has also issued a Written Statement today on the subject of UK embedded forces in which he confirms that,

“up to 80 UK personnel have been embedded with US, Canadian and French forces”,

since the international coalition commenced military operations against ISIL last year. The Secretary of State went on to say:

“A small number of embedded UK pilots”—

I think it was five—

“have carried out airstrikes in Syria against ISIL targets”,

although,

“none are currently involved in airstrikes”;

and:

“Ministerial approval is required for UK embeds deployed with allied forces on operations”.

The House of Commons voted against military action in Syria in 2013 and parliamentary authority has only been given to UK air strikes against ISIL in Iraq. The Prime Minister told the House of Commons on 26 September 2014:

“I have said that we will come back to the House if, for instance, we make the decision that we should take air action with others in Syria”.—[Official Report, Commons, 26/9/14; col. 1266.]

That undertaking has clearly been broken, unless the Minister is going to tell us that neither the Prime Minister nor the Secretary of State for Defence knew what was going on with UK pilots carrying out air strikes in Syria. Can the Minister tell us, therefore, if the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Defence knew? If they did, when did they know, and which Minister gave the required approval, and when, for these UK embeds to be deployed with allied forces on operations? Were they aware that in so doing, they were authorising UK pilots to carry out air strikes in Syria against ISIL targets?

Did the Prime Minister know that embedded UK pilots had carried out, or had been authorised to carry out, air strikes in Syria against ISIL targets when he made his statement on 26 September last year? If the authorisation for UK pilots to carry out air strikes in Syria against ISIL targets was given during the time of the previous coalition Government, can the Minister say if the then Deputy Prime Minister would have been advised of, or his approval sought for, a small number of embedded UK pilots carrying out air strikes in Syria against ISIL targets?

The involvement of members of our Armed Forces in Syria has come to light only as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request, and the future of that Act is now under threat from this Government. Without that ability to make a Freedom of Information Act request and secure an answer, the involvement of members of our Armed Forces in Syria would not have come to light since it is clear that neither this Government nor perhaps the previous coalition Government had any intention of telling either Parliament or the British people, even though Parliament had voted against military action in Syria and the Prime Minister had pledged to come back to the House if the decision was made that we should take air action with others in Syria.

In his Statement, the Secretary of State said:

“UK personnel have embedded with other nations’ air forces since the 1950s”;

and in the House of Commons today, the Secretary of State sought to say that the Government had actually been quite open about what had happened because they had responded to a freedom of information request. Can the Minister tell us the last time embedded UK forces have been involved in operations and military action in a country when the House of Commons has voted against our Armed Forces being involved in military action in that country and has not subsequently changed its decision?

On the Secretary of State’s claim of openness by the Government because they had responded to a freedom of information request, the reality is that without that request—and most people would have assumed that, in the light of the Prime Minister’s undertaking last September, there would be no British military personnel involvement in operations in Syria—the first the nation might have known about this activity would have been if something had gone wrong. Can the Minister now give an undertaking that there will be no further use of embedded forces in Syria without parliamentary consent, in accordance with the Prime Minister’s undertaking?

We share the Government’s abhorrence of ISIL’s cold-blooded terrorism and we remain ready to work with the Government to defeat ISIL and will carefully consider any proposals that they decide to bring forward. In so doing, we would need to be clear about what difference any action would make to our aim of defeating ISIL, about the nature of any action, its objectives and legal basis. But going behind the back of Parliament and keeping it in the dark, as it is clear the Government have done with the forced disclosure that UK pilots have carried out air strikes in Syria against ISIL targets contrary to Parliament’s decision, does not help.

Somebody in government has tried to be too clever by half by maintaining, as the Secretary of State for Defence has done in his Written Statement, that the Prime Minister’s undertaking excluded UK personnel embedded within other nations’ armed forces operating in Syria, on the basis that it applied only to the deployment of UK forces. The Prime Minister certainly did not make that exemption, and neither did Parliament in its decision. That somebody has done a disservice to the nation, to Parliament and to our Armed Forces—which have served, continue to serve, and will always serve us with great bravery and commitment.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I am most worried about the statement in this Statement:

“There is a well-planned, integrated strategy to defeat ISIL”.

That is not what it looks like to many on these Benches and elsewhere. We are in an extremely complex situation in the Middle East in which some of our partners are on our side in some respects and on the other side for other purposes. I was being briefed at lunchtime today about the complexities around the Kurdish forces which are involved in the conflict both in Syria and in Iraq, and the deeply ambivalent attitude of the Turks and of the Iraqi Government to their activities. That is merely one of the many complexities that we face.

The coalition, after all, includes Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and many others, many of which have reservations about how we see the conflict. For many purposes, Iran is effectively now an additional member of the coalition, and one of the strongest forces opposing ISIS. I wish I could see a well-integrated strategy. I fear that it is not possible to have one, given the complexity of the situation facing us.

We are talking about local forces that are engaging ISIS. Jabhat al-Nusra is one of the forces that engage ISIS but I am not entirely sure that we want to support it or provide it with more assistance. Some of the Shia militias in Iraq are not as easy as we would like, and sadly the Free Syrian Army, which we have been training, is not one of the strongest forces in the land. I was also worried by what the Prime Minister said at the weekend about domestic radicalisation and counterterrorism because we are all clear that there are direct links between domestic radicalisation and the actions of some of our allies and partners in promoting radical and jihadist versions of Islam against moderate Islamic practices.

We recognise that the Government are edging towards asking for British planes to be involved in bombing in Syria. A small number of British planes bombing ISIS in Syria is no more likely to resolve the multiple conflicts across the Middle East than bombing Damascus would have done two years ago. There is no shortage of aircraft in the Gulf states and Turkey that are quite capable of bombing ISIS from the air. It worries me that we are told that 30% of the surveillance activities over Syria are being conducted by British planes. That suggests that not many other planes apart from American ones are flying over Syria.

Sadly, some of the Governments have themselves supported radical Islamic groups and are still ambivalent about attacking Sunni groups, however radical or brutal, such as Jabhat al-Nusra. It is not in Britain’s interests to cling to the hard-line Sunni side of a developing Sunni-Shia conflict. Nor is it in our interests to present ourselves to ISIS as an existential enemy—I note that the Statement downgrades “existential threat” to “direct threat”, which is perhaps a little better—when ISIS is a much more direct threat to moderate Muslims and to regimes across the Middle East. We should be working with others to promote a coherent response from the neighbours of Syria and Iraq, which we can support, not repeating the mistake of the 2003 Iraq war when we followed the Americans into bombing and then occupying an Arab country.

Some of Britain’s allies in the Middle East have actively funded radical Islamic mosques and movements in the UK and elsewhere. The Prime Minister’s commitment to combat radicalisation within Britain would be more persuasive if he spelled out to the Saudi Government, in particular, our condemnation of Saudi money funding radical groups, and that the Saudis must now themselves take responsibility for containing violent jihadism among Sunni Muslims.

The Prime Minister responded positively to a request from our Middle East partners that we should conduct an inquiry into the Muslim Brotherhood. It is now time for the Prime Minister to ask them in return to conduct an inquiry into the funding of radical Islamic groups in our territory.

I have some questions, if I may. Which local forces are responding? Do they include Kurdish forces in Syria and Iraq? Do they include the Shia militias? What is their attitude to Jabhat al-Nusra? How many of our Middle Eastern partners are currently flying air strikes over Syria? I was told the other day that only one was doing so—Jordan. In terms of embedded personnel, how many RAF pilots are embedded in US drone units, which are flying drones, including armed drones, over the Middle East? How many embedded personnel from other states are currently embedded in British forces? I have been told that French pilots are flying in RAF strike fighters, for example. We, of course, know about the Dutch in the UK/Netherlands Amphibious Force. Are there others? Would it not be proper, either now or later, to give us at least a Written Statement telling us what the position is the other way round as well?

Defence Review

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Rosser

Wednesday 25th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am sure that some will want to spend more but, as all noble Lords are aware, the number of calls on public expenditure is large and the amount of revenue available is relatively limited.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

The previous Government produced a Green Paper in early 2010 to promote discussion on future defence strategy and inform the work on a strategic defence review after the 2010 general election. Why have this Government not sought, in the same or a similar transparent way, to engage the public in general, and relevant stakeholders in particular, on the options and considerations to be taken into account in the strategic defence and security review, which is now scheduled to be finalised in just nine months’ time?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, as the noble Lord knows, there has been a great deal of discussion on preparations for the next SDSR. He will have seen the new House of Commons Defence Committee report. The Government have responded to various reports from the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, and there have been a number of conversations between officials, Ministers and various think tanks around London. I have certainly taken part in those and I think that the noble Lord has as well.

Defence: Strategic Defence and Security Review

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Rosser

Monday 2nd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what, if any, preparatory work has been, or is being, undertaken in advance of the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review; and whether any such work will be made available, subject to not compromising national security, prior to the general election.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, preparatory analytical work is under way to refresh the risk-based assessment approach taken in 2010. As the review will formally begin after the next election, no decision on its final scope or approach has yet been made. The Government have no plans to make any preliminary work available prior to the general election.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that response. In the light of that response, is it this Government’s intention that there should be a real opportunity, including sufficient time, for an open discussion about our defence and security strategy prior to the 2015 SDSR being finalised? The previous Government produced a Green Paper on defence and security before the last election. From what the Minister has just said, there appears to be no comparable document forthcoming from this Government in respect of the 2015 SDSR. Why is that, particularly when future defence and security strategy is one area where Governments normally seek to achieve some degree of consensus?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I agree that debate and search for consensus are important, particularly as we now face a remarkably diverse selection of security threats. The 2009 Green Paper was indeed about defence and not about security in the broader sense. I remind noble Lords that, in the national security strategy 2010, only two of the eight tier-one and tier-two threats identified were directly military; the others included pandemics, climate change, cyberattacks, organised crime on a transnational basis, terrorism and surges of migration.

Deregulation Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Rosser

Thursday 20th November 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Rosser]

The Minister has accepted that Clause 83 may lead to additional legal action. I appreciate that he attempted to dismiss it by saying that it would not happen very often but, if we are talking about businesses, the pockets of some of them that might think about taking legal proceedings in relation to Clause 83 may be somewhat deeper than those of the regulatory bodies. First, how would the Government intend to address that situation to ensure that a regulatory body did not feel that it could not contest proceedings for fear that it might lose them and find itself paying quite considerable bills? Secondly, as I understood it, the Minister said that the provisions of Clause 83 should not carry any greater weight than any other requirements on a regulatory authority or any other issues that it should take into account. Is it the Government’s intention to write that into the Bill?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The Government’s position is that the guidance plus the statutory instruments, which Clauses 84 and 85 deal with—I recognise that we are in effect discussing all four of these clauses on the basis of this amendment—will be sufficient. However, that is also a matter which we are prepared to discuss between Committee and Report to make sure that we can agree a satisfactory level of what needs to be in the Bill, in guidance and in further regulations or statutory instruments as we go through.

[Lord Rosser]

What about the question of financing any legal action taken against a regulator or authority, bearing in mind that it could involve some quite large businesses whose pockets would certainly be deeper than those of the regulator?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I shall take that back, too, and we will discuss it between Committee and Report. I hope that I have managed to answer a number of questions. I recognise the concerns that have been expressed. We have a well operating system of regulation in the United Kingdom. The question of balance between good regulation, better regulation, sufficient regulation and efficient regulation is something around which a great deal of hard politics revolves. All of us who read the Daily Mail as loyally as the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and I do know that its constant campaign against all health and safety regulations is one end of the spectrum, but the other end of the spectrum is the overregulation that we all also have to be concerned about. That is going to be a continuing basis of politics, and this clause aims to strike the right balance.

Armed Forces: Redundancies

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Rosser

Monday 26th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, as I have already said, we are continuing to recruit, but at a lower level as we adjust numbers. I am told that levels of applications to join the Armed Forces at the present time are high.

[Lord Rosser]

Are these service personnel being made redundant to make savings and keep expenditure within budget, despite the Government being able to afford a reduction in the top rate of income tax, or are they being made redundant because they are not needed to meet current and projected military commitments— namely, that they are surplus to requirements?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I have not yet heard the Labour Party come out in favour of a substantial increase in defence spending in future years. If the Labour Party would like to commit itself to such a substantial increase, much of this would be avoided.

Armed Forces: Accommodation

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Rosser

Thursday 15th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord has read the excellent speech that the Deputy Prime Minister gave yesterday morning, which I commend to the House. I am sure that many others will want to read it. We are continuing to work within the MoD budget to see whether we can generate additional funds for purposes such as these. We are being deliberately cautious in making forward projections, in contrast to the overoptimistic, even reckless, forward projections of the previous Administration in defence budgeting.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, when the Secretary of State for Defence made announcements in July and September on the welcome procurement of 14 Chinook helicopters, he did not give details of how they were being financed. Maybe we are now beginning to find out, as it now emerges that the housing improvement programme for military personnel, which was put in place by the previous Government, is being halted for three years. When did the Secretary of State publicly announce these specific cuts in the housing improvement programme, and through which channels? Also, what other cuts directly affecting the welfare of Armed Forces personnel are being made that have not been or will not be announced with quite the same vigour as, for example, the Chinook helicopter programme?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I should pay tribute to the previous Administration for their efforts to improve service accommodation. The current situation is that 96 per cent of service accommodation has now been upgraded. We are talking about some 2,000 service family houses and about the projection that, in two years’ time, there will be a pause in further upgrades. I am told by officials that the majority of the 2,000 houses that have not yet been upgraded will either have been disposed of or will have been upgraded by 2013.

Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Rosser

Tuesday 6th September 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Rosser]

Amendments 20 and 21 relate to the powers of the Service Complaints Commissioner. In her 2010 annual report, the commissioner said that while real progress had been made over the past three years in the new system for handling service complaints, delay remained the key area of weakness in the system, with delays particularly problematic in cases of bullying, harassment and discrimination. The commissioner said that many complainants simply give up and choose to drop their unresolved complaints after lengthy delays, which can and do lead to service personnel leaving prematurely. Justice delayed is justice denied.

The commissioner concluded her report by saying that her priority was to ensure that the Armed Forces had a complaints system that they deserved; namely, one that is fair, efficient and effective. However, she went on,

“For the third year running I have not been able to give Ministers and Parliament the assurance that the service complaints system is working efficiently, effectively or fairly”.

The commissioner called for a fundamental review of the service complaints system and for the powers of the Service Complaints Commissioner to be included in that review. Currently the SCC has no powers to ensure that complaints are dealt with properly and without delay, and in her report she states that the lack of a power to make recommendations in individual cases under the Service Complaints Commissioner’s oversight has led to inefficiencies and injustice in a number of cases.

The purpose of these amendments is to address key issues raised in the commissioner’s 2010 report. The first amendment makes it clear that the report of the commissioner can include the results of any investigation made by the SCC into potential defects in the service complaints system and any recommendations flowing from such investigations. The second amendment seeks to address the issue of the time taken to respond to issues raised in the Service Complaints Commissioner’s report by providing for the Defence Council to respond within six months of it being laid, and within three months if the report makes recommendations on an individual case.

The 2010 report does not paint a happy picture of the present system, albeit that it does say that real progress has been made in the last three years in the new system for handling service complaints. I hope that the Minister will be able to indicate in his response what action the Government are taking to address the concerns that have been raised as well as respond to these two amendments. I beg to move.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, noble Lords may be aware that the post of the Service Complaints Commissioner was established under the Armed Forces Act 2006 in December 2007 to provide independent oversight of the service complaints system, with one of the statutory functions of the role being to report each year to the Secretary of State on how fairly, effectively and efficiently the service complaints system is working. Three annual reports so far have detailed the work of the commissioner’s office. They have been thorough and critical in their assessment of all aspects of the complaints system.

The commissioner has commented and reported in detail on specific areas where progress has been made or where further improvement is required. Indeed, where the commissioner has investigated and identified areas for improvement, recommendations as to remedy have been made in her reports. A total of 27 recommendations were made in her first two reports, and this year she has made a further 20 recommendations, as well as four three-year goals setting out her vision of how the complaints system should be operating by 2014. This is therefore a new system, one that is still developing but, we would suggest, making good progress in changing the culture of the complaints process within the armed services.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Rosser

Monday 11th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey has drawn attention to the clauses in the Bill which are a subject of concern to him and which his amendments seek to rectify. If I have understood him correctly, the first is Clause 43, “Appointment of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis”, subsection (3) of which says:

“Before recommending to Her Majesty that She appoint a constable as the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, the Secretary of State must have regard to any recommendations made by the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime”.

This presumably means that the Secretary of State could chose to ignore any such recommendation since it does not say “must accept them” or “must reach agreement”

The next is Clause 44, “Deputy Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis”, subsection (4) which says:

“Before recommending to Her Majesty that She appoint a person as the Deputy Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, the Secretary of State must have regard to … any representations made by the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime”.

Once again, presumably it can be inferred that the Secretary of State could totally ignore those representations.

Moving further down, Clause 46, “Assistant Commissioners of Police of the Metropolis”, says:

“The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis must consult the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime before appointing a person as an Assistant Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis”.

Once again, the requirement is to “consult” so, presumably, the Commissioner of Police, having consulted, could appoint whoever he or she wanted to appoint.

Clause 48, “Commanders”, in subsection (2) of that clause, says:

“The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis must consult the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime before appointing a person as a Commander”.

Once again, the role is to “consult”, rather than to reach agreement with, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime.

This group of amendments, tabled by my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey, provides that before the Secretary of State recommends to Her Majesty that she appoint a councillor as the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis or a person as the deputy commissioner, the Secretary of State must,

“agree that recommendation with the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime”.

Likewise, the amendments provide that no person shall be appointed as assistant commissioner, deputy assistant commissioner or commander by the commissioner of police,

“without the consent of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime”.

One would have thought that the amendments addressed the issue of the responsibilities of the police and crime commissioner in London—namely, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime—and whether it is realistic that either a Secretary of State or a Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis should in effect be able to ignore the views of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime and make appointments for the most senior positions and other senior posts without the support and agreement of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime.

The Government appear to see the police and crime commissioners as key players in future in increasing public accountability for police, including strategy. The Mayor of London already has overall responsibility for policing in the metropolis, albeit he does not actually have time to carry out this role—so he has, in effect, handed it on to somebody who is not directly elected to carry that responsibility. If the intention is that the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime is ultimately responsible and accountable to the public for policing, as far as the Government are concerned, surely it cannot be right that the mayor’s office can find that the Secretary of State and the commissioner have made a series of senior appointments, including that of the commissioner, with which the accountable mayor’s office does not agree and would not have made.

I share the feelings of my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey in that I am not clear why these amendments are not fully in line with the stated objectives of the Government’s proposals for the future structure and accountability for policing and should therefore apply in London.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Harris, offered a picture of a golden age of policing accountability in London that is about to disappear. I was under the impression that under current arrangements the Metropolitan Police Authority has no power to compel the commissioner to appear before it but has the right to invite the commissioner to appear before it, as its successor body will have under the Bill.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Rosser

Thursday 16th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, I have an amendment in this group but we agree with the repeal of the provisions in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 relating to demonstrations in the vicinity of Parliament. We also agree with the need for further proposals and for the use of the 1986 Public Order Act. The 2005 Act created a new offence of demonstrating without authorisation in what is described as a designated area, which was defined by order. That designated area had to be within 1 kilometre of Parliament Square. The use of loudspeakers in the designated area was also banned.

However, that Act had unacceptable and unintended consequences on the right of some to protest and it soon raised concerns that the Act had not, in reality, struck the correct balance between the right to protest and the rights of people to go about their everyday business and for them to enjoy Parliament Square. A proposal to repeal the provisions of the 2005 Act was included in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill. That proposal fell in the wash-up at the 2010 general election.

In looking at the Government's proposals we have some questions to raise, simply to test whether they are likely to achieve their objectives. It would certainly be helpful if the Minister could define the problem that the Government feel that their proposals will address, and to define the harm that the Government are trying to deal with. The Government’s proposals are, in many ways, similar to the provisions of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act but they apply to a much smaller area, namely Parliament Square. How did the Government decide that Parliament Square should be the limit of the area to which their proposals should relate? Although he is not in his place, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, had amendments proposing, as I understand it, to include Abingdon Green. How would the situation be addressed if those protesting—the permanence of existing protests is an issue—moved just outside the area of Parliament Square?

Do all the parties directly involved support the Government’s proposals, including the Greater London Authority, Westminster City Council, the Metropolitan Police and indeed the House authorities here? Are there any areas of disagreement over the scope or the practicality of the proposals?

We recognise that this is not an easy issue to resolve and that at the end of the day it will not just be about what is or is not in the Bill or any associated documentation. It is also about the degree of common sense—which, hopefully, will be considerable—that will be applied by all concerned in implementing the powers in the Bill.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, with nine clauses to deal with, worrying about a very small traffic island seems on the face of it to be a bit excessive, but I recognise that there is concern about the current situation in Parliament Square, the overkill that SOCPA applied to it and the question of what we put in place as we remove SOCPA. On the problem that we are trying to address and the harm that we are trying to remove, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, that the democracy encampment actually produced a considerable amount of harm to Parliament Square Garden. The garden, which should be there for the enjoyment of all, is still fenced off, as the noble Lord well knows, and not only tents but some semi-permanent structures now obstruct the pavement.

I also recognise that this is part of a much wider discussion that we need to have, not just on the Bill but about the future of Parliament Square and of this part of Westminster as a whole. We had a useful debate on this on Friday, to which one or two Members here contributed. I recommend that those who were not here on Friday read Hansard. The debate raised some much wider questions to which I hope this Chamber will return, and which I hope that Members of both Houses and the authorities of the Abbey and the Supreme Court will address.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, I hope that I have the right group of amendments and will not start talking to something that I am not meant to be talking to. I will not add to the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer. Like her, I await the response with interest. I will raise the issue of guidance, which is covered by an amendment in this group in the name of my noble friend Lord Dubs, who unfortunately is not in his place. I will not go through everything in the amendment, but will simply ask the Minister for clarification. There have been one or two references to other documentation or some form of guidance being issued. Can this be clarified now across the Dispatch Box? What part of the clauses relating to Parliament Square that we are discussing will be the subject of further guidance, perhaps to identify the meaning or interpretation that is to be put on some of the words that are used, in addition to the specific guidance referred to in the amendment? I ask this in the context of wanting to be clear on what areas the Government are going to issue guidance about as far as concerns the clauses in relation to Parliament Square.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I will say two things before I answer the particular points. First, we will come back to Parliament Square on Report. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, was unable to be here today and asked to withdraw his amendments and bring them back on Report. I very much hope that we will take further the whole issue of what we should do about the environs of Parliament. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, that I have been thinking about when I first became conscious of how special this area is. It was when I was standing on top of the Henry VII chapel at the 1951 State Opening of Parliament. I was fascinated by the speed with which the Westminster City Council rubbish collectors picked up the horse manure as the Horse Guards rode past. My views on what is important have changed a little since then. The following year I sang in Westminster Hall at the lying in state of King George VI, and I have been involved in this area ever since. On Saturday night I will take part in a singing tour of the abbey, so I am probably among those who care most about the integrity of the area.

Secondly, in answer to my noble friend Lady Hamwee, I have the answer from the Box on Clause 142(2). If the provisions come into force on 1 May, for example, directions can be issued from 1 May onwards in relation to activity being engaged in from then, but they cannot include any activity that took place before then: there is no question of retrospectivity. Clause 142(2) ensures that ongoing encampments can be subject to directions once the provisions are commenced. I hope that that answers the point.

I turn to the points made by my noble friend Lady Miller. The Government note that the issues raised are similar to those raised by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The issue is the appropriate maximum level of fine and whether it is commensurate with the potential damage and harms caused by the prohibited activities. Under the provisions, an individual commits an offence only when they fail to comply with a prior direction that provides an opportunity for them to desist from an activity before committing an offence. While the level of fine is higher than for some other comparable offences, this is balanced by the opportunity to desist from an activity before any criminal liability is attached. Level 5 is the absolute maximum penalty for this offence, and the courts have discretion in setting the level of fine in any case. The Government therefore consider that this maximum level of fine could be a proportionate response to an evidenced problem of serious and wilful disregard of local by-laws.

My noble friend also raised the question of how one measures the strength of protest. Again, we have to balance the strength of protest that a very small number of people wish to assist in against access for a very large number of protestors. I suspect that my noble friend was, as I was, on the demonstration against the Iraq war. We spent a very long time marching—actually, shuffling because there were so many people there—along the Embankment, through Parliament Square and down Whitehall. I never got to Hyde Park. There were 2 million of us. If there had been a small number of people encamped in our path, we would not have been able to get even as far as we did. One has to think about the right to protest in a balanced way. Strength of protest there was expressed by the number of people, not by the fact that any of us wanted to stay overnight and camp for the next six weeks in Hyde Park or anywhere else.

On the other amendment, the Government think that a maximum of 90 days strikes the right balance. Without any limit it would, for the person directed not to start a prohibited activity, be unclear and uncertain at what point a direction ceased to apply. With the limit of 14 days, we could, with some persistent resident protestors, so to speak, create a burden requiring unduly frequent renewal. Ninety days has been applied in a number of other areas for these sorts of orders.

Subsections (1) and (2) of this clause provide that the direction to stop a prohibited activity may include a direction that the person does not start doing that activity again and that the direction continues in force for a period of time specified by the constable or authorised officer giving the direction.

Then we come to the use of “varied” in Clause 145(6)(c). We thought it fair to give officers the ability to amend a direction given to enable them to deal with changing operational circumstances. This would mean the officer would be able to change the duration of the direction or to reinforce the direction taking account of changing circumstances. This amendment would curtail the rights of officers and reduce their ability to respond proportionately to changing circumstances, and we are all familiar with how difficult it can be to do so in large demonstrations.

I am not sure whether the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, formally moved the amendment tabled in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, but our sense on the amendment is that he was providing detailed guidance of the sort that should not be in the Bill but which should be provided. I think I will need to write to the noble Lord about exactly which parts of these clauses will be subject to further guidance, but I promise that I will write.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Rosser

Thursday 9th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Rosser

Wednesday 18th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The Government are prepared to consider a number of matters. We are about to discuss the relationship between the police commissioners, the mayor’s office and the policing and crime panels. How best one organises this and how the staff relate to those who look at the staff and check accountability—and what we mean by accountability in detail—will, I suspect, be discussed over the next night or two.

[Lord Rosser]

Before my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey replies, could the Minister answer the question I asked at the beginning? In view of the doubts that have been raised by two of his noble friends earlier this evening, do the Government envisage that the proposed police and crime commissioners will be full-time or part-time positions?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I apologise—I had that in my notes. We envisage this as a full-time appointment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, this group of amendments deals with the need for close working between the police and crime commissioner and the local authorities within the police and crime commissioner’s area. Of course, the case for such close working was made at Second Reading, in Committee last week and again by my noble friends Lord Harris of Haringey and Lord Beecham and others in the debate this evening, and I certainly do not intend to repeat it.

I only add that the Government say that they want influence over decision-making, if not decision-making itself, devolved down the line as far as possible. That is the claimed intent of their Localism Bill. A new police and crime commissioner with considerable and largely unchallengeable powers covering an area as extensive as, say, the West Midlands could hardly be regarded as the standard-bearer for the Government’s claimed concept of localism and local accountability. One way of at least partially addressing that deficiency would be to go down the road of these amendments and place a requirement on the commissioner to meet representatives of each local authority in the relevant police area at least twice a year.

As has been said, local authorities and their elected representatives have a key role to play in reducing crime and articulating the policing needs and concerns not only of the local authority but also of those they represent. One would hope that police and crime commissioners would want to meet all local authorities in their area on a regular basis and work in partnership. However, perhaps based on our own personal experiences, we do not necessarily share the Minister’s view, expressed earlier this evening, on the principled approach that will be adopted by all those who are elected or appointed to positions of considerable power and responsibility.

These amendments not only seek to address that point but, as my noble friend Lady Henig said, by providing for such contact between the commissioner and local authority representatives in the Bill, they also seek to emphasise and highlight the importance of working together to reduce crime and reoffending rates and to achieve the goal of ever-safer communities. I hope that the Minister will be able to give a supportive response to these amendments.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I begin by apologising profusely to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, because I had temporarily forgotten that paragraph 233 of Schedule 16 to the Bill clearly spells out that PCCs will be subject to the Audit Commission Act 1998, so that is part of the definition of “external audit”. I am sure that the noble Lord has already noticed that.

Many of us have been recollecting policing problems of years past. The noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, led me to have a flashback to when I was a university teacher in Manchester and used occasionally to lecture at the Lancashire police training college in Preston. The chief constable of Lancashire, as I remember him in 1969, was more politically incorrect in his language than would be acceptable for a police constable nowadays. That is part of the transformation in policing since then.

Telephone Hacking

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Rosser

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, with one honourable exception, there is no prospect of our national newspapers investigating the issue of phone hacking. The growing evidence of their own considerable involvement in the practice means that their interest lies not in exposing it but in covering it up. Do the Government believe that the hidden and murky world of private investigators and their techniques—and that of those who employ them and why—now needs further investigation? Would the proposal, which we support, of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, on phone hacking not be a useful contribution, in addition to what should be current thorough and comprehensive police investigations?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I must remind the noble Lord that the murky relationship between government and the media and between the police and the media is not a new issue that has arisen with this new Government; it has been with us for some years. We all need to look at this. A large number of inquiries and a number of civil actions are under way with regard to the responsibility of the press. This issue will not go away.

Police

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Rosser

Thursday 25th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this is the first of many debates that we will no doubt be having on the future of policing in this country as the police reform and social responsibility Bill, which we expect to be published shortly, begins to move through both Houses. I thank everyone who has contributed to this debate, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for that very interesting speech on his own involvement and how he has seen the different dimensions of policing. As someone who is new to this dossier, I was reflecting on how much policing has changed since I first had contact with police forces as a junior lecturer in Manchester. I was dealing with the Irish Government and therefore, for the first time, coming to terms with Special Branch, which in those days was concerned with Irish terrorism. Special Branch today has to deal with a far wider range of terrorist threats.

Some 20 years ago, I was at Chatham House and was asked to chair a seminar of senior policemen about the international dimension of domestic policing. This was early 1989 and it was fascinating to have a number of policemen who thought that this was a small and specialised dimension of what they had to do, although I recall a policeman from north Wales saying that he really needed to train some of his policemen in Dutch because so many Dutch holidaymakers crashed their cars in north Wales every summer.

When, some years ago, I was the chair of EU Sub-Committee F, I was astonished to discover that there were by then police liaison officers in UK embassies throughout the European Union and beyond, that SOCA had been created to deal with the international dimension of British policing and that, according to the national intelligence model, we now have three levels of policing: level 1, the area that the public care most about and are most conscious of, which is local policing; level 2, which is the national policing of cross-border crime by different cross-border police forces; and the increasingly important level 3, which is transnational crime.

The increasing sophistication of crime is something with which we are now all familiar. Organised crime has ceased to be predominantly domestic; it is increasingly cross-border. Forms of international crime include drug-smuggling, international financial fraud, human trafficking—we had an interesting debate on that the other week—and now also cybercrime, on which I was given my first briefing the other day. We are in another world and the pace of change is increasing. I was struck when I read an HMIC report from July this year that said that there is no time for a royal commission, and that the police leadership needs to rise to the challenges of a cessation of the rapid increase in funding that has come in the past few years and the changing tasks that are required of it. The pace of change requires us to respond.

Many people here have talked about the changes in democratic accountability which the Government are proposing. We will have plenty of time when the Bill is presented to discuss in more detail the role of police and crime commissioners and their relationships with chief constables and with the police and crime panels that will, in turn, hold them to account.

I assure the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, that the intention is that police and crime panels will consist predominantly of representatives of local authorities. There is, as he rightly points out, a large question about what we mean by “local”. The current structures of police forces and that of local authorities, as we well know, do not fit. That is part of the problem, and part of the reason why the Government are proposing police and crime commissioners to fit these separate entities that are now our largely regional police forces.

My noble friend Lord Bradshaw asked a number of questions about who will stand, who will vote and what they will all campaign on. American experience, which has been prayed in aid in this House as a horror story, has actually led to some rather good police commissioners and indeed elected mayors arriving. We must not necessarily assume that democracy is a dangerous thing that might lead to disaster.

The noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, asked about the future role of ACPO. It will continue to play an important role in providing professional leadership to the police service but, again, discussions are under way about the way in which this association of chief constables will continue to drive value for money and improve the quality of co-operation among different police forces. Noble Lords will be familiar with the discussion over the past few years about whether another round of police mergers was necessary. The decision has been taken that the structural solution of further mergers itself carries costs, and that we wish to promote as far as possible—the previous Government believed this, as well as the new Government—closer co-operation among different police forces. A range of areas, from sharing police helicopters to co-operation across many other areas, can be improved.

The move from SOCA to the national crime agency is also intended to pull further together the different abilities of different police forces and the specialised tasks that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has been talking about, while trying as far as possible to maintain the historic principle of local responsibility for local civilian police forces.

We are concerned about value-for-money savings. Police budgets have increased rapidly over the past five years, and we recognise that they will cease to do so over the next four to five years. Government core funding of the policing will reduce by 20 per cent in real terms over the next four years. Taking into account our precept for local budgets, that amounts to an average—I stress, an average—for police forces of 14 per cent in real terms. In December, we will set out to Parliament exactly what this settlement will mean for each police force. However, I stress that real costs have been imposed on police forces by the previous Government through the central targets and the very detailed guidance. As the HMIC report states:

“In 2009 alone 2,600 pages of guidance were issued to officers setting out how their work should be done; and there are now 100 processes in the criminal justice system, requiring 40 interventions by police officers, staff and specialists. The cost to policing is estimated at £2.2 billion per year”.

Significant savings can be reached through reducing this sort of central top-down bureaucracy. On average, only 11 per cent of total police strength is visible and available to the general public at any time. We are confident that reducing some of these reporting and bureaucratic elements will enable us to maintain the police front line while reducing costs.

Others have raised questions about political leadership.

[Lord Rosser]

The Minister has referred to the police front line. Will he define what the Government mean by the front line as far as policing is concerned?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The police front line is increasingly sophisticated because, as I was saying earlier, if we look at what we want the police to do, the police front line is not just what is visible on the street. It is the policeman dealing with domestic violence in a sexual assault referral centre; it is the policeman dealing with financial fraud in the City of London Police which, as the noble Lord knows, is a specialist force for international financial fraud. The front line has become rather more sophisticated in that area, as crime itself has become more sophisticated. The public think of the front line as the police they see on the street. Very often, the public see the front line in police community support officers, who command a great deal of confidence because they are visible. The public see special constables as part of the front line. We pay tribute to our predecessors in government in that the number of special constables has increased from 11,000 to 15,000 over the past four or five years, and we would like to see it increase further. We all recognise that the front line has to include these more specialised and sophisticated areas as well.

[Lord Rosser]

Can I be clear: is the Minister saying that the reductions in policing expenditure will not affect the quality and effectiveness of the front line of policing as he has just described it?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That is our aim and intention. We are looking at how far we can reduce costs by reducing reporting requirements, the time spent in the station, and so on. It will be tough, but we will do what we can. That means slashing the bureaucracy that gets in officers’ way. There are a number of reports from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary; I am sure that noble Lords have seen the two reports on policing in an age of austerity and valuing the police. They show us the direction in which to go. I think the first was commissioned by the previous Government, so I am not being entirely partisan in this respect.

The noble Lord, Lord Condon, introduced me to a phrase with which I was not familiar before—the policing covenant. I am much more familiar with the military covenant. The idea of the policing covenant is very interesting, and I look forward to debating it further. We want a police force that has the confidence of the public and is highly professional but which feels itself to have, in the broadest sense, public confidence. The management of the demonstration yesterday was a good illustration; we all recognise how difficult it is to maintain this balance. I look forward to hearing whatever the noble Lord would like to feed to me on what he has on that very interesting concept.

The noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, talked about recruitment and accelerated promotion. Recruitment to the police has been affected by the rising proportion of young people going to university. Many of my children’s friends have gone to university with the intention of joining the police and have then done so as graduates. That is part of the way in which the police themselves are changing.

The noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, and the noble Lord, Lord Condon, raised the question of police pay and the report of the Winsor review. This is not an easy issue. The Government are committed to maintaining the current settlement until its completion. After 2011, however, the Government intend that pay across the public sector for civilians should be frozen for two years after the end of the current agreement.

The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, asked about ethnic representation. I am happy to say that there has been, under the previous Government, a gradual increase at all ranks in the number of ethnic minority police. It is now approaching 5 per cent among the professional and warranted officers. Among special constables, who are volunteers, it is now approaching 10 per cent. Similarly, 25 per cent of full-time police are now female, as are a third of specials.

The noble Lord, Lord Condon, raised the concept of a network of policing. I have already said that we see ourselves resisting further police mergers but encouraging closer co-operation in specialised units and the sharing of facilities wherever possible. The Home Office business plan sets out that, with a national crime agency, police forces will be encouraged to network as closely as possible. Collaboration is the way forward.

We all recognise the vital importance of this topic. Domestic order is the basis for a stable democratic society. Public confidence in how the police maintain that public order is vital, and civic engagement with the police is the basis for a stable society. I look forward to many future debates on the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill, and on many other aspects of policing. We face a range of future challenges to the maintenance of our borders. I have not mentioned the establishment of a UK police border command, which we will, perhaps, turn to another day. There is the developing use of the internet, with cyberfraud and other matters. There are links to many other themes, such as active citizenship and the greater engagement of the public in taking control of order and anti-social behaviour in their own communities.

We welcome the increase in the number of volunteers from within local communities in recent years. Alongside this, we value enormously the role that professional and highly trained police provide, often in specialised groups, linking across different forces, working through SOCA now and the national crime agency in the future, and working internationally with forces in other states through Europol and Interpol. How best to balance all these competing demands and tasks within a civilian police force is a constant concern to us all. We all appreciate how well our police attempt to do that. We all also understand how difficult a balance it is to strike.

Superannuation Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Rosser

Wednesday 10th November 2010 Grand Committee

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord is aware that, although the RDAs will disappear, some of their task will be undertaken by the new LEPs and some of those involved will, naturally, be strong candidates to find posts in those new sectors. This is not completely a zero-sum affair. I am very conscious that in Yorkshire, we have one of the more effective RDAs. We are now in the process of agreeing local economic partnerships and I have no doubt that many of the staff in the Yorkshire RDA will work for the Yorkshire-based LEPs.

[Lord Rosser]

I thank the Minister for his response. Of course, I shall await the replies which he has undertaken to send me in response to what I accept were a large number of questions. Obviously, I intend to withdraw the amendment, but perhaps I could make a general point. As I am sure the Minister appreciates, one of the things which prompted the question is that, unless I have misunderstood the situation, the potential number of staff who will be interested in redeployment and retraining is presumably likely to be somewhat larger than in previous years; hence my asking for information about the numbers this year, in the next two years and the previous two years to try to gauge to what extent there is an increase.

It is a case, as I am sure the Minister is aware, of making sure that the number of staff who are involved in assisting with the practices and procedures that are in operation now will also be sufficient to cope with what is likely to be a significant increase in the number of people seeking retraining and redeployment. It is from that angle in particular that I ask these questions. Has sufficient thought been given to the increase in workload that is likely to come from people seeking other employment opportunities? Will the system be geared up to cope with that fully? I realise that that will no doubt emerge from the answers to my questions that the Minister will send me. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.