Police (Complaints And Conduct) Bill

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

I beg to move amendment 1, page 2, line 4, at end insert—

‘(e) for sanctions to be imposed on serving officers who fail to comply with the interview process.’.

One of the advantages of a Committee stage that directly follows Second Reading is that every Member in the Chamber has heard the preamble. Everyone is aware of the issues, and everyone has heard the Minister’s initial response. That means that my speech can be much briefer than it would otherwise have been: I hope to be able to complete it in two or three minutes.

We have all heard the arguments, and we have all heard the discussions. We have heard the discussion about whether former police officers should be forced to attend hearings, and the discussion about whether officers who attend hearings but refuse to give evidence should be included in the scope of the Bill. I want to concentrate on an issue on which I think we can have an impact: whether sanctions should apply if a police officer refuses to engage in the investigation process. That was mentioned to us by the IPCC itself, and we ought to give further consideration to whether it should be included in the Bill.

One question is whether the Bill should include a requirement on Ministers to draw up sanctions. To that end, I and other members of the all-party group on the Hillsborough disaster have proposed a probing amendment, to encourage the Minister to explain why such a provision is not included in the Bill. I hope my right hon. Friend the Minister will appreciate that it is not designed to obstruct what is an important and necessary emergency Bill, and that he will take the amendment in the spirit in which it is intended, which is to raise a serious question that requires a serious answer.

The Bill compels serving officers to attend interviews in the course of an IPCC investigation, but it does not give an indication of what sanctions can be imposed on a serving officer who fails, or refuses, to attend an interview. As the Bill stands, sanctions for non-compliance will be dealt with by the relevant authority tasked with dealing with the misconduct of the officer in question. However, whether the non-attendance of the officer is to be determined as misconduct is also left to the discretion of the relevant authority.

I agree with the IPCC that a refusal to attend an interview should be immediately categorised as misconduct, and that appropriate disciplinary action should be instantly triggered. The IPCC says in its briefing document:

“The Commission is firmly of the view that if this power is to be effective, a failure to comply with a direction to attend should amount to misconduct. The Bill does not provide for such a sanction and we have expressed some concern about this, as we anticipate that some chief officers would welcome this unambiguous approach. The Commission hopes that Parliament will make clear that it is its express wish that police personnel should co-operate with IPCC investigations.”

By adding the amendment to the Bill we will instantly deal with all of the IPCC’s concerns in this area. Parliament will be giving a clear indication that police personnel should co-operate with IPCC investigations. Parliament will also be offering a clear, unambiguous approach to chief officers across the country as to the disciplinary action that we expect to be taken if a witness fails to comply with an interview request. The IPCC will have the confidence to deliver on its duty, in the full knowledge that Parliament is prepared to support its difficult work in calling police officers to account through an unambiguous legislative framework.

What I am not seeking to do through this amendment is tell the Minister what form any sanctions should take, although the IPCC has made a firm statement that it believes the failure to comply with a direction to attend should amount to misconduct. The amendment merely requires the Minister to make a provision for sanctions to be imposed on a serving officer who fails to comply with the interview process. It is a simple provision that failure to comply would be a breach of the prescribed standards of behaviour as defined by the Police (Conduct) Regulations 2012 and would result in misconduct proceedings. That would satisfy all the issues raised and would be clear and unambiguous to all involved. I therefore encourage my right hon. Friend the Minister to consider agreeing to this amendment.

I began by saying that it was a probing amendment to explore the issues involved in imposing sanctions on serving officers who fail to comply with a direction to attend, but I hope the Minister will send out a clear, unambiguous message about the sanctions that he expects to be imposed on those who fail to comply. I am sure that if he does so, he will get the clear and unambiguous support of all Members of this House.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I want to raise a couple of issues. I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Member for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley) that our Second Reading debate served to provide an eloquent account of the context and importance of the Bill, so I shall not repeat any of those themes, but let me repeat, as I never tire of doing, my personal tribute to the families of the 96. As I said before, they should think of this as their Bill.

Our amendment was designed to be a probing amendment, and again I thank the Minister for his response to my letter yesterday. With your agreement, Mr Evans, I shall just ask a few further questions and I hope the Minister will help the Committee by answering them. He said that effective sanctions are available to deal with those officers who do not wish to attend. The question we seek to ask through this amendment is this: to whom are those sanctions available? From what he has said, I take it that they are available to the officer’s force, but we are trying to push for them to be available to the IPCC. What we are doing here is giving the IPCC sufficient powers to make the necessary investigations, so my question to the Minister is this: how will the Government ensure that the IPCC has effective sanctions to deal with those who do not wish to attend?

Arising from that is my second question: is deferral to the police force in question enough? Does the Minister have any evidence to suggest that that is a sufficient way of approaching this issue? I was helped in my thinking about this amendment, which we tabled in recent days, and here I must thank Sally Lipscombe of the House of Commons Library. She quickly looked up for me the regulations that apply, and it appears to me that there are some questions on which an answer from the Minister would be helpful, not the least of which is the point that I have just made about what evidence there is that such a sanction is enough to compel officers to attend.

Thirdly, what happens once a sanction is applied? How does the interview and the evidence-gathering process then proceed? As my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) mentioned, we are concerned here with not only those honourable members of police forces who will be happy and keen to co-operate with the IPCC, but those officers whose evidence is vital but who do not wish to co-operate, for whatever reason—they must understand that for themselves in their own heart. If the force in question does choose to use the sanctions, does the IPCC then have sufficient powers available to ensure that the evidence-gathering interview proceeds properly and informs the investigation?

In essence, I wish to probe the answer to the three questions. How will the Government ensure that the IPCC, de facto as much as de jure, has effective sanction to make sure that people attend and give evidence? Is deferral to the force enough? Do we have any evidence that that is enough? If a sanction is applied, what then happens? How does the IPCC make sure that it has sufficient power for evidence-gathering to proceed?

I will not trouble the Committee any further on the issue of retired officers, except to repeat my earlier words of hope and anticipation that, notwithstanding the fact that many retired officers would want to give evidence freely and happily, all retired officers who may add to this investigation and bring about justice in a speedy fashion will find it in themselves to do so.

In conclusion, I just wish to say that although “Justice delayed is justice denied” is a hackneyed old phrase, it could have been written for this debate. So I anticipate speed, as the Minister has suggested, and I thank all Members of this House, not least those on both Front Benches, for their efforts to date.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

I want to press the Minister on a couple of points relating to the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley), which reflects concerns we have put privately to the Minister outside the Chamber about the powers in the Bill. We had concerns about the sanctions available in the event of officers not participating in discussions with the IPCC when requested according to the provisions in the Bill. The Minister has given me some helpful reassurances—I am sure he will do so again today—on the potential sanctions available to police forces under the current legislation. He recently produced the Police (Complaints and Misconduct) Regulations 2012, which relate to the Bill.

I have two questions for the Minister. Can he point out the elements of the draft statutory instrument on the police in England and Wales that he published yesterday that highlight that the sanctions are available to forces? He has outlined that to me privately and I have no doubt that he will do so again today. My cursory reading of the regulations—I accept that it is cursory—shows no mention of sanctions. I accept that provisions are elsewhere in primary legislation, but it would have been helpful to have put in the regulations the sanction we have discussed that is available to police forces.

I want to test the Minister on where the buck will stop ultimately when it comes to exercising the sanctions under other legislation that he has mentioned in our discussions outside the Chamber. We now have police and crime commissioners and chief constables. Where will the buck finally stop on these issues, which are essentially personnel matters? If an officer did not participate in a discussion on a non-criminal matter at the request of the IPCC and the sanctions that the Minister has outlined to me privately and will no doubt outline to the Committee are available, will they be the sole responsibility of the chief constable or could they be overridden by a police and crime commissioner who took a different view? Are these matters operational or strategic?

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Green]

I have spoken to the IPPC, and it clearly stated that it did not want sanctions to be included in the Bill for some of the reasons that I have given. While I am certain that there is no need to amend the Bill, I am happy to give the Committee the assurance that I will continue to discuss the matter with the IPCC to see whether it needs any longer-term changes. In making any changes to regulations, we need to take a consistent approach in terms of sanctions on those who fail to attend as a witness or as a suspect.

[Alison McGovern]

So that we can absolutely clear, and as the Minister is, I am sure, in constant conversation with the IPCC, will he write to me, as chair of the all-party group on the Hillsborough disaster, to confirm that point?

[Damian Green]

I will be happy to write to the hon. Lady, as indeed I have written to the IPPC. I will send her a copy of that letter so that everyone knows that the position is absolutely clear and that we are all saying the same things in all forums.

If my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester will agree to withdraw his amendment, I assure him and the Committee that we will continue to examine this question further to ensure that the effectiveness of the procedure is maintained as much as possible.