Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Doocey]

My Lords, I should like to address Amendments 103, 105, 112 and 116, the four amendments in my name in this group. The purpose of the amendments is to ensure democratic legitimacy to the function of police and crime commissioner as exercised in London. I have no objection to the concept of the Mayor of London, acting as the PCC, appointing a deputy mayor for policing and crime. The issue that arises is the fact that the deputy mayor for policing and crime will not be an elected person. The mayor has the right to appoint anyone to this position.

Mayors are not infallible. London has so far had two elected mayors. Both have appointed a range of unelected people to a wide variety of important posts, some of which have resulted in controversy, resignations and sackings. I recognise that no such mistake has been made in the appointment of the chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority or, in fact, any of the appointments, but the fact is that that very important principle still stands.

However, I believe that there is a much more fundamental objection. Were the mayor to appoint an unelected person to the post of deputy mayor for policing and crime, it would negate the whole purpose of the Bill. How on earth can an unelected police and crime commissioner be accountable to local communities? Does not this proposal to hand the powers of the PCC to any unelected individual make a nonsense of the Government’s argument about democratic legitimacy?

Previously in Committee, my noble friend the Minister said:

“Cabinet Office research in 2008 showed that more than two-thirds of the public wanted an elected person to hold the police to account … It means an elected individual charged with being the voice of some of the most vulnerable people … I believe that police and crime commissioners will be both visible and democratically accountable”.—[Official Report, 11/5/11; col. 940.]

My noble friend made the same comment earlier this evening.

Therefore, I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, said earlier. Why on earth should every area outside London have a democratically elected individual carrying out the job of PCC, but not London? What rationale is there for treating London differently from any other part of the country? Whatever misgivings one might have about certain sections of this Bill, it is essential that the new legislation works in practice and does what it is supposed to do. But it must also be logically consistent and ensure the same degree of democratic accountability throughout the country. These amendments would achieve these objectives by obliging the Mayor of London, in delegating his functions as PCC, to choose a deputy mayor for policing and crime only from elected Members of the London Assembly.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, I will speak to an amendment that is in my name, to four other amendments to which I have added my name and to an amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. The amendment in my name is Amendment 110. I have to confess that this is possibly a refugee from what should have been another group. However, it could stand on its own here. It essentially deletes Clause 19(4), which is about the power of the deputy mayor for policing and crime to,

“arrange for any other person to exercise any function of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime which is, in accordance with subsection (2), exercisable by the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime”.

This comes back to the issue that we keep raising in relation to policing and crime commissioners: their ability to delegate functions to people who are not accountable in the same way. The proposal is that, even though this is an activity which is specifically the responsibility of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, and specifically should be carried out by the deputy mayor, it should not be possible to delegate this to any other person in such a cavalier way.

I also wanted to speak to Amendments 103 and 116, which essentially say that the deputy mayor for policing and crime shall be a Member of the London Assembly. If your Lordships and the Government are not minded to accept the principle of direct election, then the second best must be that the person delegated by the Mayor of London must themselves be an elected person, a Member of the London Assembly. It really is extraordinary that the Bill gives such latitude to the Mayor of London to appoint someone whom they have not met and may have no personal direct mandate. One could create a justification as to why it would be inappropriate to have a direct mandate, but it seems to me that the main thrust of this ought to be that that the person who is acting on behalf of the Mayor of London in this very important role should themselves have at least been subject to the electorate for at least part of London, if not the whole of London. It is important that the deputy mayor of London for policing and crime should be an elected Member of the London Assembly, and Amendments 103 and 116 deal with this.

I have also put my name to Amendment 105, which enables the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime to delegate to any person the functions that would otherwise be carried out by the deputy mayor for policing and crime. The issue is the same: whether it should be possible for these functions so easily to be delegated to people who are not elected. Amendment 105 would at least require the mayor to delegate them to somebody who was part of the structure of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime rather than to someone completely different. What would be the point of having a Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime if the mayor could say, “Well, one of these functions I am not having done by somebody who works for the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime; I’ll have it delegated somewhere else”? I suspect that this was an unintended consequence of something else when the drafting was done, but it seems to be a very strange arrangement.

Amendment 180 would involve Members of the Assembly in the appointment of police officers of ACPO rank other than simply the commissioner and deputy commissioner. I spoke earlier today about the importance of that responsibility being shared. It is an important issue of governance. It is also important that senior officers of the Metropolitan Police not only see the line of accountability to the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis but recognise the importance of democratic accountability. The involvement of Members in the appointments process would help facilitate that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Doocey]

My Lords, I should like to speak briefly to the amendments in my name in this group—Amendments 73, 152, 159, and 160 to 163. Their purpose is to make the provisions of the Bill consistent with those proposed in the Localism Bill. That Bill will change the relationship between the London Assembly and the Mayor of London, as set out in the Greater London Authority Act 1999, because it will give the London Assembly a new power to reject by a two-thirds majority the Mayor’s statutory strategies.

However, this Bill makes no equivalent provision. As it stands, it would not allow the Assembly to reject the Mayor’s draft policing and crime plan. Consequently, once both Bills have become law, the London Assembly would have the power to reject every one of the Mayor’s strategies, with the sole exception of the police and crime plan. This discrepancy makes no sense. There are no substantive differences between the police and crime plan and other mayoral strategies that would justify it being excluded. These amendments, which are supported by the Mayor of London and all political parties on the London Assembly, would remedy this discrepancy.

The amendments also propose that the power to reject a draft police and crime plan would be exercisable by the whole Assembly. I am very aware that the Bill’s provisions suggest that none of the functions of the police and crime panel should be carried out by the full Assembly. However the whole point of vesting this specific power in the full Assembly, as opposed to in a committee of the Assembly, is to provide consistency with the provisions of the Localism Bill in relation to mayoral strategies.

These amendments would ensure that accountability arrangements within the Greater London Authority are coherent and internally consistent.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, I have put my name to the amendments to which the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, referred. It is extraordinarily anomalous that two Bills that we will be considering at the same time in your Lordships’ House have such very different provisions for the role of the London Assembly and the strategies of the mayor. It seems sensible that they are made consistent. The proposal that the London Assembly has the power to reject—or, when it comes to the Localism Bill, perhaps even amend—the plan is extremely important and it would be sensible if the power was consistent across the two pieces of legislation.