Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Monday 6th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, I am sorry that the Minister has slightly confused me—or rather, I have become confused, because I am sure that the Minister was clear. I did not understand his point about the necessity for two-way communication and representation, but not necessarily the involvement of people from both bodies. I cannot see how information could flow both ways if there were not people at both ends to ensure that.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I may be misinformed, but I cannot imagine a community safety partnership that does not have representatives from the local authority. Since each local authority will be represented on the police and crime panel, there will be representation. I will check and make sure that I am correctly informed.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, will it not be the same person?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

There is representation. The idea that local authorities should appoint people to the police and crime panel which would then appoint representatives back to the community safety partnerships on which local authorities are represented makes life more complicated than it needs to be. The important thing is, first, that there should be some form of representation, and, secondly, that the two should work together.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

We are well aware of the very central role of CSPs in managing the problems of crime reduction at local level, and naturally we expect and anticipate that PCCs will regard co-operation with CSPs as a central part of their role. However, we resist the proposal that they should—by statute, on the face of the Bill—be a member of each CSP. We will look at this again but it does not seem to us that, in asking and requiring them to work together, we need to put it on the face of the Bill.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

I hope that the Minister will take away and consider very carefully the points that have been raised. I consider this question from my experience as a Lancashire county councillor, serving on the council at the same time as not only my noble friend Lady Henig but as the Minister's noble friend Lord Greaves. Were there to be a perceived inequality of treatment and representation between his noble friend’s Pendle, my noble friend Lady Henig’s Lancaster or my own part of Preston, it would undermine exactly what the Government are trying to achieve. Perhaps the Minister will forgive me, but I think that the Government have looked at models around the world, not least at one in America. This problem would not arise in America because, in most parts of the country, with the exception of large conurbations—London, for example, would be a comparator—local communities have a local police commissioner who is elected. The Government, in trying to look at the appropriate model, must have regard to the fact that this structure is different—it is on a bigger scale. I hope that the Minister will think about what I have said and, if he does not believe me and the strength of my feelings, I suggest that he talks to his noble friend Lord Greaves.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I recognise that throughout the rest of today we will discuss the relationship between the PCP and the PCC, and the relationship that the police and crime panel has with all the other agencies. The Government are certainly prepared to look at that again to make sure that that we get this right, as it is very important. However, we also recognise that practice, as well as statutory requirements, will make a great deal of difference to how this new model works. We have to make sure that PCPs and PCCs work together.

On whether the police commissioner is required to have public meetings, the PCP and the police commissioner will have public meetings together. It will be perfectly acceptable—indeed, desirable—for the police and crime commissioner to invite the chief constable to accompany her to public meetings with the police and crime panel, and that that will become part of the pattern. Again, how far that should be on the face of the Bill is something we need to consider further, but we are happy to talk off the Floor between Committee and Report on the precise role which these will have.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

Should communication break down, that will become difficult. The Minister is perfectly proper in suggesting that the chief constable would normally be invited to such public meetings. Should things enter a difficult phase, which occasionally happens with the best laid plans, our concern would be that surely the public have a right to know that there is that expectation on the head of the service, rather than having to rely on an invitation being given.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the design of this Bill is that the accountable body that is directly elected will be the police and crime commissioner, and that the police and crime panel holds that police and crime commissioner to account. The operational autonomy of the chief constable is answerable both to the police and crime commissioner and, as a backstop, to the Home Secretary, as monitored by the Chief Inspector of Constabulary. However, the accountability of the police and crime commissioner is first to the police and crime panel, which is the key relationship designed in this Bill.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My thinking was to do with the presence of the chief police officer at particularly major public meetings. At the moment, they often attend full county council meetings and are highly visible. If the Minister will forgive my use of the slightly vernacular, there could be occasions when feelings are running high and even the commissioner could be asked the whereabouts of the organ grinder because the public do not want the monkey. I have been at these public meetings and this sort of thing happens only when feelings are running high. Feelings were phenomenally high during the run-up to capturing the Yorkshire Ripper. As for relying on just an invitation, in a way there is a missing link in the chain between the public and the chief constable or chief police officer as described by the Minister. The public will expect it to be at least as strong as it is now and probably more so.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Most of us who have dealt with chief constables will know that chief constables would be unlikely to be shrinking violets and absent from public meetings on such occasions. In the type of instances referred to by the noble Baroness, it is evident that the chief constable would be there to answer for his force alongside the police commissioner. However, it is the model of this Bill that, formally, accountability runs from the police and crime commissioner to the police and crime panel. We do not wish to muddle the line of accountability by establishing a direct link in which the chief constable on her own answers to the police and crime panel.

Many noble Lords have met chief constables far more regularly than I at public meetings and public consultations. In practice, when meeting CSPs and other bodies, chief constables naturally play their part in regular consultation: that is, consultation that answers to the public at large but is different from the relationship between the PCP and the PCC. We are, however, willing to take this away and to consider in detail whether there are ways in which the Bill can be tweaked to answer some of the issues that have been raised by those on the opposition Benches.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we will take this away. However, the principle of the Bill is that the chief constable is responsible to the police and crime commissioner. It does not exclude public consultations and public meetings, but that is the principle of the Bill. Of course chief constables meet a whole range of people on a regular basis, but democratic accountability in this form is from chief constable to police and crime commissioner, with the police and crime panel scrutinising the actions of the police and crime commissioner. That is the purpose and design of the Bill.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, in taking this point away, will the Minister please have regard to the public perception that if policing has become difficult in an area, the public wish to see the person who is the professional in charge of operational decisions being held to account in public and in their locality? I apologise for interrupting the Minister so often, but I am deeply committed to ensuring that, in whatever form the Bill is eventually enacted, people out there do not suddenly discover that there is less accountability, particularly if the Government do not intend that to happen.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am happy to give that assurance. We are all concerned to ensure that the operations of the police at all levels are visible and accountable. This is intended to make the mechanism of accountability rather more visible than it has been with police authorities. That is the purpose of the Bill. Having given that assurance, perhaps I may invite those who have moved and spoken to this group of amendments to withdraw them so that we may return to the issue on Report.

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[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, in looking at the response that the Minister is about to give, will forgive me for referring back to my experience for a short time on the government Front Bench. It was my experience that sometimes it was not the Secretary of State who wished to retain powers quite as much as it was the department—particularly the senior officials in the department—that wished to retain the powers. Perhaps I was slightly biased because my background was in education. I am sure that we can reassure him that both Ministers serving the House on this Bill will, when they have considered what has been said in this debate today, consider carefully whether it is the Secretary of State or the department officials who wish to retain the string.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I start by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, for that immensely helpful intervention; I think that we can all recognise where that came from. Perhaps I should also, with this and the next group in mind, congratulate a number of noble Lords, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, and my noble friend Lady Hamwee, on the immense care they have taken in going through the Bill in great detail. I have been thinking that I might have spent too much time on my allotments and should really have been looking more at the detail of Schedules 7, 8 and 11.

In this group of amendments we are discussing in detail the question of how far we should loosen central controls on the operations of the police and the forms of local accountability for the police. The coalition Government’s general approach is that, in the relationship between central and local government, we have wandered too far in the direction of allowing Secretaries of State or, in their name, departments to require a great deal of information and a great deal of detailed controls, which should, where possible, be loosened. However, we all recognise that some back-stop powers are necessary for central government to retain.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

I hope that the Minister, who has just spoken on the issue of loosening powers to local level, will also speak for the Government on the Localism Bill.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I deeply regret having to tell the noble Baroness that I shall not be speaking on the Localism Bill. I think that, for the time being, the EU Bill and the police Bill are sufficient for me—although I do occasionally miss the House on the one day a week that I am not here on my feet.

The Government’s general approach on the issue is that where possible we should reduce the level of the detailed oversight that the Secretary of State has on the operation of local policing. For example, police and crime commissioners will be subject to a general duty regularly to consult and involve the public. That is in the Bill. However, the Government take the view that it is not appropriate for the Secretary of State to prescribe how this should be interpreted at a local level. Where possible, necessarily, one has to look back through previous Acts and consider how far they need to be amended in the light of the new procedures. However, I should note that Clause 80, with its reference to efficiency and effectiveness, mirrors Section 36 of the Police Act 1996. We are not introducing new language; we are amending, but continuing, language from previous Acts. This therefore imposes an identical duty on the Secretary of State in relation to the way she exercises the powers conferred by that Act, but I am sure that noble Lords will understand that there are a number of previous Acts that have to be amended or adjusted in the light of the new provisions in the Bill.

Amendments 225A and 226 require the Secretary of State to use the powers conferred by Part 1 to safeguard public safety and security in addition, but the crucial considerations of public safety and security are already provided for, where necessary, in the provisions that contain the individual powers covered by Clause 80. For example, the strategic policing requirement under Clause 79 sets out national threats, which include any threat to national security or public safety. Clause 22 allows the Secretary of State to intervene where force budgets are set too low, but she can do so only where it is necessary to prevent public safety being put at risk. The power under Clause 93 is not a public safety matter since it simply enables the Secretary of State to receive criminal data and information from chief constables. Some of the clauses, particularly Clause 93, set out a number of requirements by the Secretary of State on local authorities and local elected police bodies.

The new accountability structures allow individual police and crime commissioners to decide for themselves how to carry out their duties in the light of local circumstances. That is the purpose of this Bill. They leave it to the public, not central government, to assess the performance of commissioners in detail. To that end, the Bill requires the commissioner to provide information to the public to help local people assess how their force is performing. That is set out in Clause 11. The police and crime panel provides additional scrutiny of the commissioner from the local perspective. The commissioner must attend the public meeting to present an annual report on the progress that has been made in meeting the objectives in the police and crime plan and must answer the police and crime panel on the report. That is required by Clause 12.

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[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, I also speak to Amendment 211ZB on the basis that the principle that the Government should look to in this case is that the person who deputises under such functions must be an elected individual. If the principle of the Government’s legislation is that policing and crime commissioners are directly elected, the consequence must be that if they cannot carry out those functions, for whatever reason, the person who fulfils them in their absence must also be directly elected. I appreciate that in the current iteration of the Bill we are not talking about a directly elected policing and crime commissioner, but we are envisaging a situation in which the person who acts as policing and crime commissioner has a personal electoral mandate, not necessarily for the whole of the area but for part of the area. The principle of the person who deputises being directly elected is fundamental, whatever final models you have.

There are certain ways in which that aim could be achieved. If you had a direct election model for the commissioner, you could also require that a deputy was elected on the ticket at the same time, in the same way as a president and vice-president are elected at the same time in the United States. It would be a very simple change to make and would provide all sorts of additional sensible opportunities for delegation in the administration that was required. Alternatively, you could specify that it should be a member of the policing and crime panel who deputises, because they would have a personal electoral mandate and would be accountable in that way. However, the idea that individual officials, even if there is no cloud over them personally, could set the precept is an extraordinary one. I am sure that that is not what the Government have in mind and I am sure that we would all earnestly hope that there would never be circumstances in which a non-elected person set the precept. However, if the concept of the Bill is to vest these immense powers in a single individual, including the immense power of setting the precept, whether the veto is at 75 per cent, two-thirds or 50 per cent does not matter. You are vesting that power in one individual, and at the very least that person should have a personal electoral mandate.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, I hope that the Minister on this occasion—and I mean no offence to the noble Baroness, Lady Browning—will also quote what Professor John Stewart has to say about this idea. I agree totally with my noble friend Lord Harris about the confidence of the public in someone who has been elected. I also speak as somebody who was a member of a county council when an allegation was made about a chief constable and the chair of the police authority. Nobody knew where the ends of that ball of string would end up, and it is conceivable that somebody who was later drawn into the same allegation of corruption would have been the natural person to have been appointed instead. Flexibility has to be there because of the danger. It is not always clear at the beginning that it will go in a direction that involves members of staff.

The other points I put as questions to the Minister. I am a person who can see the potential for conspiracy, having been in politics so long, but it is possible that somebody would step aside with a spurious excuse in order that a member of their staff could act for a period of time and then stand for election themselves. You could see a situation in which the person concerned who had been elected was not aware of that. The Minister is looking puzzled, but it is quite possible that there could be collusion about the possibility of one individual appointing another individual into a post in their stead. That could lead to a form of nepotism, and that worries me unduly.

I come back to the point made by my noble friend Lord Harris. I do not think that the public can possibly have confidence in the system that is being proposed here.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am very sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, feels that the Government are not willing to listen. The Government have indeed just sent out a number of invitations to meetings in between Committee and Report. I understand that he is unable to come to the consultations to which he has been invited.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

This is precisely the question of how the process of scrutiny holds people to account. Public meetings are absolutely part of that, but we clearly need to continue that discussion. It is indeed the purpose and design of this Bill that ultimate accountability for the key tenets of this reform agenda remain with the elected individual. That is, after all, the Bill’s underlying objective. It is also why the Government resist the proposals that a PCC could delegate to his or her operationally independent chief constable, or to others, the task of justifying the political decisions of the office of police and crime commissioner. We accept that there are instances where a PCC will be required to work with others to achieve their political and strategic intents, but we suggest that this should be through collaboration rather than simple delegation. We recognise, of course, that there is a clear need for effective checks and balances. I have already undertaken to the House to ensure that these are properly considered and will be further discussed.

On Amendment 211ZB, on which a number of noble Lords have intervened, the Government’s original proposition for the case in which an elected PCC was incapacitated was to secure an assurance that their plan and strategy would be impartially delivered while they were not in a position to provide the necessary oversight. Much as the Civil Service provide to the Government of the day, it was this Government’s intention to secure a similar degree of impartiality by looking to the head of paid staff to act as a day-to-day caretaker for the police and crime commissioner of their plan, while the police and crime panel would be utilised to provide effective and constructive support and scrutiny of the delivery of that plan.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

I am trying hard to think of a similar set of circumstances in which someone who is elected and holding an office—for example, as Secretary of State—is temporarily out of action. They may have a team of people who help and advise them. In this case, there are two Ministers in your Lordships’ Chamber. I cannot think of a politician or member of the public who would accept the Permanent Secretary stepping into their roles temporarily, although I can think of some Permanent Secretaries who may have wished to do so.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Perhaps the noble Baroness will be kind enough to name names outside the Chamber afterwards. I accept the criticism; we are indeed debating acceptable models. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, asked whether one should perhaps elect a deputy commissioner, with all the questions that then follow. What does the deputy commissioner do while she or he is waiting around in the hope that the police and crime commissioner will fall ill at some stage, possibly slipping arsenic into their tea at the same time? There are a range of issues that need to be debated there. The model of having someone from the police and crime panel as an alternative also has advantages and disadvantages; it threatens the possibility that there would be a different sort of competition. We recognise that none of these models is ideal. I assure your Lordships that we will look at these amendments and will ensure that they are considered by my colleagues in the Home Office.

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[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

I shall speak to my Amendments 126BA and 127A, but first I shall comment on the debate so far. One thing that has become absolutely clear is the risk of politicisation of our police forces. On the one hand, we will have party-political police and crime commissioners and, as noble Lords have suggested, the risk is that we will have panels dominated by either political supporters or opponents of the police and crime commissioner. It is clear that the morale of police officers will plummet if they see themselves becoming meat in the sandwich in debate and potential conflict between the politicians on the police and crime panel and the politician who is the police and crime commissioner.

The architecture seems designed to politicise the police force and, as my noble friends have suggested, to lead to circumstances in which, because of the lack of any corporate governance surrounding either the chief constable or the police and crime commissioner, there are bound to be real issues about probity and the use of resources. That is why the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Beecham on an audit committee, and the support given to it by my noble friend Lord Harris, is so important.

The debate about ensuring political balance is also very important. Whether it is done using the LGA model or, as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, suggested, using votes cast at the previous general election, is open for discussion. I should have thought that one would want to strive for some kind of political balance.

I also very much support the amendment that suggests that some independent members be appointed. I am very confused about the Government's position. In almost every other department, when public bodies are being discussed and created, the importance of independent members is without question. The fascinating debate about FIFA and the Football Association recalls the comments of the Ministers at DCMS, who are urging the Football Association to appoint independent members. In the health service—I declare my interest as the chair of an NHS trust and as a trainer and consultant in the NHS—the role of non-executives, independent members, is regarded as critical. Yet in a service in which one wishes the public to have confidence and to believe in political impartiality, we have none of that. We are simply piling in party-political politicians. I despair of the Bill. It is so wrong. It will run into so much trouble if it is enacted. I am very tempted to move an amendment giving Henry VIII powers to the Home Secretary to correct the architecture as problems arise, because if not, I am convinced that the noble Baroness will be here in two years’ time with a police reform Bill mark 2, seeking to introduce the protections that noble Lords around the House clearly think are necessary.

On my two amendments, I hasten to say that the first one, Amendment 126BA, which would delete the ability of mayors to sit on the panel, is probing. I was very glad that my noble friend Lord Beecham and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, commented on it. It would be good to have a debate about the role of elected mayors in relation to the panel. First, what is the panel? Is it a rather inoffensive scrutinising panel on which it might not be appropriate to have the executive elected mayor, or is it the all-singing and dancing panel promised by the noble Lord Wallace, which will rigorously hold the police and crime commissioner to account? We are not sure yet, but that would be one aspect in a debate about whether elected mayors should be members of the panel.

Let us take the example of the West Midlands. I do not know when the Bill will be enacted, but the Government hope that panels will be established very soon. We have the bizarre situation in Birmingham where the Government presently propose that Councillor Mike Whitby, who is currently the Conservative leader of the Lib Dem-Conservative council, will be appointed shadow mayor. He will lose control of the council in 11 months’ time, but under Mr Pickles’s proposals, none the less, he will be shadow mayor, with all its powers. He could be appointed to the panel. We would have Mr Whitby as a member of the panel, but the other boroughs within the West Midlands will not have elected mayors, so they will presumably be represented by rank-and-file councillors. The whole issue of balance within that panel would be very difficult indeed.

I turn to Wales. I support the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, because I very much agree with what she said, which is why my name is appended to Amendment 127A, although she did not comment on that. It is clear from the noble Baroness’s very helpful response in Committee on 24 May that, because the Welsh Assembly rejected a Motion from the Welsh Assembly Government to support the Government’s negotiated solution, as it was described by the noble Baroness, in respect of police and crime panels, power is now to be given to the Secretary of State. I find that quite extraordinary. The Government acknowledged that provision regarding police and crime panels rightfully fell within the competence of the National Assembly for Wales, but the Assembly decided that it did not want anything to do with it because it did not like the proposals in the Bill. However, instead of the Government acknowledging that, they decided to say, “Well, if that’s the way it is, we’ll take power to ourselves”. That is rather a kick in the face for Members of the Welsh Assembly. I can only hope, as does the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, that there have been further discussions, and let us hope that the Government have seen sense on that.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, I speak as someone who sat for many hours on the Front Bench that the Minister now occupies acting as a Whip for the legislation that led to the Welsh Assembly. I can see noble Lords such as the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, with whom I spent many happy but rather late hours discussing all this. Given the legal situation, can the Minister say whether there is any possibility of a challenge to the legislation which would overrule the establishment of the Welsh Assembly, the powers devolved to Wales and the joint powers that mingle together? I should be very interested to know whether the Government can simply decide on this one issue to give power to the Secretary of State in Westminster. I think that it will cause fear to run not only through Wales but possibly through Northern Ireland, and even Scotland if the current leader of the majority group in Scotland discovers that the Government can suddenly say that any Secretary of State in Westminster can start taking back powers to him or herself in spite of the devolution settlement. I think that there may be the odd legal challenge. I am not a lawyer but I have sat in your Lordships’ Chamber long enough and heard enough lawyers to know that they are very inventive when it comes to legal challenge. In saying that, I intend no offence to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford.

[Baroness Browning]

My Lords, it may be appropriate if I begin with Wales, as we have finished with Wales at the end of a very long debate covering a wide range of amendments. At the last meeting of this Committee, I gave quite a detailed explanation of the background to what has happened in Wales. I just say to my noble friend Lady Randerson that the meeting that took place since we last met in this Chamber was not a meeting of Ministers; it was a meeting of officials. At that meeting, attended by officials of the Home Office, the Wales Office and the Welsh Assembly Government to discuss the implementation of the provisions of this Bill, there was no agreement that would in any way override the decision taken by the National Assembly for Wales.

I think that we now have to respect the previous decision of the National Assembly for Wales and therefore the Bill will be amended accordingly. I have heard what noble Lords have said about the Secretary of State taking powers. I assure the Committee that the Secretary of State will not go about this in an aggressive way. There will be further discussions and it is hoped that names will come forward rather than the Secretary of State having to impose a heavy-handed approach to this matter. As I mentioned during our previous day in Committee, the cross-border issues between England and Wales are extremely important, and it will be most unfortunate if, when this legislation is enacted, a situation on one side of the border gets in the way of cross-border co-operation in policing matters. Therefore, it is very important that we resolve this matter. I say to my noble friend Lady Randerson and to the noble Lord that I am very happy to discuss this issue with them, although I gave a very full explanation during our previous day in Committee.

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[Baroness Browning]

I can assure the noble Lord that overturning Clause 1 has not gone unnoticed by others who have an interest in the Bill. I was tempted to say that we speak of little else, but that would probably be an overexaggeration.

There has been a lot of discussion this evening about the composition of the panels and the need for accountability and balance. I take on board the fact that people are genuinely concerned about that. The panels are intended to provide balanced representation at force level and force-level scrutiny of the police and crime commissioner. It is a little strange that noble Lords have voiced their concern that every local authority within a force area would have representation on the panel. I see that as a good thing. Although, at the moment, there is local government representation on police authorities, it is not necessarily uniform across the force area. Therefore, despite the fact that it might result in a larger panel in some cases, I would have thought that there would be more equality of representation, at least in terms of numbers. I can think of some very large counties, particularly some of the more rural ones, in which the people who live there very often think that the people in the towns and cities have the most influence and that people from the rural district councils do not always have a say. I think it is rather good that they will be represented on a panel. It is up to the local authority to ensure that people feel that their representative on the panel will be able to speak across the whole district, including some of the smaller areas. I was rather disappointed that people did not see that as an opportunity.

I hope that a lot of people out there will want to serve on these panels, particularly when they know that they will have an opportunity to be on the panel representing the local authority area in which they are involved. They will be able to bring their own views about a locality into the fulcrum of an important part of deciding policing in that force area.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

I hope that the Minister will feel able to discuss with her noble friend Lord Howard not only the geographical balance but the political balance being negotiated within an area. From the local government end, I did not always totally agree with Michael Howard, as he was then, on local government and policing. As my noble friend Lady Henig said, he produced the system that got the balance that was needed—so it is not only geographical.

[Baroness Browning]

No, I take that point, but I think it goes even further than that. That is why it is so important that panels have the right to co-opt. I hope that they will see co-option as a useful tool in bringing equality to other issues, such as in discrepancies in the composition of the panel in relation to people from ethnic communities, the gender balance and so on. On the equality aspect of the panels, there is a lot to look at. The starting point of local authorities all having a representative is a good one. I am sure that the panels will not be so big and unwieldy that they will not be able to focus on the business in hand. Numbers are at the heart of being able to get a balance. Indeed, I have already taken that away and will look at it.

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[Lord Soley]

My Lords, I am afraid I shall have to speak, if only briefly, because I regard this as one of the most important group of amendments. It is very sad that we are, in effect, rushing through it in the way that we are. I say to the Minister simply that one of the best things he could do is to give a copy of the speech of my noble friend Lady Henig to every member of the Cabinet. There is a warning in this group of amendments about what will go wrong with the police in the coming years unless we address the issues that she, the noble Lord, Lord Condon, and others have raised. If we do not do that, in a few years time we will have stories of corruption, inappropriate appointments and problems with the complaints procedure, which will be aggravated at times by some of the ethnic arguments we have seen over the appointment or dismissal of officers. It is profoundly important.

If this House does not give detailed attention to the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, and the others grouped with them, we will be in danger of being ourselves accused of what people in this House often accuse the House of Commons of doing—that is, not giving the Bill the detailed scrutiny it deserves. This is one of the most important groups of amendments. I am sad that we cannot spend more time on it—it deserves it—but the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, has given a real lead to the House which has been supported by others, both from the independent and Liberal Democrat Benches. The Government need to take this group of amendments away and come back with serious changes—otherwise they will rue the day that they left to chance the kind of thing we saw in the distant past where we had allegations about corruption, dismissals and appointments and all that goes with it. It is a very serious group.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, I know the Minister will seek to answer all the points. I have been listening intensely, as have other Members of the Committee, and I realise that it may be difficult to cover all the points in an atmosphere of pressure. I hope that the Minister will agree to write in detail to everyone who has taken part in the Committee stage of the Bill covering all these points as soon as possible so that we can consider the Government’s response in good time for Report.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, earlier in the discussion today my noble friend Lord Hunt mentioned that this was a bad Bill and thought that a number of noble Lords around the House felt the same. The advantage is that it has allowed us to look into some of the practices currently surrounding policing and it may be that some good will come out of our previous debates and the current debate, even if we cannot amend the Bill to make it better. For that we have to pay tribute to the considerable work that has been going on, the thinking that has been taking place and the amendments that have been tabled by my noble friends Lady Henig and Lord Harris and the noble Baronesses, Lady Harris, Lady Doocey and Lady Hamwee.

They have all pecked away at the points which underlie this group of amendments, wide though they are. They include the question of how we manage to find within the Bill, or in any rethinking of how we approach policing, the balance between the public confidence that is necessary for us to carry out our policing—because, in the well-worn phrase, we police by consent—and the need for proper accountability and control.

I shall be brief and make four quick points. We think that there must be more to the Bill about conduct generally, particularly in relation in the Bill. The Minister needs to explain why the proposals put down in amendments from across the House are not required.

The point has been well made about the need to make sure that we have a proper process for the appointment of senior staff in the police service and do not leave it simply to the chief constable. Posts at or above ACPO rank need a public confidence check as well as other aspects. We have had support for this concept from the Cross Benches and the Minister needs to explain why there is not more in the Bill on this matter.

We have touched on the question of discipline and the role of the police and crime commissioners in relation to that. Again there seems to be a good case for it to be looked at again within the Bill and I hope the Minister will be able to respond on that. She gave a clue in her opening remark last time round that that was not going to find favour, but the arguments have been heavily weighted against her on this point.

It was clear in all the speeches that we need an approach to bring together two aspects: what are the reasonable standards required for the work of policing in any regime that will come out of the Bill; and how do we balance the public interest in making sure that these matters are being dealt with? It is all very well to say that the election of a police and crime commissioner is sufficient, but that will only get us started; it does not give us the guarantee that, as work goes on and time passes, people will retain confidence. If confidence is gone, there is no service. We have to make sure that we keep politics out of this as the process goes forward.

The noble Lord, Lord Solely, suggested that this group of amendments was important enough to require consideration and correspondence. I suggest to the Minister that that is a good idea.

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[Lord Harris of Haringey]

I am sorry to hold up noble Lords who wish to speak in the debate that follows, but my example was not posed as a hypothetical incident. It happened in London. The present Mayor of London was briefed about an operation and phoned the person who was the subject of the investigation. I think it would have been disproportionate for the Mayor of London to be prosecuted, as the Minister suggests, for trying to pervert the course of justice. It would have been disproportionate to something that was ill thought out and a spur of the moment action by the Mayor of London to phone somebody that he regarded as a chum. Because there was in existence a robust, standard structure, with clear guidance and a code of conduct as to what was or was not appropriate, it was possible to hold the Mayor of London to account and go through a process whereby, I am sure, he would not do the same thing again. But if the only answer is to arrest the police and crime commissioner for perverting the course of justice, I suspect that we are getting ourselves into a very unfortunate tangle.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, I suggest that the Minister looks at a case in Lancashire, where the father of somebody accused of an offence telephoned a friend who happened to be in the same organisation—I do not need to go into detail—who then telephoned a friend of his who was in the same organisation, who then telephoned the chief constable, who then telephoned the police officers involved with the original charge. The charge was reduced as a result of the call from the chief constable, and the person got off from the lower charge. In the middle of all that could have been one of these commissioners. In the end, people lost their jobs, but there was not actually a crime committed anywhere in that chain of offences.