Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Harris, who is an experienced performer, both in this Chamber and in another Assembly, and therefore knows how to obfuscate to his advantage what is clear, that the position is clear. Consequential amendments from Amendment 9 will naturally be accepted and not be opposed by the Government. Amendments from Amendment 10, where they have not been pre-empted by Amendment 1, are to be debated. The noble Lord will of course look carefully, at Amendment 31 and others that follow. There are amendments on which we will continue discussions. I suggest that it is time to do just that.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I am sorry to intervene, but I do so also for the purpose of clarity. The debate that resulted in the vote was on the basis, of course, of the deletion of the provision for police commissioners and for the insertion of a police commission, consisting of two parts. That provides a similar basis for debating many of the amendments that we will come to, because it will allow a number of points to be raised similar to those relating to a sole commissioner. I was assuming, for instance, that although we will not, I suspect, consider a group of amendments on piloting the new arrangements, nevertheless there will be new arrangements which, in due course I will seek to argue should be piloted.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. I was trying to say, but less succinctly, that debate continues. Of course the Committee has decided to silence debate on those issues that were within Amendments 1 to 8. I suggest that we continue the debate and allow the Chairman of Committees to call Amendment 9, so that we can agree to something.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Hamwee]

13: Clause 1, page 1, line 13, after “has” insert “, subject to section (Shadow operation)”

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 23, 28, 149 and 237. This group of amendments proposes the shadow operation of the new arrangement. It is as well that for the purposes of this argument I do not need to spell out which arrangement that might be. However, it seems that there will be some sort of new arrangement—whether it be a single commissioner or a commission, as my noble friend has proposed.

I tabled these amendments thinking of recent experience at local government level. When new authorities were formed—most recently some new unitary authorities —it was the normal arrangement that there should be a transitional period involving shadow working of the new authorities. The most recent involvement related to the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 that provided for implementation arrangements by way of orders dealing with transition. I accept that local government is more complicated—or I did, at any rate, until about 7 pm—but it seems sensible to allow for a transition from the current police authorities to the new structure on an authority-by-authority basis. This is not an argument for staging the transfer at different times.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness in mid-flow, but as I understand it, if her amendment were accepted we would, after the phrase,

“A police and crime commissioner has”,

insert the words in her amendment. If police and crime commissioners have just been removed from the Bill, what are the words that her amendment follows?

[Baroness Hamwee]

The police and crime commissioner has not been removed from the Bill, in that Amendment 31, which was in the first group, provides for a commission consisting of, first, a police and crime commissioner. I am sorry if the noble Lord feels that we should disrupt debate about something which I think it is appropriate for us to discuss in principle. As the Government have decided tonight that we should go on, it seems a pity to forfeit the opportunity to talk about how any new arrangement might come into being. I would like to continue. Clearly, several noble Lords would not like me to continue.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

I would be delighted to hear the noble Baroness expand the argument—

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

I must put the Question before the debate starts. I would be grateful if the noble Baroness could continue her introduction.

[Baroness Hamwee]

I thank the noble Lord. I have explained why I think it is still appropriate to debate the amendment.

At local government level, there was a format. For each new authority’s structural change order, there was an implementation executive which was adapted to local circumstances and literally shadowed the executive. There was preparation of an implementation plan, which included,

“such plans and timetables as the Implementation Executive considers necessary to secure effective, efficient and timely discharge of”,

the functions, in that case, and such budgets and plans as it considers necessary or desirable to facilitate the economic, effective, efficient and timely discharge of the functions after the relevant date. As I said, this is not the same as a local authority, but the noble Lord will recall, as I do, that when the Greater London Authority was formed, there was a period of shadow working—probably insufficient; it was a month or so.

Whatever arrangement we end up with—after the debate this evening, we are not without a proposed new structure—I am concerned that it should work as well as possible. Schedule 15 provides for transitional provisions. I am sure that the Government believe that everything has been covered in the schedule. Experience might suggest to many of your Lordships that it is hard to anticipate precisely everything that needs to be covered and that there is a risk in such a big bang approach. It is better, in my view, to allow time to consider the detail, because things always seem different once you are in the thick of things, when issues may be thrown up, than when you are anticipating them.

However much thought has been given to both the schedule and the transition board, which I understand the Home Office has formed—chaired, I think, by the police Minister—it would be wise to provide some arrangement which will allow for what may not have been anticipated in the legislation. I do not think that my drafting is of the finest order, but there is an issue here. I beg to move.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

I am puzzled, even in the context of this place, by the procedure being followed at present. Were we debating the amendment in the normal circumstances that many of us, at least, anticipated on the government side, I would oppose it because, as I said earlier, I support the view that we should have democratic accountability for police forces, although my preference is for elected police authorities. I am very disappointed that we cannot debate that issue as a result of pre-emption. That might have been an intelligent debate on a subject with some empirical evidence on which the House could have offered some wisdom to the Government. Indeed, I was beginning to feel a little like Baldrick, because I thought that I had come up with a cunning plan and, rather like Baldrick, had not anticipated that it might be effective on the odd occasion.

This debate reminds me of the childhood poem that starts, “I met a man upon the stair”. The man is the elected police commissioner but he is not there because, in reality, he has just been removed from the Bill by the vote. To put it another way, it is like the Mad Hatter’s tea party without either the Mad Hatter or the tea. I urge my noble friend Lady Hamwee to draw stumps in some way on this group of amendments so that we can in due course have a proper debate on the proper predicate. The predicate for the whole series of amendments that follows is that Clause 1(1) has been agreed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bassam of Brighton]

My Lords, it would help the House if we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I hesitate to say it but the House did hear from me some time ago, and I had actually got to the point when I had moved the amendment. However, as it is Committee stage, perhaps I can say another word about it, although it will be by way of repetition and the House is rather fuller than when I was last speaking.

I am not embarrassed at moving the amendment. I understand that there are difficulties relating to many other amendments, but clearly we know what we would be transitioning from—if “transitioning” is a word. What we are transitioning to appears at the moment to be a model that was not the model in our minds at the start of this afternoon as the likely outcome—

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

Would the noble Baroness care to pose the question that the Leader of the House said could only be asked by her? What do the Government now believe we are transitioning to?

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, if I was not interrupted in the middle of the sentence, I would have tried to get to the end. As I said to the House about an hour ago, Amendment 31, which was in the group of amendments with Amendment 1 agreed by the House earlier, provides for a model of a police commission consisting of a commissioner and a panel. Amendment 31 is not my amendment, but I am reading what it says. Whatever model there is a transition to, it is perfectly proper and indeed required that there should be robust arrangements to ensure that the new model comes into being in a way that works. The point that I was making was that Schedule 15 provides for transition arrangements, but I suspect that although many of the implications of the transition will have been anticipated, it is unlikely that every single one will have been anticipated. That is not intended to be pejorative about the Government or the Home Office, as I would say it of any organisation dealing with a change of this kind. I take it from what the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, is saying that he agrees that some sort of transition period is not a bad idea.

That is all that I am suggesting that the House should consider. I have now said it twice, so I beg the House’s indulgence on that. The brief point is that we know the point and that, whatever the end game, it is not going to be that straightforward, so let us put in arrangements that we have learnt are needed from local authority experience, and use that experience to make that transition more smoothly than I believe the Bill provides for.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Browning)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Hamwee because this has been a fragmented debate and she has held it together well. If I have followed the various sections of her case, it is not unreasonable to say that there is a need for transition and, despite what happened to the structure of the Bill earlier tonight, when you move from one system to another—I am speaking in the generality—it is always good to have a plan that outlines the handover.

Where I have a little concern with the amendment is that I am not quite sure that the cost involved would not be prohibitive. My noble friend mentioned a year but we have not heard many details of what that would amount to in financial terms. It would have been helpful to the House—and perhaps to my noble friend—if we had had something more detailed for the House to consider and look at. However, Clause 99 and Schedule 15 cover transition and therefore there will be a further opportunity at later stages of the Committee for the House to consider this issue in more detail.

I hope my noble friend will feel able to withdraw the amendment. Clearly this is a matter of concern to her but she will be able to enlarge upon her views when we get to Clause 99 and Schedule 15 later in the proceedings of the Committee.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I take the point about the year and the reality of such arrangements to which the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, alluded. It is a very fair point. It is also fair to say that I have not costed these arrangements.

My underlying concern is that as Clause 99 and Schedule 15 stand at the moment—although they may be open to amendment—they do not allow for any handover period at all. As I read them, they provide for a cut-off point and life changes at midnight, as it were. That is my real concern.

I was obviously not expecting to debate the amendment in quite the way that we have and it may be that, because of the circumstances, the Minister is not able to give more detail than she has. However, she is right. We will come back to the topic on Schedule 15. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 13 withdrawn.