Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Harris of Richmond]

31: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Police Commission
(1) There shall be a body corporate for each police area listed in Schedule 1 to the Police Act 1996 to be known as a “Police Commission”.
(2) A Police Commission shall consist of—
(a) a police and crime commissioner, and(b) a police and crime panel.(3) The police and crime commissioner shall be appointed by the police and crime panel (from amongst its own members).”

[Baroness Harris of Richmond]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 31, for the avoidance of any doubt let me say that it was agreed by the Government that this amendment is consequential on my first amendment, which was agreed to on the first day of Committee, and I am most grateful for that.

Amendment 31 agreed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Henig]

I rise to support the amendment. Given that thus far with the amendments that have been moved there has not been that much sense of give in the Government’s responses, I would like to know what the thinking was on this provision. I find this whole area of the Bill quite extraordinary and quite out of line with anything else that I have experienced in policing or local government. Given that it is seen by many of us as an extraordinary suggestion, would someone explain where the idea has come from? It is so unprecedented, in my experience. If the response follows the same pattern as on previous amendments and the Minister stands up and tells us why the arguments that we are putting forward are not going to work and why what is being proposed is absolutely perfect and that therefore we should not be challenging it, in this particular case I would like to probe why this provision is in the Bill. It seems bizarre to a lot of people.

[Baroness Harris of Richmond]

I support the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and my noble friend Lord Shipley. My first question is whether we need a deputy for the PCC. My contention is that it is absolutely essential and that that person must be chosen from within the police and crime panel, who will in the main have been elected by the local community. How utterly bizarre it would be for an elected PCC to appoint his or her deputy. That could be absolutely anyone from the PCC’s own staff, as the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, has outlined. What a recipe for corruption that might be. How will that person be chosen and what criteria will the PCC use to put so much political power into the hands of an unelected person? We absolutely must ensure that whatever befalls a PCC during its term of office, it must appoint a deputy from a properly elected body—the police and crime panel or, as I would prefer, the police and crime commission.

[Lord Condon]

I support the amendment as well. I fear that the thinking behind this provision was like something that I explored at Second Reading. It is almost as if the police and crime commissioner will be contaminated, or his office will be contaminated, if he is in any sort of collaborative arrangement or anyone else is drawn into the ambit of the police and crime commissioner in any way. I, too, think it would be totally inappropriate for the police and crime commissioner to nominate his deputy. Therefore, I support the notion of a deputy, if there needs to be one, being drawn from a police and crime panel, or some other body with more legitimacy than just the touching of the shoulder—figuratively speaking—by the crime commissioner of someone who happens to be working within his office.