Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Harris of Richmond]

My Lords, I have a couple of brief points to make about Amendment 102, and particularly Amendment 104 to which I have added my name. First, I welcome the fact that the Government have shown that they are willing to listen to some of the concerns expressed in Committee and I am genuinely pleased that they have moved to two-thirds the majority required to exercise a veto. I am inclined to agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, that a simple majority might be even better. It would certainly strengthen the role of the police and crime panel, which I think we all agree is essential. Hopefully, when taken in conjunction with earlier amendments about a more collaborative approach, this would guard against too capricious an attitude by the panel, having helped develop the proposals in the first place. I support this amendment but I am concerned about the issues raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, about the relationship between this Bill and the Localism Bill in relation to the precept and referendum arrangements. I agree that this needs to be clarified. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to provide reassurance on this point.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, we have had a series of debates during the passage of this Bill about the role of the police and crime panel in scrutinising the performance of the police and crime commissioner. The Minister herself has emphasised on a number of occasions the importance of the panel in doing that.

For these panels to do their jobs effectively, they surely have to have a certain amount of leverage. This Bill in effect gives them only two levers; they can veto the appointment of a chief constable, and they can veto the precept that the police and crime commissioner wishes to set. Of course, on other matters it can be consulted and there can be dialogue, but it is very clear from the Bill that the elected party political commissioner can ignore completely any input from the panel unless it exercises the veto. In the past few days we have seen one of the products of a weak regulator, the Press Complaints Commission. That surely shows the problem of having of weak regulators with very few levers. My concern with these new arrangements is that we are establishing police and crime panels inevitably to fail because their influence over elected police commissioners is likely to be limited. The veto in the original Bill was set at a very high level indeed, with a 75 per cent requirement of the members to vote in favour of veto. The Government hinted in the other place that they would be prepared to reduce it and we now see the product of that in the amendment that I am sure the noble Baroness will speak to in a moment.

The question is whether a two-thirds veto is sufficient. Like my noble friends, I do not think it is. To be effective, the police and crime commissioner must surely feel or fear that if he or she were to go too far there would be a risk that the panel would veto his or her proposals. I am speaking here about the precept.

To get a two-thirds majority of the members still places the bar at an impossibly high level. That is why I very strongly support my noble friend and I have tabled an amendment along the same lines calling for a simple majority of those present and voting. The phrase “of those present and voting” is well known to all noble Lords who have taken part in public life. Remarkably, it is not to be found in the Bill. The veto requirement refers to the members of the panel. I very much support my noble friend Lady Henig in wishing to ensure not only that a simple majority is required but that it should be of the members present at such a meeting. I have also laid an amendment to Amendment 103 of the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, so even if the House settles on two-thirds as the majority figure, it ought to be of those members present and voting.

Maybe I have confused the wording of the amendment because I see the noble Baroness perhaps assuming that that is what it says. My reading is that it is two-thirds of the membership.

--- Later in debate ---

If the Government are serious about not putting party politics back into policing with their proposals, the very least they can do is to underline that their intent is to ensure a politically balanced panel. That is what I am trying to do here: to ensure a politically balanced panel and to take the best of the police authority make-up on to those panels because it has proved to be so successful. I beg to move.

[Baroness Harris of Richmond]

My Lords, I am pleased to support Amendments 106 and 116, and I want to add my voice briefly to that of the noble Baroness, Lady Henig. I am concerned that we really do not have the proposals about the composition of panels right at the moment.

In the first place, I feel very uncomfortable about all the powers of mandation for the Secretary of State in this section, and I am rather inclined to agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, that mandation is perhaps the wrong response to the problems that have arisen in relation to panels. It does not sit well with the direction we have all agreed is necessary about strengthening the role of panels to have this juxtaposed with greater central powers to determine how those panels are to be made up.

I am also very concerned about getting the political balance right, and I agree that in being unclear which objective is most important in reaching the balanced appointment objective in relation to panel membership these issues will be fudged, and we will end up with little balance at all. In my time as chair of a police authority and a member of the Association of Police Authorities, we spent many hours working precisely on getting this particular problem sorted out, and indeed we now have a much better system within police authorities than is proposed in this Bill.

I have other questions on this point. How will we know what considerations have been included locally—I stress locally—in reaching the balanced appointment objective? Who is going to check this? What powers exist to do anything about it if it is not balanced? I am very concerned about diversity among panel members. It is important that panels should try to reflect the populations they serve, otherwise the public, and particularly those sections of the public that are usually excluded, will question whether their representatives understand the issues that matter to them. This is especially important in the policing context if we take into account all the experiences, from Brixton onwards, that have taught us that it is vital to give people a voice in how they are policed.

In this regard, the Government’s proposal that there should be more co-opted members is helpful, but I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, that it is unlikely to improve diversity if these additional co-optees are local authority members, as seems to be proposed. We certainly found that in our own police authorities. There is a danger that this will simply be perceived as jobs for the boys—or, for that matter, for the girls—so the government amendment, although welcome, should go further and provide for more independent co-opted members.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, I am slightly puzzled by the Government’s stance on the question of political balance as far as these panels are concerned. When I was first elected to a local council in the 1970s, it was the customary practice that authorities with a majority for one party or another made sure that they packed the committees. That was the norm whether the authority was Conservative controlled or Labour controlled and, for all I know, it was the same in Liberal-controlled authorities. The Conservative Administration under Margaret Thatcher took the view—on this instance, they were right—that it was better that committees of local authorities, and subsidiary and external bodies to which local authorities appointed, should reflect the appropriate political balance, to reflect the wishes of the electorate.

In constructing these panels, the Government seem to be setting that aside. Why, in the Bill, are they repudiating the legacy of the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher? Why are they so opposed to having proper political balance to reflect the different strengths of the political parties in particular areas as far as policing and crime panels are concerned? This is precisely an area in which the Government should want to ensure that there is political balance rather than perhaps leading to one-party domination of the way the panels operate.