Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Baroness Henig Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howard of Lympne]

My Lords, I speak in support of the Bill. In the interests of brevity, I shall confine my remarks to Part 1. It is hardly surprising that I should be in support of Part 1 since I can claim a modest share in the paternity of that proposal. The proposal for elected police commissioners was in the 2005 general election manifesto of the Conservative Party, which I had the honour to lead at the time. I appreciate that that claim, judging by the speeches that we have heard so far, is not likely to endear me to all of your Lordships, but nevertheless that is the case.

At least that claim enables me to rebut conclusively one of the observations made by the noble Lord, Lord Blair: this proposal does not originate in any attempt to emulate some model transported across the Atlantic from the United States of America. Rather, it is designed to remedy a weakness in the present arrangements in this country. That weakness can be summarised in one question: what is the name of the chairman of your police authority? That is the question to which, if you ask the ordinary man and woman in the street, not one in a thousand would be able to give you the right answer; indeed, most of the people you asked would not have the faintest idea what you were talking about. Your Lordships will have noticed that I posed the question in terms of the chairman of the authority. If you ask the man or woman in the street the names of the members of the authority, you would have an even more minuscule response.

[Baroness Henig]

Would the noble Lord be able to guess how many members of the public out of a hundred would know the name of the present Police Minister? Is that then an argument for the Police Minister to be directly elected?

[Lord Howard of Lympne]

Not at all. The whole point, as I am about to explain, is that the reason why this single question contains the nub of the case for change is that police authorities should be the means by which citizens hold their local police force to account. That is the point of police authorities, and the anonymity of those authorities is an insuperable obstacle to the achievement of that objective. The point of Part 1 of the Bill is to sweep away that obstacle to provide the basis for true accountability.

The election of the police and crime commissioner will attract a great deal of attention. I would not go so far as to say that everyone in the local community will know the name of the commissioner when he or she has been elected; after all, not everyone knows the name of their Member of Parliament, nor does everyone know the name of the Prime Minister. However, a large number of people would know the name of the commissioner, many more than know the name of the chairman of the police authority. That would provide the transparency that is necessary—this proposal is about transparency—if the holding to account of the police is to become more meaningful, more effective and much better understood by those on whose behalf that accountability is being exercised.

This, however, is a big change, and I recognise that inevitably it gives rise to some concerns. There is a concern that the change will have an impact on the operation and independence of the police, and I accept that it is essential that that operational independence is preserved. As has been pointed out, though, the language in the Bill, which provides that the chief constable has direction and control over his force and officers, is identical to the language in existing legislation. The Government intend to publish a protocol, which I understand they hope to have available by the commencement of the Committee stage in this House. As the right reverend Prelate said, the devil is in the detail, and it is right that that protocol should be exposed to great scrutiny by this House in Committee, as I am sure that it will be. However, I do not accept the view of the noble Lord, Lord Blair, that chief constables, with the command that they have too of access to the media, the ability that they have too to put their case, will be so pusillanimous as to give way to any police and crime commissioner who oversteps the mark.

There are other concerns, including that someone dangerous or wholly unsuitable might be elected. I think it was Benjamin Disraeli, among no doubt many others, who said, “Trust the people”. That is not a bad watchword. With great respect, we in this House should be particularly cautious about casting doubt on that watchword. As my successor as Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, put it—admittedly in a different context—in an excellent article in yesterday’s Times:

“There is a patrician tendency among the British political elite that asserts that some issues are too serious to be informed by the vulgar instincts of the common people”.

It is a tendency that we in this House should particularly guard against. His words were, as I say, in a different context; he was criticising some of the policies of the current Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary—criticisms that I wholly share. I assure your Lordships that I am not invariably a supporter of all the policies of the Government. However, his words are equally apposite when applied to those who distrust the electoral process that the Bill would put in place.

The provisions of the Bill are consistent with the localism that is such an important part of the coalition Government’s approach. They create transparency, which is also at the heart of that approach, and so essential if true accountability is to be asserted. There are many points of important detail that will certainly merit careful attention and scrutiny on the part of this House. I wholeheartedly support Part 1 of the Bill and I commend it to your Lordships’ House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Henig]

My Lords, I declare my interests as president of the Association of Police Authorities and chair of the Security Industry Authority. I promise to try to keep noble Lords awake for the next 10 minutes. That is surely a lesser challenge than keeping the attention of students on a Friday afternoon, which I used to have to do regularly. I have been involved in the governance of policing at both force and national level for more than 20 years. My whole approach to the Bill, particularly its first part, is shaped by that experience and by my absolute conviction that good governance is fundamental to success and that in the public sector it is in the policy area of policing that good governance is most essential.

British policing is justly admired throughout the world, not least in the United States, because of the principles on which it is based. Those principles are fundamental to the success of policing in this country and any proposed change in our policing structures should be judged on the extent to which it upholds or betrays those principles. We have heard reference to those principles throughout the debate. I shall allude to them only briefly, but they are important. Police forces, in particular the chief constable and his senior command team, must be held to account to local communities through a body that represents, and which is seen to represent, local people. This body should not operate in a party-political way but should hold the force to account, working with the chief constable to draw up overarching policing strategies within which the force will operate, while day-to-day operations must be exclusively the preserve of the police, who are accountable to law.

The police authority needs to gain its mandate by consulting local people effectively about policing issues, seeking their views on matters such as the level of the policing precept, divisional and force policing plans and their experience of day-to-day policing. This means that any police body has to operate not just at force level but at divisional and ward levels, working in partnership with district bodies such as crime and disorder reduction partnerships and local councillors who may want to raise policing issues. We have to realise that policing in this country is delivered at four levels: national, force, divisional and neighbourhood. Any effective lay policing body has to strive to hold the force to account effectively at all four levels.

I have spelt all this out because it is only when we articulate those fundamental principles underlying policing in this country that we can see how flawed many of the proposals in this Bill are. For me, the most worrying aspect of the proposed changes is that no evidence has been put forward to suggest that the reform will enhance the effective delivery of policing or contribute to the reduction of crime. Surely, if we are making such major changes, we need some evidence. We certainly have not heard from those who have spoken on behalf of these measures today how effective delivery of policing will be enhanced or how a reduction of crime will come about. Without that evidence, how should we possibly be asked to support such far-reaching changes?

The proposals are not supported by the public, who we know in a number of recent surveys have overwhelmingly rejected the idea that one individual elected on a party-political basis should exercise lay control over a police force. They will not apply in Northern Ireland or Scotland, while the Welsh Assembly has voted to reject them. That has led to a serious impasse between the devolved Welsh Government and the Government, which we will have to look at seriously in Committee. It is therefore the forces in England and in local communities outside London who will face the most massive change in systems being imposed on them—a change that, despite all the talk about localism by the coalition, they will have no opportunity to influence.

It is interesting that, although there was consultation last year, we have not yet heard how many of the 900 or so responses apparently received by the Home Office were in favour and how many opposed. I find that rather surprising. We can probably conclude from it that the vast majority were opposed. I have not yet heard any compelling arguments for why these changes are necessary. We heard, not so long ago, about the importance of re-establishing links between the police and the public, but 60 per cent of the public already have confidence in the police. That is third only to doctors and nurses and far higher, I might say, than for politicians or journalists. Neighbourhood policing now gives the public a big and a regular say in setting priorities for their local areas. How much more reconnection are we looking for? The public are getting what they want. In fact, the proposals, as we hear, have not been supported by the public.

There are at least five powerful reasons for opposing the proposals. First and foremost—and everyone has talked about this—we will be injecting party politics into policing in a big and dangerous way that will completely change the dynamics of policing. Anybody who says that it will not does not understand how policing works. It is going to give one individual the power to hire and fire a chief constable. It is no use denying this. What is being proposed will undermine effective delivery by creating huge political tensions between the elected commissioner and the chief constable. It is going to bring party politics to the heart of policing. No protocol that I can imagine at this point in time is going to lessen those tensions.

Secondly, there is a complete mismatch between what the public are asking for and what they are being given. What individuals want is information about policing in their neighbourhood and their district—and increasingly they are getting it. What they are being given in this Bill is an individual elected to cover a force area—that will comprise 18 parliamentary constituencies in Devon and Cornwall, three whole counties in Thames Valley, or the whole of the West Midlands. Obviously the definition of “local” used by the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, is very different from mine.

This one individual, as the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, told us, will decide on the policing precept, which accounts for about 11 per cent of the local authority budget. This individual also has to liaise with and scrutinise the force, all its divisions, all its crime and disorder reduction partnerships, all the local councils and all their scrutiny panels. That is an impossible job for one individual. Partnership is the essence of delivering effective local policing. The election of one single commissioner will weaken and not enhance those essential local partnerships, which have brought crime levels down so dramatically in recent years.

Thirdly, this Bill takes policing away from local government, as the noble Lords, Lords Shipley and Lord Beecham, identified. At present, all police authorities have at least nine elected councillors, who assess police performance at force and divisional level, work with local bodies, question the chief constable in public on any policing issue monthly or bi-monthly, look at force HR and equality issues and consult the public on a range of policing issues. All this is going to disappear. The proposed police and crime panel is a pathetic invention with puny powers. It is confined to scrutinising the commissioner and his policing plans and proposed budgets. It has no political balance and no ethnic or gender balance. It is a huge step backwards from the present situation. Indeed, I believe that this part of the Bill is an insult to local government.

How can it be right that policing is being removed from local government in this way? Is this the beginning of the end for local government? Will we see commissioners for local health, for education, for local transport? What will the relationship be between directly elected mayors and commissioners? Surely the mayors will want some say in policing matters. Among the many amendments that I shall be tabling at Committee stage—this will come as no surprise to your Lordships—will be some to change the role and powers of police and crime panels. They should be working with the commissioner and be operating at divisional and local level, not just scrutinising his or her actions. That at least would make some sort of sense, rather than, as is proposed at present, the commissioner scrutinising the chief constable and the PCP scrutinising the commissioner. Nobody who understands what really makes policing work effectively could ever have proposed this structure.

Fourthly, the election of commissioners is going to be expensive, as we have heard. Should that really be forced on the public at a time when we know that they are facing draconian cuts in their local front-line forces? I confidently predict that, if the public were given a choice between more front-line police and these elections, well over 90 per cent would want the front-line forces.

Fifthly, what if the person elected is no good at the job? At present, chairs of police authorities are elected annually, but we will be stuck with commissioners for four years. They are not to be appraised by Her Majesty’s police inspectorate, unlike police authorities, which is rather surprising, given the Minister’s emphasis on the appraisal of police authorities. No, the will of the people apparently trumps the ability to do the job effectively as, it is argued, those with no aptitude for the position will be voted out of office. That has to be an extremely naive view and it is not borne out by my experience of politics at either local or national level. Also, if a commissioner falls ill, a non-elected member of his office can stand in for him. That cannot be right. It is something else that needs to be looked at in Committee. I have long argued in favour of fewer, larger, more resilient forces. Alas, the measures in the Bill will prevent, not facilitate, that development, which is increasingly necessary in the modern world.

I cannot deal with any other part of the Bill. It is the first part which will change our system and its structure of governance irreversibly and which has the capacity to do so much damage to the delivery of a service that has operated pretty well for nearly 200 years. My fundamental concern is that we are being asked to take a gigantic leap in the dark towards the politicisation of policing in a situation where the existing system is not broken and few people are calling for change. For me, the supreme irony is that the system that we have was established by a Conservative Home Secretary, Robert Peel, and overhauled in the early 1990s very effectively by another two Conservative Home Secretaries. Why on earth does the Conservative Party now want to destroy one of its most enduring achievements? I hope that the Minister will be able to explain the reason to me and to allay my profound concerns when she concludes the debate.