Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Baroness Henig Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bradshaw]

My Lords, those of my colleagues who read the Daily Telegraph will have noticed from yesterday’s edition that the stated main purpose of the coalition is to save us from economic disaster. The paper berated some of my noble colleagues for being left-wing trouble-makers. I have never regarded myself either as a trouble-maker or as particularly left-wing, but I believe the Bill to be essentially a flawed piece of legislation.

I will speak very briefly to the amendments in my name, and I do so as a gardener. One of the things that you learn as a gardener, when you move about the country as I have done, is that you leave the place virtually alone until you know about what is growing there; you do not just go in and hack everything down. I am afraid that Ministers have a tendency to the hacking approach rather than the gardening approach. I must say to the noble Baroness the Minister that, so far, we have had no message in this House that would cause us to believe that Ministers in another place will actually listen to and discuss the concerns that we are raising. We have had many meetings, but those have not been productive meetings as we have been told, “This is what is going to happen”. Indeed, I believe that instructions have been issued to police authorities that they are to prepare for Armageddon.

Why would my amendments provide for three-year trials? I believe that it is essential that you go through two complete budget rounds before you know whether the arrangements work and what they will cost—I am very concerned about how much they will cost. I also believe that the experience in London, which the Policing Minister cited as the pilot study, is anything but a pilot study. I would ask the same Policing Minister whether, if he thoroughly approves of the way in which things are done now, he would still do so if Mr Livingstone is successful in 18 months’ time. One of the rules in politics is that the pendulum does swing, and sometimes it swings pretty violently with great reaction against the party that it is leaving. Many organisations are then left to pick up the bits and to start reconstructing again.

Turning back to the economy, I cannot see one iota of evidence that says that the proposed move is necessary or that it will save money. I believe that the Government have masses of things to do and, with due respect, I believe that this could be kicked into touch and nobody would notice.

[Baroness Henig]

I rise briefly to support the amendment, and I do so for a number of reasons.

First, there is a tremendous lack of detail in the legislation, as has been mentioned before. Some very general ideas are put forward, but there is not much supporting detail about how it will all work in practice, as we have already commented. I am particularly concerned about how a PCC would interact with local government—not just with the councils but with all the bodies that local councils work through, including such local strategic partnerships as still exist and the crime and disorder partnerships that have been mentioned. I am also concerned about the relationship between the PCC and the panel, however the panel ends up and whatever powers it might have. There is clearly a relationship there that needs to be tested, and at the moment we have a very dim idea of how that would actually work.

There is another set of reasons why I would like to see some pilots, relating to the electoral system. We have not talked about this yet, although I am sure that we will in due course. The Government have come forward for these PCC elections with an electoral system which I would like to see work, particularly in places such as Thames Valley and West Mercia. We have not actually had elections like these before in our history—one-topic elections over considerably large areas of the country, such as Thames Valley, where we have three local authorities, not one. I would be interested to see what the turnout would be in such elections and how the election campaign would be conducted. It seems reasonable to suggest that that would be worth studying. I would certainly want to see different models. I would like to see something happening in the West Midlands or Thames Valley because of the huge size of those places, but then you have very compact areas such as Cheshire and Warwickshire, which have rather different dynamics. It would be interesting perhaps to tweak the modelling to emphasise slightly different things in slightly different places.

Politicisation is something that we have talked about. It is a huge problem for all of us and we are all very worried about that. Clearly, some sort of trialling might give us a handle on how elections could be conducted perhaps without party-political slanging. I would, for example, like to know whether we are right in thinking that no independents could conduct these elections. That was raised two sittings ago, and the point was raised that we are assuming that these elections will be contested by party-political candidates; yes, I am assuming that, because of the expense of the exercise. Maybe I am wrong—maybe independents could contest them. Again, one might get a better idea if one had some sort of pilot running.

My very last point is that, while it is no secret that I have grave concerns about the proposals in this legislation, I am always prepared to admit that I might be wrong. Actually, what the Government are proposing might be fantastic for policing and I might have it wrong; my concerns might be misplaced. I am always ready to put my hand up and say that that is the case. Equally, however, I would expect the Government to be as flexible and say that perhaps they have got it wrong. It is possible. If we were in the private sector, it would not be seen as a terrible admission of anything to trial something before you went full tilt; you would say that it was very sensible. I do not see why in the public sector one should not adopt the same kind of cautious approach.

For a whole number of reasons, I strongly support the amendment.

[Baroness Browning]

My Lords, before I respond to the debate that we have just had regarding the issue of pilots, it might help the House if I clarified the position regarding policing in Wales, which was spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan. Within this group of amendments, and a number of subsequent groups which we hope to debate later today, there are specific amendments that address matters of devolution and I dare say seek to probe the Government's negotiations with the Welsh Assembly Government. I am aware that there was not enough time at Report and Third Reading in the other place to debate the specific provisions within this Bill that had to be amended as a result of the failed legislative consent Motion. I therefore feel it is appropriate to set out publicly and on the record the narrative behind these provisions and, I hope, avoid any misunderstanding of the Government’s position.

I am grateful to noble Lords who have tabled amendments that will provide me with this opportunity. The Government have worked hard to try to secure a negotiated solution specific for Wales in the spirit of the devolution settlement. I must emphasise at the outset that policing is a reserved matter under the devolution settlement. However, there are related matters that are devolved.

At the start of the planning for this reform in government, Ministers in the Home Office sought, and entered into, early engagement with the Welsh Assembly Government at both ministerial and official level. Their intention was to discuss how the Bill would apply in Wales and how it could respect those devolved institutions. On a number of occasions throughout the Bill’s development, the Home Secretary and the Policing Minister met the Welsh Assembly Government's Minister for Social Justice and Local Government, Carl Sargeant, who was reappointed earlier this month to the same ministerial portfolio. Indeed, the Policing Minister also made visits to Cardiff to speak to the Welsh Assembly Minister and his officials to address directly the concerns of the Welsh Assembly Government and the Members in the National Assembly for Wales.

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[Baroness Browning]

I have to say to the noble Lord that these negotiations and discussions are still ongoing. However, I hear what he has said and will certainly feed back what he has suggested today.

We have also amended the Bill to ensure that the provisions on community safety partnerships do not touch on matters in respect of which Welsh Assembly Government Ministers have functions. I hope that this account explains how we have reached the provisions set out in the Bill at present. Policing remains reserved. It is this Government’s intention to secure the same reform for the people of Wales as for those in England, following the decision taken in the first session of this Committee. The Bill now removes the current arrangements for policing governance, but I can assure your Lordships’ House that there are ongoing discussions to make sure that we get this absolutely right. I am grateful for the patience of your Lordships’ House. There are amendments that relate specifically to Wales not only in the current group but in subsequent groups.

I turn now to pilots. The amendments tabled by my noble friends would require the Government to pilot police commissions—or police and crime commissioners, as remains the Government’s intent—in certain police areas before establishing them across England and Wales. In the spirit of constructive debate, I will deal with this group as though the amendments affected the original policy and clauses that would have established police and crime commissioners in England and Wales. Your Lordships will know that we are in difficult territory here. We are dealing with two very different bodies in the context of piloting.

I shall not repeat what I have said in debates on previous amendments but I spelt out some of the research that has been done, which clearly demonstrates the public’s appetite for more engagement with policing in their local areas. The success of the crime mapping website launched this year is evidence of this, with 410 million hits since January. Cabinet Office research showed that more than two-thirds of the public wanted an elected person to hold the police to account. I heard what my noble friend Lady Hamwee said about not praying in aid the experience of the Mayor of London. However, I cannot ignore what has happened in London. They mayor is there and the policing structure in London is there, and has been there for a while. While it was not exactly floated as a specific pilot, none the less we cannot ignore the fact that since the Mayor of London took on responsibility for policing, MPA correspondence has more than quadrupled. For these reasons there is no need to conduct pilots to establish these matters. Pilots also present practical problems.

[Baroness Henig]

In the research that the Minister cited, and certainly in the research that I have seen, when members of the public were told that police and crime commissioners would have a party political label, I understand that only 7 per cent of them wanted individuals with a party political label to be in charge of policing. That is not quite the same as what we are being told by the noble Baroness.

[Lord Bradshaw]

Will the Minister reflect on the fact that London is a unique area, with unique and very large media coverage? I ask her to think about places such as Devon and Cornwall and the distance from Barnstaple to Penzance and the distances to be covered in several other areas. People in different areas do not listen to the same radio programmes or read the same papers. It is only by having representatives of the divisions within an area that you will get any form of representative democracy.

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[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I will link what I say to Amendments 231, 231A, 231B, 234ZA and 234ZB in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, my noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester, and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. They effectively seek to ensure that the British Transport Police has the same powers and authority as geographical police forces. For reasons that I hope will become apparent, we support these amendments, which seem to make good operational sense.

Additionally, in this group are a number of amendments in the names of my noble friends Lady Henig and Lord Beecham, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, that require police forces in the scope of the Bill, when enacted, to have particular regard to co-operation and collaborative working arrangements. Again, we support those amendments. Amendments 83ZA and 83B in the names of members of our Front Bench cover much of the same ground, but additionally require these working arrangements to be independent and impartial, and included in the memorandum of understanding.

A memorandum of understanding has an important role to play in policing, irrespective of the Bill. In last week’s Committee debate, the Minister encouraged us to regard as a first draft the memorandum of understanding circulated earlier this month by the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice. She invited comments and we should very much like to take up her offer of a meeting at an appropriate point to discuss the text in more detail. Although the MoU was referred to in our Committee discussions last week, it was not given much detailed consideration. I should therefore like to spend a little time on it, in the spirit of constructive debate, before arguing that the MoU, once agreed, should apply also to all UK police forces and, in particular, to the British Transport Police.

What do we want from a memorandum of understanding? The model that comes to my mind is in part the military covenant and in part the BBC royal charter. Like the military, the police put themselves at the service of their country and have to endure risks on a daily basis, sometimes paying the price of such service with their lives. Like the military, this ought to be recognised in a compact with the state. As with the BBC, the police clearly need to be independent and be seen to be independent. Therefore, there needs to be a document setting out the high-level principles that we think should apply to policing, defines the aims and objectives of policing, guarantees the independence of the police operating within those parameters, indicates how the success of police operations will be measured, and defines how accountability will be discharged—accountability that should surely be to Parliament.

It should, in short, be adjudged to be part of our constitutional writings, as is acknowledged in the draft. Much of it already exists in other documents and in legislation. The task, therefore, is one of bringing the material together in a readable and appropriate form. It is a pity that that has not been the approach taken to date. The draft which has been circulated does not achieve those aims. It ought to be an authoritative disquisition about the operational independence of the police, a clear statement about what we, the people, want our police to do and defining how they may do it, putting flesh on the bones of that admirable construct, policing by consent.

In fact, what we have been given is somewhat polemical in approach, containing as it does a rehash of the arguments for the Bill and, in particular, a case for the role of the police and crime commissioners. It states:

“The election of Police and Crime Commissioners is at the heart of the Government’s plan to cut crime”.

Perversely, it starts off in a negative mode and is full of warnings about what it does not contain. It states:

“This Protocol does not supersede or vary the legal duties and requirements of the Office of Constable”,

instead of positively defining what those duties are.

These documents are not easy to get right, and I sympathise with Ministers struggling with them. I hasten to add that there are some very good sections in the MoU but, to my mind, they come much too late in the document and lose their impact because of what you have to read through to get to them. The section on the chief constable and what, to us, seems to be at the heart of the memorandum, the section on operational control, need to be considerably expanded and should come up front so that, for example, the sections on relationships with local interests and with the Home Office have a context.

I make two other points. The document would be much improved if more attention was paid to the inevitably complex lines of accountability and control in policing. For example, the assertion that the chief constable holds office under the Crown but is appointed by the PCC needs to be unpicked and given much more detailed consideration. There also needs to be much more in the memorandum about the assertion:

“The PCC and Chief Constable must work together to safeguard the principle of operational independence”,

but the sentence continues,

“while ensuring that the PCC is not fettered in fulfilling the role set out above”.

Those two aspirations pull in opposite directions and seem irreconcilable.

Amendment 30 is intended to ensure that the citizens of the United Kingdom and our visitors can be assured that the standards of policing in this country are broadly comparable wherever they are and whatever they are doing, not only across the geographical police forces, which are in scope to the Home Office, but the non-geographical forces, listed in our amendment, which are in scope to other departments such as the Department for Transport and other departments of state.

Surely we should be striving for a commonality of approach while respecting local and operational differences. My concern is that a memorandum for one set of police forces will exacerbate the present differences between the geographic and non-geographic forces. Where the Bill has to introduce new structures, they should support a seamless policing environment from the citizens’ point of view.

I declare a past interest in that I was for several years an external mentor for the excellent senior management development scheme in the British Transport Police. I confess that I knew next to nothing about policing or even the existence of BTP, but I soon came to recognise that BTP was, and remains, a very special police force. I have a high regard for its ethos, its approach to policing, the quality of its senior management and its overall operation as Britain's only national police force.

BTP's history can be traced back to 1826 and the origins of the police service in Britain. The railways and high-speed rail in particular are a unique policing environment with a unique set of needs. BTP's 2,835 police officers and 1,455 support staff exist to provide a specialist policing service to meet those needs. The officers and men of BTP police the tracks and provide a service to rail operators, their staff and passengers across the whole of the country, including the London Underground system, Docklands Light Railway, the Midland Metro tram system, Croydon Tramlink and Glasgow Subway. BTP safeguards about 6 million people every day. Railway passengers do not recognise the boundary between the railway and the community more generally. Crime and the fear of crime know no boundaries. Criminal behaviour is promiscuous and it crosses areas and networks. It is surely vital that our policing services do likewise with the minimum interruption from the structural concerns. At present, the systems and structures, pay and conditions, training, the use of HM inspectorate, the uniforms and the rest ensure that the BTP is seen by the public as an integral part of our policing system. Senior officers of the BTP, for example, regularly serve as gold commander at public events such as sporting occasions and state visits.

Our amendment seeks to ensure that, when the memorandum of understanding is introduced, the Bill takes account of any danger that it might separate the non-geographic from the geographic forces. We think that the way to do that is to require that the memorandum of understanding, once it is finalised and approved in accordance with Section 155(2), is applied to non-geographic police bodies in the United Kingdom. Only in this way, I believe, can we guarantee that visitors coming to London through our ports, via the Channel Tunnel or by using our motorways, can be sure of parity of service provision, or that people attending the Olympics or the Commonwealth Games can be confident that the police service will match the highest standards found in the community and that our commuters and their families will be sure that they are as safe out and about as they are at home and that the standards applied are equivalent. I beg to move.

[Baroness Henig]

Amendment 77 is in my name, so perhaps I may say a few words about it. Before I do so, I did not declare my interest on the previous occasion and perhaps I may seek clarification. Do I need to declare my interest at the start of every Committee day, or does the fact that I did so on the first day mean that I do not need to do so again?

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, I am reliably informed that once is enough.

[Baroness Henig]

I am grateful for that. Amendment 77 relates back to an issue that this House discussed on our previous Committee day—that is, exploring the role of the police and crime commissioner in relation to the crime aspect of their portfolio, in addition to the aspect relating to policing.

In that debate I mentioned my concern that this aspect of the police and crime commissioner’s role is underdeveloped in how it is described in the Bill, which seems largely to focus on the ability to make grants to organisations engaged in crime reduction. The amendment seeks to link the role of the police and crime commissioner to this wider role in preparing policing and crime plans. It is clear that it is the Government’s intention to enable crime-related issues and priorities to be included in the functions of the police and crime commissioner and therefore, by extension, in these plans. The issue here is whether it would be possible, without explicit powers, to do what the Government want. Therefore, I am trying to make explicit what the Government hope the police and crime commissioner will do and to give a permissive power to the police and crime commissioner to work with partner organisations, and not just the police, and include them in crime reduction plans.

I have indicated before that I consider the Government’s proposals regarding police and crime commissioners to be very ambitious. I quote what the policing Minister stated in a speech at the IPPR on 28 March 2011:

“The role of commissioners will be greater than that of the police authorities they replace. That is the significance of the words ‘and crime’ in their title. They will have a broad remit to ensure community safety, with their own budgets to prevent crime and tackle drugs. They will work with local authorities, community safety partnerships and local criminal justice boards, helping to bring a strategic coherence to the actions of these organisations at force level”.

I hear that, and it is what I should like to happen but there are no explicit linkages in the Bill to ensure that it does happen. It is an aspiration but I want to make sure that it happens in delivery terms, and I am therefore trying to put something explicit in the Bill. We all know about good intentions but that does not necessarily mean that delivery happens on the ground, and I am most concerned about how this works out on the ground.

Therefore, perhaps in her response the Minister can address whether she believes that the plans, as currently set out in the Bill, will be able to pick up priorities related to this wider crime role and not just policing priorities or whether she thinks that what I am trying to suggest here in my amendment is helpful. Again it comes down to collaboration with a whole range of bodies that exist at local level at the moment, and on giving the police and crime commissioner an explicit remit to go out and do all these things. They have been mentioned but I would like to know that they will happen.

I was disappointed that the Minister did not address my query at our previous sitting about how the Government see the wider crime role of the police and crime commissioner fitting in with the new payment-by-results approach, which the Ministry of Justice is developing in relation to criminal justice bodies. That was not addressed but it is an issue, and it would be helpful if she could address it in her response. I remain concerned about timing. The Bill risks putting in place premature arrangements while the landscape in relation to criminal justice is still being developed. It is not yet clear so I hope that she can reassure me on that point.

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[Baroness Browning]

I hear what noble Lords are saying. I am not persuaded of the argument because I believe that there are sufficient checks and balances as far as the police and crime commissioners are concerned to ensure that they carry out their duties, not only in a robust way but in the way that we would all expect them to carry them out in their relationship with all bodies, whether at a local or national level. I remain unconvinced, I am afraid, by the noble Lord's arguments in that area.

[Baroness Henig]

I also trust the public, but in the only cases that I can see that might be compatible—elected mayors—there have been one or two examples of extremely problematic situations in the past few years. If they were repeated in the policing sphere it would have the most serious consequences.

[Baroness Browning]

I understand why the noble Baroness says that, which is why, of course, the checks and balances need to be in place. We are all frail as human beings, even the highest. That is why the Bill needs to ensure—and I believe it does—that there are checks and balances for police and crime commissioners. That is one of the things we might discuss in our negotiations across the Committee before this Bill leaves it. However, I do not want noble Lords to think that I am persuaded that the principle of a democratically elected police and crime commissioner is something that we are going to depart from. It is the core of the Bill.

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[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 212, which I hope has the status of a drafting amendment since its aim is simply to make sure that any enactment in relation to an acting commissioner includes this Act. It would have the additional benefit of bringing the wording in line with that of Amendment 31B, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, which I find extremely helpful because it imposes a very important check and balance on the police commissioner. It would mean, put simply, that the deputy cannot be a member of the police commissioner’s own staff, appointed to their substantive job by that police commissioner. Rather, it must be a member of the panel who can be appointed as a deputy by the police and crime commissioner. That seems a much better approach to providing a deputy role and cover for incapacity. It is much clearer to the general public; it would occur at an early stage and it would mean that an elected not an unelected person would have the mandate of being a deputy.

[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.

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Moved By

[Baroness Henig]

31E: Schedule 1, page 106, line 9, leave out “Secretary of State” and insert “police and crime panel”

[Baroness Henig]

I shall speak also to Amendment 32B to 32F in this group. I will try to be brief as I hope that these amendments are relatively straightforward. The substantive amendment is Amendment 31E; the others are largely consequential upon it. These amendments are designed to align the provisions in Schedule 1 about the payment of salaries to police and crime commissioners, along with allowances and pensions, to the new structure now incorporated in the Bill of a police commission with two component parts—the commissioner and the panel. My main amendment suggests that the panel, not the Secretary of State as provided in the Bill, should set the salary of the commissioner. The consequential amendments, however, allow the Secretary of State to make regulations about commissioners’ salaries. The remaining amendments provide that the police commission will pay the commissioner's salary and be responsible for paying the pensions of ex-commissioners.

I am uncomfortable about the Home Secretary being directly involved in setting the pay, allowances and pensions of individual commissioners. That looks to me like micromanagement, not the greater devolution and localism to which this Government say they are committed. These amendments therefore propose that the Secretary of State can still set the general parameters and exert influence over salaries through making regulations but would put her at arm’s length from the immediate decision. This is a more appropriate arrangement, which allows local accountability to be more meaningful and more flexible.

I am aware that the Senior Salaries Review Body is looking at an appropriate level of remuneration for commissioners. That does not prevent its findings being included in the arrangements that I have suggested through this amendment. These findings could be included in a national framework set by the Home Secretary, which would allow local flexibility in determining what salary is appropriate to a particular area or particular circumstances. These amendments would also provide for the police commission as a body corporate, and not the incumbent commissioner, to make pension payments to ex-commissioners.

Similarly, the commission, not the commissioner, would pay the allowances and expenses of the commissioner. This seems a much more satisfactory arrangement than that currently proposed, which is effectively that a commissioner should pay himself or herself. This might be appropriate for a person who is self-employed but it is completely inappropriate for a public servant. It raises the possibility that governance of public finances—in this case police finances—will be perceived as suspect. At best, it may have a whiff of the gravy train about it, at worst the taint of corruption. At present the British policing model is widely regarded as one of the cleanest and least corrupt in the world. It must be of concern that provisions such as this could leave it vulnerable to a different perception. That worries me. It is an important issue. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I have several amendments in this group: Amendments 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 47, 48, 63, 64, 94 and 135. Amendment 32 would restrict the salary of the police and crime commissioner to no more than one-third of that of the chief constable. I expect a bolt from the blue for suggesting such a meagre amount but this is a probing amendment. We know that the SSRB is to advise but I understand that it will advise only. As the noble Baroness has just said, it is proposed that the decision will be that of the Secretary of State. However, the SSRB and we will need to understand several factors that are relevant to the recommendation. There is not only the responsibility carried, as one reads in the Bill, but the workload. What workload do the Government expect of the new commissioners? I am sure it will be different for different police areas. Perhaps the Government can assist the House with some sort of general advice or ballpark figure. It will not necessarily be a good thing for the commissioners to be full-time. Will that not bring them into a position of challenging the role and authority of the chief constable? There are some sensitive and complex issues buried within this. As I say, this is only a probing amendment but it is not a frivolous one.

My next three pairs of amendments are also probing, but they probe only the drafting and are very much third-order matters. Amendments 33 and 34 deal with incidental powers, including entering into agreements. I want merely to understand why it is necessary to word it in this way. Does “legally binding” mean enforceable through legal mechanisms? Is it necessary to cover all the bases by giving these examples of incidental powers? Amendments 47 and 48 to Schedule 2 are rather similar. They relate to the chief constable. The distinction is that the chief constable is an existing post. Do chief constables not already have these powers? Are these provisions necessary because of some new functions in this schedule?

I have two further pairs of amendments: Amendment 35 and 36 to Schedule 1, and Amendments 63 and 64 to Schedule 2. These paragraphs deal with protection from personal liability. I have no problem with that but I am a little puzzled by the terminology. Is not the position that there should be no personal liability for an act or omission unless it is not in good faith? The words that I am looking at are “shown to have”, which must mean something. I can think only that this is about the standard of the burden of proof. I have warned the Bill team that this is what is in my mind. My alternative to “shown to have” is simply “has”. One would have to provide evidence but there must be some distinction. There is something here that I do not understand but I would like to. It might be quite significant.

Amendment 94 would delete Clause 15(3), which provides that commissioners may not enter into agreements with each other about matters that could be the subject of a collaboration agreement. My question is: why not? Why not give the local bodies discretion? Is it not up to the local body to find the most efficient way?

Amendment 135 would transpose paragraphs 19 and 20 from Part 3 to Part 4 of Schedule 6. This is very esoteric stuff, for which I apologise. It is so that we might understand whether paragraphs 19 and 20 are not of general application—the general provisions are contained in Part 4—or relate only to the panels established by the Secretary of State, which are the subject of Part 3.

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[Baroness Browning]

I hope that I can assist the noble Lord by telling him that a police authority may not enter into an agreement with another police authority under Section 1 of the 1970 Act in respect of a matter which could be the subject of a police authority collaboration agreement. If I have understood that correctly, the collaboration agreements take priority.

[Baroness Henig]

I thank the noble Baroness for her response on the financial issues. She was so kind as to say in our previous setting that she was a listening Minister; we all appreciate that. I reiterate that I have no problem with the national framework but what I wanted was some local variation within it. I have no problem with the Senior Salaries Review Board undertaking its work; that is absolutely appropriate. I have no difficulty with the points made by the noble Lord. I want a national framework, but I am asking that within it, there should be the possibility of local variation.

The reason for that is straightforward. The whole purpose, as I understood it, of the introduction of commissioners is to empower the public in local policing. One area that the public will be interested in is the salaries of those individuals. If there was some way in which there could be a local dimension in setting the salaries within a national structure, that would be helpful in enabling local people to feel involved in the whole exercise. I was trying to bring an element of localism into this, while of course not ruling out that there should be a national framework in which it will operate. I listened carefully to the Minister and will happily withdraw my amendment.

[Baroness Browning]

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, but a thought has just occurred to me. There is always the danger with salaries, particularly with someone who is elected, that a Dutch auction ensues of who will do it for least. We want to get value for money in setting the salaries, but we want the salary to be fair. With elected positions, there is a danger in how the candidate might canvass the electorate in trying to bid themselves down. That will give an advantage to people with a lot of personal wealth or a lot of money behind their campaign. I think that the Home Secretary, with SSRB recommendations, is a much more stand-apart arrangement and would mean that we would not go down that route.

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[Baroness Browning]

No, my Lords, because in another place, where I served for nearly 20 years, it was not an uncommon practice—not when one appeared before the electorate but in the selection process—for people to be asked about their financial position with a view to that influencing the selection process. I think it is much healthier to have that professionally assessed and divorced from anything to do with either the selection or the election of the police and crime commissioners.

[Baroness Henig]

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 31E withdrawn.