Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Baroness Henig Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Henig]

My Lords, one reason I so enjoyed 16 years of being involved in the governance of policing was that it gave me the opportunity to debate a range of issues with senior police officers and to disagree with them on a number of occasions. Indeed, I disagree with them on this occasion and that holds no terrors for me because that is one of the things I most enjoyed about it. In case noble Lords suspect that I overstep the mark on occasion, I should tell them that the governance arrangements in Lancashire were, according to the inspectorate, the finest in the country. We had an equilibrium of discussion, if I can put it in those terms, and I would want to have the same sort of equilibrium this evening because there are some strong arguments to be put in favour of pilots.

While hearing the arguments that my police friends and others have advanced, there are some counter-arguments. First, the believers who support this reform have been very few in number. On this major area of change, I think I am right that six people on the Benches opposite, at most, have engaged in supporting this change, apart from the Ministers. With honourable exceptions, people have in general not joined in this debate. I except the noble Lord, Lord Howard, who has indeed spoken out in favour of these reforms. He apparently had a great conversion in 2005. I am not sure whether that was before or during the election of 2005 but clearly there was a great epiphany and a conversion took place.

[Lord Howard of Lympne]

May I assist the noble Baroness? It was the product of long examination of the operation of the police authorities, which were set up pursuant to the legislation for which I was responsible, and the acute sense of disappointment I felt at their failure to live up to my expectations.

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[Baroness Henig]

I hear what the noble Lord says and I am sure that that is the case. The noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, has spoken up, as did the noble Baroness, but look at the record. As I say, if six Members on the government Benches—certainly, on the Conservative Benches—have spoken up in favour of the legislation, that is all and it is a very small number for a major change in policy.

It is not surprising to me that that is the case. How could the Benches opposite deny, for example, that party politics will play a much greater role in policing? That is so irrefutable that it cannot possibly be denied. How could they deny that chief constables are going to be subject to much greater pressure on policing issues, both operational and non-operational? No, they cannot refute that. People talk about a protocol but just consider some of the forceful Home Secretaries whom we have had in the past 10, 15 or 20 years. Now consider that some of those Home Secretaries might consider that being a commissioner would be a glorious end to a good parliamentary career. Just imagine some of them now as commissioners. I suggest to Members of this House that they are going to put their views to chief constables in a fairly forceful way.

We talk about “operational” and “non-operational” but, frankly, with that kind of expertise and forcefulness coming from those who could be commissioners in the next few years, chief constables will notice a great difference between the new regime and what they have been used to. They will be subject to greater pressures. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has already said, thus far we have seen few checks and balances on the powers of commissioners. I am not expecting to see many more, let alone strict checks and balances, so the case for pilots is very strong.

There are even greater arguments in favour of pilots. First, there was no pre-legislative scrutiny, which, for a change of this magnitude, there should have been. It would have made a big difference and a lot of the arguments which we have been having in the past few weeks would have been resolved at that stage. With a constitutional change of this magnitude, to have no pre-legislative scrutiny was, I believe, a great omission. That is one argument. We also know that there was a consultation by the Home Office and that there were over 900 responses. We have never been told how many of those responses favoured what was being proposed and how many opposed it. We can draw from not being told that the great majority of people who responded to the Home Office consultation were opposed. I assure the House that had they not been we would have heard that a great majority were in favour. That, again, is worrying.

As we have gone through the Bill in detail, some very tricky issues have emerged. We have not yet reached the issue of corporations sole, although we soon shall. I know my noble friend Lord Harris will entertain the House with a riveting account of corporations sole and all the difficulties that they will raise. We do not know how they will work. We know that they will lead to problems and to staff issues. That is one area of uncertainty. We know that relations between the commissioners and the PCPs are embryonic at this point in time. We do not know how these bodies will work together. We do not know how the PCPs will be best equipped to undertake scrutiny, not just of the commissioners but of the policing that is delivered in their locality. There has been a great reluctance to give panels the sort of powers that would enable them to have a much more constructive role than the one they have at the moment.

We also know that in some areas we will go back 20 years. For example, we know that there will be no lay involvement in the appointment of deputy chief constables and assistant chief constables. I am long enough in the tooth to remember that when chief constables made these appointments themselves there were enormous difficulties. I for one am not happy to go back 20 years in that regard—at least, not without seeing how it would play out.

We are also being asked to agree to this legislation when the national policing landscape is not yet complete. We do not know how things will play out nationally. We do not know what will replace the senior appointments panel, so we do not know how future candidates for chief officer appointments will come forward. We know nothing about that; there is a complete lack of information at the moment. The framework around senior police appointments is not yet in place. We are being asked to take it on trust. We have not seen any of this. For all those reasons, pilots would make a lot of sense. They would enable the final legislation to iron out many of these issues and to work much more effectively.

What really bothers me is the inflexibility around this, which is driving this legislation. There is a sense that the Government are saying, “We must get this through. We can’t have any deviations or amendments. We mustn’t listen to this; it is all a plot to derail this great reform”. I am sorry but that is not true. There are many of us in this House who care about policing and want to make this work. The noble Lord, Lord Howard, might be surprised to hear this. If there are to be changes to policing, I want them to work. I can see some merit in what is being proposed. I do not reject it out of hand but it can be improved. That is why I support pilots. What bothers me is that I am prepared to be flexible but there is no reciprocal flexibility on the Government’s side. It worries me that the people who are driving this through want to do so with very little change. There has been some change; I see the Minister looking at me. There were changes yesterday. I welcome them and hope that there will be more. However, at the moment the message that has reached me is that there must be no deviation—that this must go through and there must be elections next year. There is a sense that this is being rushed through.

These changes are the most sweeping changes to policing that we have seen in modern times. I am not saying that they should not happen. However, it will be a recipe for disaster if we do not get them right. Policing is too important and sensitive an area to risk courting disaster. To have a pilot—perhaps lasting not four years but two or three—and at least to trial some of these things would do our duty to those who come after us. I am worried that we will introduce things that will irreversibly change the face of policing. Since I do not believe that policing is broken, I shall take a lot of convincing that these changes will be marvellous without at least testing them first. That is why I support pilots.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, conjures up a fascinating prospect of former Home Secretaries and Secretaries of State standing for election as police and crime commissioners. Given what the Minister has told us today with regard to the bar on Members of this House standing for such positions, we can look forward to the possibility of the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne, becoming the elected police and crime commissioner for Kent.

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[Baroness Henig]

I support all my noble friend’s arguments. In doing so, I have to say that I struggle with all this. I have tried to understand it; I have studied extremely hard. I would hate, however, to have to be in that police authority environment and explain all this to the police and crime panel, and explain to local people exactly how all this is working out. I would find that extremely difficult. As my noble friend Lord Harris said, this has led to enormous fears among police staff, which is a problem. We should not be increasing insecurity among the people working in the policing environment.

I am almost led to make the point that while the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and I do not always agree on things, we have one thing in common; both of us, every now and again, are less than fulsome in our praise of the Home Office—rightly or wrongly. I have great concerns about this legislation and what has been drafted. That might not be the fault of the Home Office, but somewhere along the line there are problems with this.

Because of that, the Minister will know that I have written to her in conjunction with my noble friend Lord Harris and the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, to try to put our concerns on the record. We are looking for a meeting with the Minister to try to thrash all this out. It is an extremely difficult and complex area, but it is an important area. If we get it wrong there will be a big impact on a lot of people who might suffer as a result. We want to avoid that. In her response, will she let us know the timescale for her reply to our letter and whether there is a possibility of talking about this in more detail? This would be a productive area to explore further.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, before the Minister responds, I want to thank my noble friend Lord Harris, who made a powerful speech, and echo what the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, just said. Although the Government have responded to a number of concerns, which is welcome, so far there has been no real recognition of some of the risks of the governance structure that has been put in place. Whether that is because the government lack confidence in it and are therefore not prepared to engage or whether they really do not understand the legitimate concerns, I do not know, but I am puzzled by the response. I know that if I, as a government Minister, proposed something like this, the Conservative Opposition at the time would have attacked very forcefully this kind of proposal.

The corporation sole model is flawed for the reasons that my noble friend gave and in relation to the issue of staff and the bizarre process, now, of staff transfers between the PCC and PCP—with all the uncertainty that that raises. It renders me almost speechless to understand that this bizarre corporate structure is being proposed at a time when the police service is going through 20 per cent cuts. There is a reduction in the number of police officers and we know that some of the most experienced police officers were retired because that was the easiest thing for chief constables to do. We know that chief constables are being taken off the front line and put into the back office because back-office staff have been made redundant.

I pose my only question rhetorically: when will another police reform Bill have to be put before Parliament? If we cannot have pilots, I suspect that problems will arise within about nine months of elected police commissioners coming into being. The public will have serious concerns in the huge powers being given to individuals. Then the noble Baroness will bring forward a Bill to put right the problems that are being identified as we go through your Lordships’ House. If only the Government would pause for just a little time to reflect on these concerns.