Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Baroness Henig Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the Chief Whip for inflicting me on the House at the earliest possible moment. I move the amendment with what your Lordships may think is not my customary diffidence, because we have here three excellent amendments to do with the majority required to levy a precept. Mine is probably the least attractive, even to my mind. I am moving for a two-thirds majority to be required to overturn the precept. My noble friends Lady Henig and Lord Hunt have respectively better amendments. Mine is therefore something of a fallback position, which I think the noble Baroness has indicated might be acceptable to the Government—a rare event where I am concerned, which underlines my preference for the other amendments.

Nevertheless, we clearly need a better regime than that contained in the original Bill, which required a 75 per cent vote to overturn the precept. As I understand it from previous debates, there is no provision in the Bill to amend the precept. It is the veto or nothing. Presumably it is then envisaged that there would be discussion between the commissioner and the panel about a revision. All the amendments contain the—to my mind, welcome—addition of a proposal to allow the panel to amend as an alternative to a simple veto. I apprehend that the Minister may not be as willing to accept that, but one lives in hope.

That being the case, I move the fallback amendment, as it were, and leave it to my colleagues to make the even better case for their amendments.

[Baroness Henig]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 102 and 104 in the group. As my noble friend Lord Beecham said, they both deal specifically with the majority required to veto the precept, and taken together suggest that it should be a simple majority of the panel members present. I have made similar suggestions in relation to other powers of veto through separate amendments in other groups.

The usual way to decide things in a democracy is by simple majority. I cannot see what is wrong with that principle. My amendments would apply that principle to the veto that a panel could exercise over the policing precept element of council tax. Before I argue for that, I mention that I remain concerned that there will be confusion between proposals in the Localism Bill about excessive precepts and the provisions in this Bill on the policing precept. The public may well be confused about the difference between the power of veto and the power to call a referendum on a precept. They may well also be confused if there are to be two referenda: one on the police precept and one on the council tax.

I welcome the fact that the Government have now tabled amendments to reduce the required majority from three-quarters to two-thirds, but that is still too high and too confusing for the public. They might well have trouble understanding why a referendum will be decided on a majority, but the power of veto cannot be exercised in the same way. The public operate on straightforward principles, and I think that they would find that quite difficult. Of course, a straight majority would also give the police and crime panel a stronger role in contributing to policing governance and would guard against giving too much power to one person.

We have heard a lot in Committee and on Report about strict checks and balances. In practice, these checks and balances remain extremely elusive. The police and crime panel remains very feeble. One way of strengthening the panel and providing a stronger check on the commissioner would be to go to a simple majority for a veto rather than two-thirds. The current proposals are inconsistent with democratic practice. They are better than the original proposals but we could go further in strengthening the panel and fostering a mature relationship between the commissioner and the panel. That is the purpose of my amendments. I beg to move.

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Moved by

[Baroness Henig]

106: Clause 29, page 20, line 30, leave out from “panel” to end of line 31

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[Baroness Henig]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 116. Amendment 106 would effectively remove Schedule 6 on the composition of panels, which I seek to replace with the alternative high-level proposal set out in Amendment 116.

As I indicated in Committee, the latter amendment goes to the heart of the issue about politicising policing. I am very disappointed that the Government’s amendments have not reflected the concerns about political balance as the strength of feeling in the House was evident in Committee. It is fundamental to getting checks and balances right that the political balance of panels is prioritised and determined according to rigorous principles. Crucially, my amendment would ensure that no single political party can dominate the policing panel and its agenda. I cannot believe that any Member of your Lordships’ House would oppose this objective.

The balanced appointment objective currently set out in Schedule 6 is not strict enough in this respect because it muddles where the geographic balance, political balance or skills balance is more important; it invites appointments to be made on the basis of a fudge so that none of the criteria will be properly satisfied. I remain concerned—although, in setting out high-level alternatives, I have not gone into too much detail to address this—that the issue of giving some areas a double whammy of representation through the inclusion of district councils in county areas does little to improve the balanced appointment objective. The whole thing seems unbalanced to me.

If we do not get this right and do not set rigorous principles of political balance, as I said in Committee, we risk the majority of panels going one of two ways: they become either the cheer-leaders of the commissioner if they are of the same political persuasion, or there could be a state of constant warfare between the commissioner and panel if they are of opposite political beliefs. Either way, however, they would be an ineffective check and balance against the commissioner and ineffective at contributing to the better governance of policing. I cannot stress how important all the experiences of police authorities have shown this to be. We must get this right, otherwise all the other safeguards that have been built into the Bill will fail.

My amendment setting out the key principles of panel composition also suggests that the number of co-opted members should be increased. I note the Minister has tabled more modest proposals along the same lines. Naturally, I welcome those up to a point. I agree that we need an increase in the number of co-opted members, but I regret that the Government’s proposals miss the point somewhat because they suggest that some of these co-opted members might be local authority members. I am concerned about this. We have quite a lot of local authority members on the panels already and this would make the important balance considerations more difficult.

The whole point of having co-opted or independent members in the first place is to bring in people who are politically neutral, who will improve the diversity of the membership and who will cover specialist gaps in skills. Although as an ex-councillor I hate to say this, I know too well that local authorities do not have a good record in improving diversity—and we will not improve the diversity of panels by looking to appoint co-opted members from local government.

Equally, it is hardly a secret that independent police authority members are generally widely regarded as among the most able and effective members of police authorities. I am not saying that there are not some very good council members out there too, but independent members bring specialist knowledge and skills to police authorities that are not generally present among councillors. I find it hard to understand what sort of specialist skills the panels will access from co-opted local authority members, and I would like to probe the Government’s thinking in this regard. There is a danger that, in proposing more co-opted members who could be local authority members, we might actually be making an already difficult situation even worse. This needs more thinking through.

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[Lord Newton of Braintree]

My Lords, I shall interject a question from a slightly more sceptical angle, while understanding where noble Lords opposite are coming from. I can understand how the proposal in Amendment 116 might work in a police authority where there is only one local authority. What I do not understand is how it would work in a police authority such as Essex, where there are, if not quite 17, at least well over a dozen local authorities. I shall give way to the noble Baroness—it may be that the question is for her—but I do not understand how such an arrangement could work without local authorities having their choice taken away from them and being told that they have to choose X or Y.

[Baroness Henig]

Perhaps I can explain to the noble Lord that that is precisely what happens at the moment. In a two-tier area such as he is describing—I am familiar with Lancashire—all the authorities have to get together and, in certain cases, agree to put forward nominations in line with the political balance overall. They do this by a process of negotiation. In Lancashire, there are two unitaries to throw into the mix. On many occasions Blackpool or Blackburn have been told to send a Labour member or a Conservative member in order to reflect that balance. I accept that that is one issue; to get an overall balance, every now and again an individual local authority has to contribute to that balance.

[Lord Newton of Braintree]

All I will say, if I am allowed to treat that as an intervention, is that I found it pretty messy and I would like to know what is to be done in councils where there is no overall control.

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[Baroness Browning]

That gives the Secretary of State, as I just described, the opportunity to ensure that the panel’s motive is to ensure the overall balance of the panel and to prevent the panel being packed with chums and politically slanted, which noble Lords have been concerned about—we have had a lot of discussion in Committee and on Report about this. Noble Lords have asked whether the members will be of the same political party as the PCC may be seen to have. This gives the Secretary of State the opportunity to look at the motivation of the panel in co-opting people. This is not about the Secretary of State wielding a lot of power in the sense of deciding whether or not the panel co-opts, but about whether the Secretary of State believes that the submissions made have met an objective that the panel has clearly identified.

[Baroness Henig]

I seek genuine clarification from the Minister. She referred to the schedule that states that the balanced appointment objective means that the political make-up of a relevant authority has to be represented on the panel. That means that in some parts of the country—Manchester, let us say—all the political representation is likely to be Labour, whereas in other parts of the country, because of the councils that make up the relevant area all the representation is likely to be from another party. My amendment aims to reflect the voting numbers. There are parts of the country in which Liberal Democrats and Conservatives would not get a look-in on the panel because all the councils are Labour, and other parts of the country where Labour would not get a look-in because the councils are all Conservative. What the noble Baroness is saying about the schedules goes only so far because at the moment police authorities are made up on the basis of the voting figures at the last election. In other words, there is proportional representation in police authorities that is not in this Bill. That is the difference, and that is the issue that I am trying to get at with this point about politicisation. The noble Baroness perhaps did not give me credit for what I am trying to do here.

[Baroness Browning]

I hate to disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, on this because I know that her motives are well-meaning. That paragraph in Schedule 6 has the heading: “Duty to produce balanced panel”—the Bill very clearly already includes the duty to produce a balanced panel. The noble Baroness describes a situation, and it saddens me to say this, in which there may be councils around the country with no elected Conservatives at all, although that can apply to other parties in other parts of the country. However, what I can only describe as the generosity of increasing the number of people that can be co-opted on to the panel means that I would expect a responsible panel to make absolutely sure that it would look to the additional co-optees to redress that political balance. If that is what the panel puts to the Secretary of State, I can see no reason why it cannot do that. If the motivation is to create a politically balanced panel, Conservatives can be co-opted to the panel to get political balance. I see no reason why what I am doing does not address the point that she is making.

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[Baroness Browning]

I have to say that this amendment is a major concession on the part of the Government. It is free to all noble Lords to come back at Third Reading, but I believe that this is a very significant concession, which reflects a lot of the points raised across the House.

[Baroness Henig]

The problem is that I certainly, speaking for myself, do not fully understand the extent of the concession. Without being able to see the evidence that the Minister is talking about and to compare the former list and the present list under the amendment with old police authorities, I cannot see the extent of the concession. Given that we have not yet seen this information which will be put in the Library, is it possible to reserve the right to come back to this at Third Reading, if concerns remain? It is difficult to be specific about something that we have not yet seen.

[Baroness Browning]

My Lords, I cannot say that the Government will come back to this at Third Reading. I am happy to talk off the Floor to noble Lords who have concerns about this, but this is a major concession. In looking at the exact numbers for each police force area, I remind the House that before I tabled this amendment the ceiling for police and crime panels reflected the number of local authorities plus two co-opted members. For most authorities, we will see significant numbers of co-opted members available to the panel to co-opt, if that is its wish, in order to achieve balance. A significant concession has been made in seeking to address many quite legitimate and important issues raised on the Floor of the House in Committee.

Panels will be required to exercise the power to co-opt additional members in such a way as to achieve the objective that the local authority members represent all parts of the police area and the political make-up of the contributing authorities. They will also need to ensure that all the members—local authority and independent—when taken together, have the necessary skills, knowledge and experience. To ensure that panels do this, any proposal to co-opt will require the agreement of the Secretary of State, who will look purely on the motivation in terms of achieving balance for that co-option. These amendments are considered to address the concerns that have been raised. I believe that the government amendments, particularly that to increase the panel to 20, have seriously addressed some important issues raised across the House. I ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.

[Baroness Henig]

My Lords, this is an extremely serious issue. It first raised its head at Second Reading when nearly all the speakers voiced their anxieties about party politics being put into policing and it is a theme that has run right through our discussions since that time. I accept the assurance of the noble Baroness that she is trying to address this, as indeed we are trying to address it. The problem is that many of us, certainly on this side of the House, feel that the noble Baroness’s way of addressing it will not be sufficient.

It is all very well comparing panels in the original Bill with panels now, but the comparison I am interested in is between the panels under the Government’s amendment and the existing police authorities. We have a tried and tested formula under which there is no party political majority on police authorities. All parties are represented. They have worked harmoniously and they have worked effectively. I suggest to the House that one of the reasons why police authorities have not had a high profile is because they have avoided controversy by having party political balance, with people of all parties working together to resolve problems. That is why we have not seen high profile problems and why police authorities have not been noticed more.

This issue of party political balance is important. We have it now. My concern is that we will lose it. It is a concern that the Minister has not addressed. It is not a question of what the original Bill had in as against what it has in now; for me it is an issue of what we have now—which is very precious— and what we will lose under this proposal if we do not get party political balance on our panels. In the past week or two I have been in meetings with police personnel where a group of Members of Parliament were berating a chief constable for not coming out publically to support the Government’s proposals. The aggressive tone of that meeting—I will not go into detail—left me quite shocked. I am concerned that if we do not address this issue of party politics in policing we will have chief constables being put under pressure to do certain things.

This is not an issue about operational or not operational. It is about people saying, “Chief Constable, you are not giving leadership; you are not saying X, Y and Z put forward by the Government”. There will be pressure of that kind and it will be insidious. That is what I am worried about. I have seen it happening already and it will happen more. The Government should be trying to tackle this head on. It they do not, we will undermine the impartiality of our police authorities and put party politics back into policing. That is what I—and many others—worry about. It is why I put so much emphasis on this amendment. It is crucial. It protects something that has been very precious in our policing over the past 20 years. It protects something that is very precious to chief constables. I very much fear that if we put party politics back into policing it is chief constables who will bear the brunt of it. It is for all those reasons that, despite what the noble Baroness has said, I have to test the opinion of the House.