Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Baroness Henig Excerpts(14 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Harris of Haringey
My Lords, I realise that we are stretching the rules of Report, but this is important. Presumably when the matter goes to the other place, we can receive back from them only amendments that relate to amendments passed by your Lordships' House. That will produce a very narrow range of areas. Areas on which there is no amendment from your Lordships' House will not be covered. I make this plea for the fourth time that it would be in the Government’s interests to postpone Third Reading on this Bill to 5 September. It would lose them only one parliamentary day, but it would enable the Home Office, the Minister’s officials and colleagues around the House to spend a little bit more time getting the details right. It would also give the Minister the opportunity to come back on some of these detailed points.
Baroness Henig
My Lords, I have suddenly realised that some days ago I moved an amendment, did I not, about statutory protection for chief executives, and withdrew it because the noble Baroness would not give me any assurances on this. Does this not rule out any changes? I am puzzled because I did move this amendment and, as I recall, it was rejected.
Baroness Browning
My Lords, I hear what noble Lords have said about the use of ping-pong and the other place; I am not a business manager and the matter of when Third Reading of any Bill takes place is not in my hands. I have heard what the House has said tonight and I will take it away for further advice.
Baroness Henig
“Functions of police and crime panels: conduct, complaints and audit committees
(1) Every police and crime panel shall—
(a) deal with complaints and conduct matters in relation to the police and crime commissioner and members of the police and crime panel;(b) monitor the discharge of the police and crime commissioner’s functions to deal with complaints in relation to the police force for its area;(c) monitor the accounts and audit matters of the relevant Police Commission, police and crime commissioner, and chief constable, as the case may be.(2) A police and crime panel must establish one or more independent sub-committees to discharge its functions under subsection (1).
(3) For the purpose of subsection (2) an “independent sub-committee” is one which comprises the following members appointed by the police and crime panel—
(a) an independent person to chair the sub-committee who is not a member or a member of staff of a police and crime panel, a local police body, a police force or a local authority;(b) at least three other independent people to be members of the sub-committee who are not members or members of staff of a police and crime panel, a local policing body, a police force or a local authority; (c) up to three members that are police and crime panel members, at least one of whom must be a co-opted member. (4) In appointing members to an independent sub-committee the police and crime panel must ensure—
(a) that people with sufficient relevant skills and experience are appointed to undertake the role effectively;(b) it does not appoint a person who has or appears to have a conflict of interest or a personal or prejudicial interest in becoming a member of the sub-committee.(5) An independent sub-committee may—
(a) make recommendations to the police and crime panel or police and crime commissioner about action to be taken to resolve a complaint or conduct matter;(b) make recommendations to the police and crime panel, police and crime commissioner or chief constable about audit and finance matters.(6) If an independent sub-committee makes a recommendation in accordance with subsection (5), the person or body to whom it is made shall have regard to it.”
Baroness Henig
My Lords, in moving Amendment 117 I shall speak also to Amendments 144, 148, 149, 150, 154, 156, 232 and 232A.
Amendment 117 confers specific functions for complaints, conduct and audit matters on panels and obliges each panel to establish an independent sub-committee to discharge these functions. It also makes provision about the composition of the independent sub-committee so that it is chaired by an independent person and has a majority of other members independent of the police and of local authorities. The people appointed to that committee must have relevant skills to contribute to its functions and must not have a conflict of interest. The independent sub-committee can make recommendations in relation to conduct or audit matters to the police and crime panel, the commissioner or the chief constable, who must have regard to those recommendations.
Amendment 144 enables panels to require information from chief constables or commissioners about complaints, conduct and audit matters to support this function. Amendments 148 to 150 include provisions about breaching codes of conduct within the proposed new clause that deals with suspending commissioners. At present the standard for suspension is a criminal one and does not include conduct matters. Amendment 154 effectively removes Schedule 7 because this is replaced by the other provisions in my amendments. Amendment 156 provides that a code of conduct will be formulated independently, which will apply to commissioners and panel members. Finally, Amendments 232 and 232A disqualify panel members and commissioners if they fail to sign the code of conduct within a month of assuming office.
I would like to say at the start of this group of amendments that, given the strength of feeling expressed about the Bill’s utterly inadequate provisions relating to the conduct of police and crime commissioners and police and crime panels, I am quite alarmed and dismayed that the Government have not put forward far more far-reaching proposals about this at Report. I appreciate that the Minister has put forward some amendments to include the newly created deputy commissioners within the conduct proposals applying to commissioners and also seems to have an amendment specifying that the MOPC or Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime should be covered by the conduct provisions applicable to local government. I may have missed something but I do not think the same provisions have been applied to commissioners or deputy commissioners outside London—perhaps the Minister can clarify. Even if they have been, these are in the process of being changed and I fear they may not prove robust enough for people charged with police governance. Police governance requires even higher standards of personal integrity than would be expected in other areas of local government because of the nature of the role, and my amendments set out how this might be done.
The other issue that my amendments address is the matter of audit. This relates back to a number of concerns addressed at Committee and on the first day of Report about the creation of two corporations sole in each police area both for the commissioner and for the chief officer of police. Doubts were expressed then, and have not been fully addressed by Government, that it was not clear how this structure was consistent with good financial governance; in particular it was not clear how the need to have two separate strands of audit would work for one police fund. The Minister also supplied some assurances on the first day of Report that the Government were serious about applying principles of good governance to the new structures they envisaged for policing. My amendment, like all my amendments, is an attempt to help the Government in this respect. In relation to good governance of financial issues a key requirement is an effective audit committee. My noble friend Lord Harris brought forward some proposals about how this might be done within a non-executive board linked to the office of the commissioner. However, the House rejected this so I am proposing an alternative method of ensuring sound financial and ethical governance.
My amendment proposes that an independent sub-committee should be formed within the police and crime panel which would have responsibility for audit and conduct matters. In relation to financial governance it would have responsibility for audit matters in relation to both the chief officer’s remit and the commissioner’s office. It would be able to link the audit requirement for one police fund to the two bodies that will manage it. I am not aware of any other accepted method of carrying out financial responsibilities in the corporate context except through an audit committee. The virtue of my proposal is that this will become a function which is to all intents and purposes carried out by independent people, thus avoiding the dangers of politicisation.
An independent sub-committee would also have responsibility for complaints and conduct matters. Incidentally, there is nothing in my amendment to prevent a panel from setting up more than one independent sub-committee, but equally audit and conduct functions could be undertaken by the same committee, if that was appropriate to local circumstances. Either way, my key point is that these independent committees should be comprised largely of independent people; it is essential for good governance and public confidence that this should be the case so there are no doubts about bias or vested interests. It would also help to guard against politically motivated complaints and countercomplaints being traded between the commissioner and the panel if the panel is not alone responsible for this but is required to undertake this at arm’s length through more independent arrangements.
In relation to both the commissioner and the panel, the suggestion is that the independent sub-committee should handle any complaints against individuals. If there is reason to believe that a complaint involves a serious matter or criminal behaviour, there is nothing to stop the panel referring this to the IPCC, the police, the CPS, HMIC or another appropriate body. It implies, however, that the first port of call for all complaints matters against commissioners and panel members should normally be the independent sub-committee. It should decide how best to handle the complaint and if it is a relatively routine conduct matter it should be able to deal with it. I believe that this rebalances the proposals in the Bill, which effectively suggests that the IPCC should be the first port of call in relation to commissioner complaints and does not address complaints against members of the panel at all.
Because this amendment reverses the proposals in the Bill about the role of the IPCC, which incidentally is likely to be swamped with complaints when it first takes this role on, I have removed Schedule 7 which proposes the opposite. There could still be a role for the IPCC under my amendment, but it is one that I believe should first be filtered at local level by independent committees which could decide whether to escalate the matter. I also want to mention that, in relation to force conduct matters, my amendment suggests that the independent sub-committee should have a role in monitoring how the commissioner is carrying out his or her functions in this regard to provide public reassurance.
Earlier amendments I put forward also suggested that the independent sub-committee should have a role in dealing with disciplinary matters for senior officers to ensure that a commissioner or chief officer is using disciplinary powers appropriately. In order to carry out functions in relation to complaint and audit matters which have an impact on both the commissioner and the force, it is very necessary for the panel to receive the information to enable them to do this, so there is also provision in my amendments that the panels may require information from both commissioners and chief officers in relation to their responsibilities for audit and conduct matters.
The amendment would also remove the current standard by which conduct matters are judged, which is effectively a criminal standard. In Committee I spoke about my concern that this was a ludicrous criterion to use in the context of police governance. Noble Lords will not be surprised to learn that I have not changed my mind. On the basis of zero tolerance, if I may borrow an Americanism, one would address issues of concern at the lowest level. One should not wait for them to become a major problem before taking action. The conduct criteria need to be rebalanced around the standard of acceptable behaviour. Criminal behaviour should be the extreme end of the scale, not the starting point. For this reason I propose a code of conduct, which I shall shortly explain, but first I want to mention that part of the rebalancing exercise should be the inclusion of a clause on the suspension of commissioners setting out provisions that would enable them to be suspended for breaches of the code of conduct as well as criminal behaviour.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I thank the noble Baroness for that detailed question. PCCs will have a chief finance officer, with the professional qualifications and the professional obligations of a chief finance officer. If a police and crime commissioner does not choose to have his or her own audit committee, the PCP’s audit functions will play a much more active role in scrutinising what the PCC provides, whether by the whole panel or by its own audit committee. The legal obligations for audit are, I am assured, the same as those for police authorities. However, we are very happy to write in detail on that, and a number of these matters will of course come up when the detailed regulations are put for affirmative resolution before the House.
Baroness Henig
My Lords, I have a problem with the response. This is a very big issue about public confidence. It is about putting processes in place that will reassure the public that everything is being done ethically and correctly, and that governance structures meet certain standards. I heard what the noble Lord said. My worry is that some of this is being left to laissez-faire: you can do this or you need not do this; there is a model here that you could follow if you would like to.
These matters are really important. I agree absolutely with the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. Therefore, I do not understand why these serious principles cannot be in the Bill, and why we cannot agree on a way to encapsulate them that meets both what the Government want and what I am asking for. The difference between us is not great.
Serious principles are at stake: for example, the serious principle that audit needs to be carried out and needs to be independently led. I think that we all agree on that. Another principle is that codes of conduct and standards need to be established. Again, they need to be led by an independent committee. A third issue, on which perhaps the Minister feels less strongly than I do, is that low-level complaints should be dealt with first at local level and then escalated; they should not be dealt with by the IPCC and then come down.
Baroness Henig
I have just been reading Schedule 7. As I said, it has an element of laissez-faire about it. If the Government agree about the issues and believe that they are as important as I believe they are, what is the problem with putting them explicitly in the Bill? I cannot understand what the difference is between what I am asking for and what the Government want. Why will they not accept that these principles are very important and therefore state that they will try their best to put them explicitly in the Bill? I do not understand their hesitation. What am I asking for that is so revolutionary that the Government are resisting it? All I am asking for are the most basic principles of good governance. If the Minister is not able to meet my concerns, I will have to test the opinion of the House, because the issues are fundamental and I do not understand the problem that the Minister is facing. Perhaps he would like to reassure me in another way.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I suspect that a great deal of what the noble Baroness is asking for is in regulations under previous legislation, and will be in regulations under this legislation. That is why I fail to see a difficulty. I assure her that we all understand that these are extremely important principles, and that the role of the chief finance officer and of the PCP in looking after the audit will be set out extremely carefully in regulations.
Baroness Henig
The problem for me is that this is like justice; it must not only be done but be seen to be done. Not only must we have high standards and regulations, but the public must be convinced, and must see, that they are there and that they are explicit in the Bill. If we care about these things, we must spell them out. I will find it tragic when noble Lords opposite vote against something that they all believe in, but I cannot avoid it. These matters are so important that I wish to test the opinion of the House.
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Baroness Henig Excerpts(14 years, 8 months ago)
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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.
Baroness Henig
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.
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.
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.
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.
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Baroness Henig Excerpts(14 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Soley
This issue is an important one and relates back to what I have said before on crime prevention. It took many years to get a good relationship between the police and local authorities on crime prevention and we should not lose that again. Local authorities and the police work together and when the police listen to what locally elected people and local authorities have to say, there is a much better chance of reducing crime and coming up with good crime prevention schemes. So I strongly support my noble friend’s amendments.
Baroness Henig
I have Amendment 47 in this group. I will be very brief. This is about partnership arrangements and improving the link between policing bodies and other partners, particularly community safety bodies. I note the Minister’s Amendment 43 on behalf of the Government specifying that the local policing body has to have regard to the priorities of the statutory partners—
Baroness Henig
I apologise. I am so relieved. I was desperately looking through my notes to see if there had been a major omission.
Baroness Browning
The amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, provide for local authorities to have the same degree of involvement as the police and crime panel in the police and crime commissioner’s preparation of the police and crime plan. In Clause 6 the PCC is placed under specific duties to send the plan to the PCP and have regard to any report or recommendations made by the PCP in relation to the draft, to give a formal response to any recommendations from the PCP, to afford as much time as reasonably possible for the PCP to consider and review the plan, and to review the plan in light of any recommendations made to the PCC by the police and crime panel.
That is already quite a lot of involvement with the PCP, which is made up of and structured with a representative of every local authority at whichever level, whether it is a two, three or one-tier local government structure. Through the representatives on the police and crime panel—we have discussed the need for those other than local government representatives, but looking specifically at those members—I would expect the views of the local authority to be taken forward by those representatives so that specific local authorities’ views on the plan or any other matter are reflected on the panel.
For each of those duties, the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, wants the same duty to apply to each local authority within the force area. That would add bureaucracy for the PCC, because the PCC must negotiate to deliver their plan. At the moment, the core of that negotiation is with the police and crime panel. I also think that it would undermine the core responsibility of the PCP in being the check and balance for the PCC in developing the plan. The burden that will be placed by adding the extra tier is particularly disproportionate. I would expect people on the panel to communicate back to their local authority. For example, if the local authority was concerned, that concern would be expressed through their representative on the police and crime panel. That is why we have extended the scope of the panel to include a representative from every authority, compared to the current structure, where not every authority is represented.
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
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Baroness Hamwee
That was only four minutes—it really is not good enough. As the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said, the first part of the test is about the budget and I have amendments on that as well. Amendments 112, 113 and 114 are my amendments in this group. I tabled them, and I think that my noble friend Lord Shipley’s name would have been added to them had he known I was doing this, as he agreed the wording. I associate him with them.
After a discussion instigated by the Minister at the all-party meeting which she held to discuss the protocol—where she talked about the role of the panel as being supportive as well as destructive, or, at any rate, as carrying on the scrutiny function—we had a discussion about what scrutiny meant. I decided to write my amendments to that effect and these three are the result. “Constructive”, “collegiate”, “collaborative” and so on are words that we have been tossing around in debate over the past few days. We have been talking about checks and balances and, to my mind, this is the balance. The words that I have added in as part of the balance are:
“keep under review the exercise by the … commissioner of the statutory functions”;
“undertake investigations”; and,
“support the … commissioner with regard to”,
not just the functions, but specifically:
“the development of his or her police and crime plan and its implementation and the development of his or her budget”.
That is quite deliberate because we need to recognise the budget as the facilitator, the implementer of the police and crime plan. They are so connected as to be inseparable.
I am afraid that I will repeat what I have said before, but the panel cannot be supportive without a major role in both the plan and the budget. You have to start with the panel’s role in the plan and the panel cannot do its supportive job without the tools to undertake it. The Minister has her version in Amendment 107. Although I welcome the warm words here, I think that the panel needs the specific powers. I realise that we are unlikely at this stage to persuade the Government of this, but my mind is unchanged. We are each a product of our own background, and the baggage that I carry is of spending some years in a scrutiny role. Knowing that I have, as it were, the tools in my back pocket, rarely having to be used but always there, is a very important part of the tool-kit, as the jargon goes.
My earlier amendments in this group, Amendments 94, 96, 97, 98 and 100, again are to make the point—which, I suspect, has not been understood—that you cannot just look at the precept, a point that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, made as well. The precept is the last stage in the development of a budget. There may be a fundamental political difference—I do not want to say fault line—between different politicians as to whether one starts by looking at the precept as taxation, and therefore bad, or as the result of a budget and how you spend the money, and therefore good.
My amendments are not just about the precept but about the heads of expenditure that go to make up the budget and the important tool that the commissioner will have, which is virement between the different heads.
Amendment 146 deals with the need for approval of the budget and spells this out in some detail. It includes the veto of the budget, as distinct from the veto of the precept. In response to a debate on these issues, the Minister said:
“Our intention would be for a series of discussions to be held, not just one blanket meeting at which, for example, the precept or the budget was discussed and a decision taken without the panel having a lot of background information”—[Official Report, 6/6/11; col. 34]—
and so on. Of course that must be right, but stating the intention is a very long way short of giving the mechanisms to the panel to do the job that I have described.
Baroness Henig
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 108 and 111 in this group. As my noble friend Lord Beecham said, this is a very diverse group of amendments. The two amendments in my name relate to the functions of the police and crime panel. Amendment 108 revises and rationalises the functions of the panel and Amendment 111 simply removes an existing clause relating to panel functions to reincorporate it in a more rationalised fashion within Amendment 108.
In briefly outlining the effect of these amendments—not too briefly, since we seem to be racing through them, so perhaps I will try to slow down a little—I would say that they are designed to set out a more collaborative approach to the panel working with the commissioner. This includes an essential role in engagement with the public at local level and with police performance at divisional level. My aim is to exploit the strength of local councillors in a way that enables them to contribute constructively to police governance. I emphasise that there is no great gulf between what I, my noble friend Lord Beecham and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, are trying to do in these amendments, and what the Minister is trying to do. She talks about the panel having a supportive role. Others of us see that role as being collaborative and constructive. There is not much difference between “supportive” and “collaborative and constructive”. If I could nudge the Minister just a little further, that would be helpful. It is not a big change, but being constructive and being able to collaborate would help the panel to operate in a more tangible way that I will come on to describe.
I want to give specific functions to the panel in relation to working with the commissioner to develop a detailed police and crime plan, budget and precepting proposals. Again, this is designed to encourage a corporate approach rather than, as might otherwise happen in some areas, a confrontational approach to police governance. My amendments also provide that a panel must hold public meetings, which is ultimately a cornerstone of securing true public accountability. The driving concern behind this group of amendments is the attempt to describe a more co-operative approach to overcome the dangers of polarised political differences or overfamiliar political relationships between the commissioner and the panel that would render governance ineffective.
I appreciate that there is a government amendment in this group that attempts to specify a more co-operative and supportive approach for the panel and the commissioner. It is very welcome, but rather unspecific. This is true of a lot of government amendments; they go in the right direction and their spirit is right, but they are very general. My amendments attempt to put more flesh on the bones, to nudge the Government a little further and to describe in more detail how the panel and the commissioner should work together. I draw noble Lords’ attention specifically to the part of the amendment that covers the policing plan, the budget and the precept. These are key areas in which the panel should be involved not just in scrutinising the commissioner but in contributing to developing the shape of these things. That is what it should be doing and that is what I hope my amendment would achieve.
It echoes some amendments put forward by others which specify a more detailed role for the panel in, for example, scrutinising the detail of the budget. Again, my amendment goes a little further and suggests that the panel should contribute constructively to shaping the budget. As I said earlier, it also provides a key role for the panel in providing a link between local areas and the wider police area. We discussed in earlier debates the need for this more local link, which is consistent with what councillors do and puts members of the police and crime panel in a good position to play a more active role at local level. In this context, two elements are particularly important. First, it will enable panel members to complement the role of the commissioner in engaging and consulting with communities. Panel members can bring views from areas and communities that might otherwise not be heard into the wider policing family. Secondly, it will enable panel members to keep an eye on police performance at a more local level, so that they will be in a position to bring emerging problems to the attention of the panel and the commissioner before they become major.
In practice, a lot of this will happen anyway in areas where the commissioner is good at forming relationships. Where there are good commissioners, good relationships will be formed and the commissioner will want to work with the panel in this way. This will all happen as a matter of course. My concern is about areas where the commissioner will not be good at forming relationships and working with others. Of course, it will be in precisely those areas that prescription will be most necessary. In a sense, we are all looking to the areas where things will not necessarily work well, where problems will arise and where the Government will be forced to say, two or three years down the line: “What a shame we did not put this or that in place”. I am trying to envisage how this will work in practice, how it might best be played out and what we can put in the Bill to make it happen.
I will also mention voting. My amendment specifies that all decisions of the police and crime panel should be taken by majority vote. I am sorry about that: I heard what was said about two-thirds, but I am a great majority-vote person. It is what I am used to and it is consistent with other amendments that I will put forward in relation to veto powers, which suggest that these, too, should operate by a simple majority of the members present.
For me, that has the virtue of bringing consistency to the majority required for all panel votes and will avoid confusion that might otherwise arise by having different voting limits for different things. In later amendments I will discuss why I think veto powers should be exercised through a simple majority. Suffice to say for now that I believe it is entirely consistent with strengthening the role of the panel.
As I mentioned, these amendments put some flesh on the bones and set out how greater co-operation between the panel and commission might be achieved in relation to key functions. While they set out some practical ways in which the role of the panel can be strengthened, to perhaps guard against some of the worst problems that could arise, they cannot entirely cure what I still think is a fundamentally flawed model. None the less, I hope they will be regarded as—and they really are meant to be—constructive suggestions about giving a stronger and more balanced role to the panel.
Baroness Henig
I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for those remarks. At the end of the day we are doing all this for the public; it is for local communities. The reason I put forward my suggestions is not simply to make for better working with the commissioner, but to benefit the public. It seems to me that that is what all this is about. If I have differences with the noble Baroness, it is because I feel that the public will be better served by local councillors who have a constructive role in representing the local community to the commissioner and vice versa and who can play an active and collaborative role. It is in that spirit that I have been putting forward my amendments, not for any other reason than to benefit the public. I am sure that the noble Baroness will appreciate that sentiment.
Baroness Browning
I do indeed and although we have not been able to agree on everything, I have appreciated the constructive way in which the noble Baroness has brought forward her suggestions, both in Committee and on Report. I know that I have disappointed her in many of my responses, but I hope she will accept that in this change to the Bill I have listened carefully across the House, but particularly to her words. She has chosen her words very carefully, she has had a good point to make and I have tried to encapsulate that in this amendment. Therefore, I propose an amendment to the general provisions in relation to police and crime panels at Clause 29 to reflect the need for the PCP to exercise its powers with a view to supporting the PCC in its duties. The police and crime commissioner will be solely responsible for holding the chief constable to account. However, I accept the noble Lord’s premise that the relationship between the commission and the panel would be one of support as well as challenge.
The noble Baroness, Lady Henig, used the word collaborative to describe the proposed relationship between the commissioner and the panel. My concern with this is that it would ultimately create confusion over who holds the police to account. Therefore, the Government propose to place a duty on the panel to exercise its functions in support of the commissioner. This will mitigate the risk of conflict between the commissioner and the panel without diluting the accountability of the commissioner.
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Baroness Henig Excerpts(14 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Beecham
My Lords, pursuing my usual course of local government recidivism, I will comment briefly on Amendment 49A, which will include local authorities in the rather wide category of criminal justice bodies set out in Clause 11(4). On Second Reading, I rather questioned the extent of that list and wondered whether it is appropriate to regard the police commissioner in the same category as, for example, the Crown Prosecution Service or youth offending teams. However, be that as it may, if there are to be bodies such as those listed here—including, for example, youth offending teams, which are regarded as criminal justice bodies—surely it is logical that local government should be included as well, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, seems to acknowledge at least on this occasion. I hope that the Minister will accept that modest amendment. However, I will endorse the noble Baroness’s amendments that refer to the need for local government to be included, particularly, for example, in relation to the annual reports in Clause 13. It would be strange if the elected local policing body—effectively the commissioner—were not to give a local authority a response to a report or recommendations that such an authority might make to the commissioner. Again I hope—possibly vainly—that the Minister will see the logic of that and accept the amendment to that effect which the noble Baroness has moved.
Baroness Henig
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 47 in this group. I apologise that I was premature in attempting to speak to this amendment an hour or so ago, having failed to notice that, in between the draft groupings and the final groupings, there had been some slight changes.
I particularly note the Minister’s Amendment 43 on behalf of the Government, which specifies that the local policing body must have regard to the priorities of the other statutory partners in developing policing plans. That is very welcome, and it begins to improve linkages with community safety partners. However, like the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I still think that there are gaps in the landscape and that the Bill proposals could be further strengthened.
Amendment 47 suggests an active role for police and crime panel members in community safety partnerships, and it specifies that a panel member must sit on each such partnership within their area. The idea of this is to enable the panel to influence the strategic priorities of those partnerships before they are set, and to provide information to the panel and the commissioner to ensure that the policing family plays its part too.
It is all very well to say that the local policing body must have regard to the priorities of other partners; but what if these were at cross-purposes? Having a panel member in the partnership would enable an intelligent dialogue to take place and would enable that panel member to pick up on concerns before they became major problems.
The Minister is right in what he said earlier about this crucial set of relationships between CDRPs on the one hand and the commission, as we have it, on the other hand. However, I do not want this to be a discussion just about generalities, and it would be nice if this happened or that happened. Ultimately, all this is about better engagement. It is about trying to get an improved response on behalf of local communities. We are looking to try to get a system that works well for local people.
I recall that in Committee this House expressed real concern that one person, in the form of a commissioner, could not undertake the kind of in-depth engagement that 17 members formerly did, and that there was a real risk that they would be perceived as remote, not just by electors but by the many other bodies—public, private and voluntary—that work with the police. If the commissioner is going to find it very difficult to get round all the CDRPs, who can do it instead?
I think that the Government broadly agreed in their recently tabled amendments that the role of the panel must be as much about supporting the commissioner as about scrutiny. My amendment is a way of letting the panel develop a supportive role in practice. We keep hearing about the panel being supportive and about stricter checks and balances, but I am trying to get the panel to play a stronger role in practice. We know that membership of community safety partnerships would be one way for panel members to help to make this ambition effective and to get panels to be more supportive and play a more practical role.
We know that the police alone cannot solve all local problems that could arise. That is why community safety partnerships were set up in the first place. If we allow local policing bodies to become disconnected from the wider community safety partners, we will go back 15 years to the kind of silo thinking that saw record levels of crime at the end of the 1990s. I cannot believe that that is what the Government want.
It might be salutary if I remind the Minister that police authorities were not originally among the bodies required to be on CDRPs when they were established. Over time, it was found to be an error and was changed so that police authorities became statutory partners. Indeed, police authority members became among the most dedicated and active members of the partnerships. The reason was that it was a good source of two-way information. It was not just that police authorities, and now police panels, would get information back. Their presence was very much valued at district level both by local councils and divisional police officers. That system is working as we speak and I would be very reluctant to see it disappear.
I understand that the concept was not invented here. The charge has often been levelled at police forces up and down the country that they are very reluctant to introduce things that they have not pioneered or invented. I feel that the Government face the same danger here. They are trying to set up a new policing arrangement. I understand that, but there are lessons to be learnt about what has happened in the past 15 to 20 years, and we need to be prepared to learn them. My amendment attempts to restore a link that will otherwise be lost. I am trying to enable panel members to keep their pulse on the local landscape and ensure that both the panel and the commissioner are aware of developments, are equipped to understand problems and are able to co-ordinate effective joint action. Once again, I am trying to be constructive and to assist. I am absolutely certain that in the years to come, sooner or later the links will be restored. They have to be, because it is common sense. That is the way in which things will work at local level; it is just a question of making the change now rather than later.
Baroness Harris of Richmond
My Lords, I do not know why I did not put my name to the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Henig—I ought to have done—but I will say a few words in support of it. First, I welcome some of the government amendments in the group. I will single out Amendments 35 and 43. Amendment 35 deals with ensuring that every responsible authority in the context of community safety gets a copy of the police and crime plan. Amendment 43 ensures—going back the other way, as it were—that local policing bodies must have regard to the priorities of local partners. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, that the Bill could go further. Therefore, I will say a few words in support of her amendment.
The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 is widely regarded as one of the best and most effective pieces of legislation passed by the previous Administration in their early years. It has made a huge difference to the way that local crime and anti-social behaviour is tackled. It is no accident that the general reduction in crime that we have witnessed in the past 15 years began at about the same time as the partnerships were put in place. Therefore, it seems strange that the Government appear less than enthusiastic about maintaining the link between the partnerships and the new police governance mechanisms.
It is particularly strange when one considers that the PCC’s role will include a vastly increased remit in relation to partnership bodies in other areas, such as criminal justice. Community safety partnerships seem to me to be the key fulcrum around which local engagement and local solutions are brought together. Why on earth we are disconnecting local policing bodies from these partnerships when they should be an asset to improving the effectiveness of local policing and partners, I really do not know. The noble Baroness, Lady Henig, is right to suggest that panels should be represented on community safety partnerships to preserve this relationship and I certainly support her amendment.
Baroness Browning
My Lords, before I deal with these amendments, I would like to clarify the Government’s position on this issue on which we have, as I mentioned earlier, tabled amendments. The Bill already contains provision for police and crime commissioners and the responsible authorities on community safety partnerships to co-operate in the exercise of their functions. The government amendments seek to strengthen that duty at a more strategic level by including provision for both parties to have regard to each other’s priorities. Perhaps I may clarify that. What that new duty adds is that PCCs and CSPs will be required to have regard to each other’s priorities, even in areas where they would not actually be working together—which could be the case—but where there would be benefits in them taking a consistent approach and having a knowledge of, and regard to, what the other’s priorities are. That would at least ensure that they did not take an inconsistent approach, a sort of left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing. We are anxious that they work together. It is a very important relationship, and that is why I have tabled amendments to strengthen it, as I have just outlined.
My noble friends Lady Hamwee and Lord Shipley have tabled Amendment 42. My noble friend reminded us that she is due a reply from my noble friend Lord Wallace, who promised in Committee to write to her. I will ensure that I chase up that letter tonight. Amendment 42 would remove the wording that stipulates that a plan should set out how a chief officer will be judged in his or her provision of policing and replaces it with a provision about how standards of policing will be measured. In my view, this goes to the heart of what these reforms are about, despite it being, on the face of it, a relatively minor amendment.
The Government’s model is that the panel and the public should hold the commissioner to account who, in turn, must hold the chief constable to account for the provision of operational policing. The original wording of the Bill achieves this, and it is right that the operationally independent commanding officer of a force, who exercises unfettered direction and control, is held personally accountable in law for the provision of policing. This amendment, perhaps interestingly, removes this subtle but very significant difference. That is not to say that standards of policing are not something that the PCC should be involved in. We are just clear that in maintaining operational independence and clarity of roles the PCC should hold the chief constable to account for meeting those standards. I am not in any way suggesting to my noble friends that the standards do not matter, but I believe that the line of accountability as set out in the Bill is the right way forward.
My concern with Amendments 44 and 45 is that they would significantly increase the burden on PCCs and members of the community safety partnerships. I understand the effect to be that they would have to co-operate with each other in relation to all the functions exercised by members of the community safety partnership and not just in their function of formulating and implementing community safety strategies. This would be a legal duty enforceable by the courts. However, I am concerned that it would give rise to considerable bureaucracy. Local authorities, fire services and health bodies would have to keep all their functions under review in order to show that they were co-operating with the PCC where possible, even though many of their functions have a limited connection to community safety or, in some circumstances, none at all.
The Government are proposing a more proportionate approach in that the duty to co-operate would extend only to community safety functions and there would be an additional duty on police and crime commissioners and community safety partnerships to have regard to each others' priorities, the latter being a much broader set of issues. At the beginning of my remarks, I outlined how I see that working in practice.
Similar concerns arise in relation to the proposal to extend the duty to co-operate to voluntary and statutory bodies concerned with crime reduction and victim support. There may be a significant number of these bodies, both local and national, to whom the duty would apply. We would not wish to create a bureaucratic requirement for PCCs and other bodies to show how they are carrying out this duty. More fundamentally, we do not think that the amendment is necessary as the appropriate links between police and crime commissioners and the relevant bodies will be created in any event, as we are providing the power for PCCs to issue grants, including to the voluntary sector and statutory bodies. In providing those grants, there would clearly be a great deal of discussion and recognition of the function and priorities of those groups.
With regard to Amendment 47, tabled by my noble friends Lady Hamwee and Lord Shipley, I see it as primarily reverting to current arrangements for police authorities by requiring members of police and crime panels to sit on community safety partnerships. It will be for the PCC to decide how best to manage relationships with CSPs. That is the strategic leadership they will provide. I have listened to the House's concerns on this issue and have introduced amendments that will enhance these provisions and essentially allow the PCC and local CSPs to manage the relationship locally. I have already spoken on these and will not repeat myself here. Suffice it to say that I have listened and, in seeking to amend the Bill in the light of the concerns voiced in this House at previous stages of the Bill, I have tabled those amendments accordingly.
Anyone who has dealings with CSPs will know that they operate very differently across the length and breadth of England and Wales. There is no one-size-fits-all system. These reforms are about reducing bureaucracy and about responsibility being taken locally for delivering quality services. I fear that the provisions tabled by my noble friends could increase the bureaucratic burden and add prescription to the Bill, which I do not believe is needed. The panel is there to scrutinise, not to share the executive functions of the PCC. I know this is a subject on which we disagree, and I see these amendments primarily as consequential to the removal of PCCs from the Bill under the original Clause 1, but I have to reiterate that that is the Government's position.
Baroness Henig
If a commissioner decided that he or she wanted members of the panel to sit on the panel, could that happen as an alternative way of achieving what we all want to see? Would that be within a commissioner’s remit?
Baroness Hamwee
In moving Amendment 51, I will also speak to my Amendments 52, 54, 142 and 143, with which it is grouped. I again apologise to the House that my amendments repeat, or are similar to, amendments to which I spoke in Committee. The large groups in Committee meant that we had what I might describe as composite responses from the Dispatch Box.
Amendments 51 and 53 continue the theme of checks and balances in the shape of tools to enable the panel to do its job. Clause 12 is headed “Information for public etc”. Under Clause 12(3), the commissioner must publish information which he or she “considers to be necessary” to enable local people to assess the matters that are set out: that is, information that he—some may be “she”, but I guess they will mostly be “he”—considers necessary. No doubt that consideration has to be done in good faith, but it strikes me that it would be almost impossible to enforce. I do not know who would enforce it. My amendment would insert, as additional matters to be included, those,
“which are required by the relevant police and crime panel”.
As I say, these tools would enable the job to be done and would interpose the strict checks and balances required to check and balance the commissioner.
I have already alluded to the provision that I seek to add to Clause 13. It is not an onerous or difficult obligation but would allow the panel before the beginning of the relevant year to tell the commissioner what it thinks ought to be included in the annual report. This was applied in London under the GLA Act when I chaired the Assembly. After the Assembly had had a preliminary discussion about the items that it thought should be included in the mayor’s annual report, there was a negotiation with the mayor. It was a perfectly civilised but productive process.
Amendment 52 is designed to draw attention to the position of victims of crime and to ensure that “performance” includes,
“the treatment of victims of crime”.
I have brought this up again because I do not think it was answered in the group in which it was contained previously.
Amendments 142 and 143 are a repetition of amendments concerned with the attendance of senior officers and the production of documents and information. I heard what the Minister had to say in our debate on the previous group about allowing the attendance of the most senior officer. You do not need to put into legislation that someone may attend a meeting; the legislation should not set out a narrative of what might happen but provide rules if people are not minded to do the sensible thing. Surely the point of a law of the land is to require attendance—in this case of someone who is not particularly willing to attend. If we think that attendance is a good and productive thing, the role of the legislation is to ensure that it is required.
My noble friend Lord Wallace did not state specifically which amendments he was speaking to—he said that the Government were right about some of them—but he said that the balance was wrong and that he was concerned to protect the commissioner from,
“being inundated with requests for information”.—[Official Report, 24/5/11; col. 1750.]
However, the panel’s role is to advise and scrutinise the police and crime commissioner, especially in respect of the annual police and crime plan. To advise and to scrutinise in the broadest sense, the panel needs information, and not only the information that the commissioner determines that it should have. This applies to every piece of information because everything is relevant to the plan. I fully appreciate where accountability lies—with the chief constable to the police and crime commissioner and with the commissioner to the electorate—but there are dotted lines in there to enable the panel to be brought in. Sometimes it is appropriate and practical for someone a bit less senior than the chief constable to attend, but at other times it is necessary to insist on his attendance and to insist that documents and information are provided.
The Government have tabled amendments in this group. Some of them are about the request to which I have referred; others change the relevant term from “reports” to “information”. They are a minor improvement but still do not seem to my mind adequately to recognise the role of the panel. I beg to move.
Baroness Henig
My Lords, I have tabled Amendment 141 in this group, which would provide that outside London the panel should be able to call senior police officers to answer questions as well as the commissioner and members of the commissioner’s staff. As I shall spell out, this amendment complements the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. I very much agree with the sentiments that she expressed with regard to her amendments.
It is very important for panels to be able to call in senior police officers. The panels must be able to triangulate evidence if they are to carry out their role of effectively scrutinising the commissioner. It is true that they will be able to gather information from the commissioner under the provisions in the Bill, but they will also need to analyse and test that information. The most effective way of challenging and testing information is to ask questions about it. Certainly, the panel can ask questions of the commissioner under the provisions already in the Bill, but this may tell it only what the commissioner wants it to hear, particularly if the commissioner has been responsible for providing that information in the first place. All my experience in local government and policing tells me that it is extremely important for the panel to be able to reality check what it hears from the commissioner against the views of senior members of the police force.
Lord De Mauley
I see the noble Lord’s point. He is right to point out that there is a compromise in that concession. However, the chief constable has to be responsible for his force. He or she is the person invited to attend with the PCC. On the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, if they do not know an answer they should go away and find it, like a Minister does at the Dispatch Box. We are trying to avoid a situation where the force is split by allowing the same question to be addressed to different people. That would risk undercutting the authority of the chief constable.
Baroness Henig
I understand that perfectly but it is not what I am trying to do. I want to enable the panel, in exercising strict checks and balances—which, after all, is what we are trying to do—to scrutinise the commissioner effectively. To enable that to happen, the panel should be able to ask questions of a chief constable that relate to a commissioner’s performance. This is all about the scrutiny of the commissioner; it is not about holding the chief constable to account. I agree with the noble Lord that that would not be acceptable; it is not what we want to see happen. We are trying to increase the ability of the panel to scrutinise effectively. That is what we are all trying to secure.
Lord De Mauley
My Lords, perhaps I may come back to that point and, for the moment, move on.
Amendment 143 would make the panel’s ability to request information more explicit. As discussed, it is important that panels can carry out their functions. However, panels already have powers appropriate for the scrutiny role they will perform. They can require the attendance of the police and crime commissioner or members of the PCC's staff to answer questions that they deem necessary. They can also require information from the commissioner and their staff, except where this would compromise security, so I hope that I can persuade noble Lords in due course to withdraw these amendments.
We are proposing in this group a number of government amendments which will address many of the issues raised by your Lordships during Committee. Amendments 145 and 181 would allow the police and crime panel to request the attendance of the chief constable in the exercise of their duties. We have noted your Lordships’ comments and we thank my noble friends Lady Hamwee and Lord Shipley in particular for their contribution. It is still one of the fundamental principles of this reform that it is the police and crime commissioner who holds the chief constable to account. As has been said, we believe that such dual accountability would lead to a confusing landscape, with the chief constable being pulled in two different directions and the public unclear as to who they were holding to account for their policing service.
However, it is recognised that in order for the police and crime panel to fulfil its role in holding the police and crime commissioner to account, there might be times when the chief constable’s attendance is desirable, so it is proposed to give the panel the ability to request their attendance. That stops short of it being able to compel him or her to attend and it will be for the chief constable, in consultation with the police and crime commissioner, to decide. As I said, the principle is that the PCP’s function is to scrutinise the PCC rather than the chief constable but we acknowledge that there may be occasions when it is desirable for the PCP to meet the chief constable.
I turn to information provided to PCCs and to government Amendments 182 and 186. Noble Lords will be aware that, as originally drafted, the Bill provided that a chief constable could be required to provide a police and crime commissioner with any report that he or she saw fit. That matched the existing provisions for police authorities and one may well ask what these government amendments add to that. It is arguable that a report is a document containing or consisting of information—we certainly take this view—so that a power to require reports necessarily encompasses a power to require information. While this was not discussed in your Lordships’ House, a number of parties have raised with us concerns about the existing provisions.
Those concerns were, essentially, that by requiring a report rather than information, the PCC might only be able to obtain the chief constable's interpretation of data rather than being able to analyse that data themselves. I am confident that chief constables would not in any way seek to misrepresent data or use them selectively. However, in order for the PCC to be able properly to hold the chief constable to account, they will need to be able to see raw data for themselves so that they can give their own thought and analysis of them. This amendment will ensure that happens and that there can be adequate and appropriate flows of information between the chief constable and the PCC. It will also achieve consistency throughout the Bill, since similar provisions such as Clauses 14 and 94 are couched in terms of information rather than reports. Comment, opinion or analysis are kinds of information, so a PCC will still be able to use this clause to require the chief constable to give an account or explanation of any matter of concern. As such, I hope that noble Lords will support these government amendments.
Baroness Henig
“(e) except as provided in sections (Powers of dismissal: role of police and crime panel) and (Powers of suspension: role of police and crime panel), appointing, suspending or calling upon a senior officer to retire or resign;”
Baroness Henig
My Lords, I shall also speak to Amendments 187, 188, 194 and 195 to 197 in this group. They all relate to the appointment, discipline, suspension and dismissal of ACPO-rank officers—not just chief constables. The House will recall that I addressed this issue in Committee and I return to it now. I listened very carefully to what the Minister said then and mentioned that I might well return to this matter after considering the points that she made. I have fully considered them and, thinking about it, I still fundamentally disagree that the only person who should be responsible for appointing senior officers in a force, other than the chief constable, is the chief constable himself or herself.
Certainly, a chief constable should have a significant say in who is appointed to senior posts. My amendment allows for this. However, the overarching responsibility for the efficiency and effectiveness of the force remains that of the governing body. The Bill specifically confirms that this function will remain with commissioners. They cannot exercise this effectively if they do not have an influence on the shape or make-up of the top team and I therefore return to this topic.
Outlining what these amendments will do, Amendment 69 relates to Clause 19 on delegation and provides that the commissioner can delegate responsibility for appointing and disciplining senior officers in certain limited situations, which I set out later. Amendment 187 effectively deletes Schedule 8, as my amendments in this section return the situation to the status quo, making the new provisions in this schedule redundant. Amendments 188 and 194 give commissioners the overarching role for appointing and disciplining deputy chief constables and assistant chief constables respectively, while enabling a role for panels in these processes. That is set out through the amendments which follow. Amendments 195, 196 and 197 specify a role for the panel in appointing senior officers, in requiring senior officers to resign and in suspending them respectively.
I am still at a loss to understand how the Government think they will achieve the more muscular and high-profile role they envisage for commissioners at the same time as giving them fewer powers than police authorities currently have. Dealing first with the amendments about appointing and disciplining senior officers other than the chief constable, in Committee I heard the Minister point out that Sir Paul Stephenson thought it was a really good idea for the chief officer to do this and, by inference, suggested that the Government should follow this lead. Yet I am afraid I did not hear a great deal about why she thought it was such a good idea.
As I think I also mentioned in Committee, Sir Paul Stephenson and I have known each other for many years. In fact, I was the person who first appointed him as chief constable when I was chair of Lancashire police authority. He is an extremely able man and, as the current Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, he counts as the most senior serving police officer in the country. Yet I do not agree and never have agreed with him on this issue. I actually find it quite ironic that, in Lancashire, I in fact appointed him to the position of deputy chief constable. It is by no means certain that had the then chief constable held the power to appoint, he would have been appointed. We do not know that but it was certainly the police authority that appointed him to the role of deputy chief constable. I have to say, with no disrespect to Sir Paul Stephenson, that he would say he wants more say over his top team. That goes without saying and I understand the sentiment. But he is the one chief officer in the country, ironically, who will not get this to the same extent as others because the role of deputy commissioner is a Crown appointment and not in his gift.
I noted in Committee that there were a number of equally senior but no longer serving police officers in this House who did not agree with Sir Paul’s position. They have, perhaps, had the benefit of considering this question away from the hothouse and everyday pressures of policing. Their view, if I can paraphrase, was that the chief constable’s position was better protected and less exposed if he or she had a role in the appointment but did not take the ultimate decision. They would have more freedom to manage their own team if they alone were responsible for the appointment of their immediate juniors. If I understand it correctly, that is the Government’s key argument. But it would have a great many downsides for that chief officer, potentially exposing them to unwelcome industrial-tribunal action without any supporting cover, as well as disciplinary action if the commissioner thought they had appointed the wrong person. All of this would detract from other perhaps more pressing matters about managing the police force on a day-to-day basis. I suspect the Government think that if the governing body appoints a senior officer there might be confusion about who manages that officer. This is emphatically not the case under current arrangements. I see no reason to think that restoring the status quo would cause any confusion. There are existing provisions which make it quite clear that this is the role of the chief officer.
I know the Government are keen to achieve a clear separation of functions between the chief officer and the governing body. This is where the principle of the chief officer having the freedom to manage his or her top team comes from. This is not in dispute and would not be compromised by my proposals. The stronger role for commissioners proposed by the Government reinforces the fact that it is ultimately the governing body which should be responsible to the public for the overall shape, style and effectiveness of policing in their area. A commissioner cannot carry out this function properly if he or she does not have the final say on who is appointed to the top team. It is crucial to aligning any strategic vision for policing to the style and skills of the top team. It is not the same thing to say that the commissioner must be consulted about senior appointments, as the Bill currently does. The commissioner’s role must be decisive if he or she is to exercise a proper level of traction over the policing requirements for the area.
I also mentioned in Committee a number of other good reasons why the governing body must appoint the chief officer. The most important reason was the tendency of people in senior positions to appoint people in their own image if they have a free hand. This would give rise to real concerns about improving the diversity of the police at senior levels. The Minister did not really address this matter in her response. I am aware that the whole area of senior promotion and assessment is to be revised, but the problem is that this will be in another Bill and we do not yet know what this will look like. We have had no White Paper or similar on this yet, but it is beginning to look alarmingly as if ACPO will be given full responsibility for overseeing this change and for setting the criteria once the NPIA is abolished. This is the problem with having a rushed and, frankly, rather badly thought-out Bill which covers only half of the policing landscape. We are being asked to take on trust that serious matters of this nature which affect the current Bill will be looked at, without any clear indication of what is going to be proposed. The only amendments the Government seem to have made to this section are ones which effectively specify that the chief constable must be a constable at the time of appointment.
I understand why senior officers are concerned to ensure that a chief constable is an experienced police officer. This relates to issues around operational independence. While I am pleased that the Government are making some concessions, I am not convinced that this is the most important concession to make. There has been one instance already when a non-police officer was appointed to the post of chief officer in a police force, although the police force concerned was a Civil Nuclear Police Authority force and not a Home Office force. None the less, that did take place. This in itself is a comment on the perception of the skills of senior officers among appointing bodies. Although this was a few years ago, there was concern then, which still remains to some extent, that there is not enough focus in senior assessments on business and management skills among senior officers. That is why it is so important to be able to see the whole package of everything that sits behind senior promotion and assessment in this context. This goes back to my point about senior people appointing and promoting others in their own image. It is worrying that chief officers will not only be responsible for appointing individuals; they may also be made responsible for designing the whole package of leadership skills that will be fostered and assessed through the possible new role for APCO that I have mentioned.
It is human nature to undervalue skills which senior managers think they themselves have never needed in deciding who to promote and appoint, and even to over-emphasise some skills which they believe to be important. In my experience in the police service, women officers suffer from this. I have seen over and over again senior officers putting huge emphasis on operational qualities and the ability to oversee certain operations but undervaluing issues of communication, the importance of relationships and the importance of emotional intelligence, which in policing is very important. I am worried that, if we are not careful, we will revert back to some of the things that we used to see happening 20 years ago.
Even if the commissioner is consulted and makes some clear points, there is little the commissioner can do, short of hitting the nuclear button and firing the chief officer. If the Government do not provide some decisive traction for governing bodies over functions in which they have an overriding interest, they are merely encouraging an unstable situation where commissioners take extreme and disproportionate action over disagreements. That is not good enough and if my amendment is not accepted, the Government must at the very least get rid of these clauses until they can be clear about the shape of the whole senior appointments landscape and extend the status quo on a transitional basis until this has been done.
I also made the point in Committee that the governing body should have a role in disciplinary matters, especially suspension and dismissal at senior level. These amendments also provide for this. There was widespread concern in the House at the time that giving responsibility to chief officers alone for senior officer disciplinary issues was a grave mistake and a recipe for corruption. I am disappointed that the Government have not come back with additional proposals about this. I made the point in Committee that there would be few circumstances where, if a senior officer was behaving unethically, the chief officer would not be under some suspicion, even if only of inadequate supervision of the individual concerned. The Bill’s proposals make the chief officer both judge and jury in terms of complaints against senior members of their team, while at the same time providing to chief officers a potential loophole to evade investigation where they could be implicated. This is because it is left to the discretion of chief constables whether to refer the matter to the IPCC, except in some very severe situations where referral is automatic. Clearly, a chief officer might fail to refer matters which reflect badly on him or her to the IPCC. This is entirely inconsistent with the whistle-blowing principles that are the cornerstone of any regime of good governance. While I heard what the Minister said on the first day of Report about ensuring that principles of good governance would be included within the requirements for commissioners and police forces, this is an obvious case where it seems it will not in fact apply. It is clear by any acceptable standards that the governing body must have the decisive role in dealing with complaints against senior officers. This is fundamental to the commissioner’s accountability and to being clear with the public about where they can go if they have a problem. No member of the public is going to have any confidence in a regime where the chief officer deals with complaints against his own senior team. This in no way meets expectations of independence or lack of bias. This is so obvious that I am very surprised that the Minister has not put forward any alternative proposals. I ask her to explain why she thinks the public would have any confidence at all in the arrangements currently set out in the Bill.
Moving on, because I know that time is pressing and I apologise to noble Lords for that, my proposals also give a much stronger role to the panel in relation to appointments, complaints and conduct matters relating to senior officers. This is designed to address some of the concerns expressed in Committee. Again, the concerns were focused on bringing a more collaborative approach to the work between a commissioner and the panel and providing meaningful levers to the panel to address problems about putting too much power into the hands of individuals.
Baroness Henig
I thank the Minister sincerely for that lengthy response. I tried to follow it fully, but inevitably some points may well have escaped my attention. I will be extremely brief in responding in light of the hour. Again, I do not want to strike a negative note, but not for the first time I despair about what the Government are proposing and what I see as a refusal to listen to sensible advice. I have to say that, because I do not believe that the issues raised by noble Lords were in any way revolutionary or in any way pushing out the boundaries. A lot of the proposals were extremely sensible and based on long experience, and the Government are somehow rejecting them out of hand for reasons that I do not fully understand.
Let me give some examples. The Minister has not addressed the deep concerns about the disciplinary issues and the position the chief constable is going to be in. That has not been addressed, although I may have missed it in the lengthy—
Baroness Browning
I apologise for interrupting. The noble Baroness is quite right. If I may interpose a few words here, I must say that I appreciate that what the Government have set out is not what the noble Baroness is seeking in her amendments and in the debate around the Chamber tonight. I would point out that all matters other than minor complaints—we defined what we thought these were in Committee—are subject ultimately to appeal to the IPCC. Any serious complaint will have IPCC input and ultimately will go to it as part of the appeal procedure.
Baroness Henig
I thank the Minister. My emphasis is on public perception. As I said when I moved this amendment, it is important for the public to have absolute confidence in the system. My concern remains that that confidence may not be there because of the perception that the chief constable is judge and jury. That was what was concerning me.
There are perception issues again, particularly in relation to the amendment about the involvement of HMIC. I accept that it may not be absolutely essential to write this into the Bill, but again it gives confidence. It certainly, I think, gave confidence to all members of police authorities that at certain stages you had to call in HMIC. That was extremely important and it is still important. The Bill should say that HMIC should be involved at certain points in appointments and in certain other situations such as dismissals. That gives the public confidence, and you must underwrite this system. A new system is being proposed, and the more confidence that can be given about how it is going to operate, the better. That is why I am concerned.
In addition, briefly, the commissioner is going to make appointments and the panel’s role in appointments is extraordinarily limited. I feel that it is inadequate. I am worried, as I have already said, that chief constable appointments might lack diversity. There was a point not long ago when the system briefly changed and chief constables actually appointed deputies. It was not all that successful, as I recall, and the system was changed, so again we have experience in this area.
That is all I want to say, but I end positively. I very much welcome the Minister’s invitation or offer to discuss with Members the senior officer pool and other issues. I am sure that the offer will be readily taken up. I would certainly be interested in taking part in those discussions, and I am sure other noble Lords would too. I very much welcome that.
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Baroness Henig Excerpts(14 years, 8 months ago)
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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.
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.
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.
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Baroness Henig Excerpts(14 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Blair of Boughton
My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Newton, for adding to his collection of commissioners and chairmen of police authorities. However, I want to say, having served as a chief officer of police for 15 years, that I served with the police committees that the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne, reformed in order to bring in an independent group of people. The committees were transformed by that process. I know from what I have heard of the speeches of my erstwhile colleagues that all of us feel that the independence of some people around this police and crime commissioner is fundamental. I have not seen a better amendment than the one put forward by the noble Lords, Lord Harris and Lord Stevens, and I support it.
Baroness Henig
I wish to add a word or two. I heard very much what the noble Lord said, and I very much sympathise with the idea of strengthening the panel. Nobody has tried harder during the Committee stage of this Bill than I have, with the assistance of the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, to strengthen the function of the panel. I have put five amendments to that effect. Thus far, the Government have not been minded to strengthen the panel, for a very clear reason. They feel that the only role of the panel is to scrutinise the commissioner and that the panel should be able to scrutinise the commissioner only on very specific areas. Thus far, I have to say that I do not believe that that constitutes strict checks and balances, which is a different issue. None the less, if I was confident that at Report the Government would change their views and accept some of the amendments that I have down later for strengthening the panels, I would feel differently. But I cannot say to the Minister that I have that confidence at the moment, because of the very strong line that the Minister has taken. The issue is the relationship of the panel to the commissioner. If the Government maintain their attitude on that issue then this is the only other mechanism to accomplish what I was trying to do with the panels.
I wanted to raise one slight point with my noble friend Lord Harris, which I asked him about very early on when he was putting together his ideas. Is it an either/or situation? Is there any way in which some or all of the independents who we have been talking about, and who we all value so highly for their expertise, could also serve on the panel? Perhaps he could say in due course whether it is an either/or situation, because I am not absolutely convinced that it needs to be.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, this has been an interesting and, I believe, an important debate. My noble friend Lord Harris, in what I thought was a powerful introduction, pointed out the huge power and authority that is being given to an elected police and crime commissioner if the Commons decides to send this back to your Lordships’ House in its original construct. I noted the comments on that of the noble Lord, Lord Howard, but when he referred back to his legislation of 20 years ago, I think he also referred to a number of ping-pongs. That is a salutary reminder to your Lordships’ House that if we do not think that the House of Commons has thought sufficiently, we can send the Bill back to give it a bit more time to reflect—but we will come to that in a few months’ time, no doubt.
The issue of governance is very important. My noble friend was right to point out that we are giving huge responsibility to police and crime commissioners, if that is the final outcome of the Bill. The need for some way in which the individual can be allowed to test out their ideas and have them challenged as my noble friend describes seems an important issue. We know that when individuals are given great power, sometimes they abuse it. We are talking about a considerable number of police forces. It is inconceivable that we will not have one or two persons who are unsuitable but who are elected to those positions. Earlier, we were referred to a number of local authorities where mayors have been elected. I would say that the experience of elected mayors has been mixed. Some have been outstanding, but there have been one or two who ought not to have been elected and great problems have been caused there. I think of them when it comes to the issue of governance around police and crime commissioners.
Other noble Lords have pointed out that the Government do not seem to speak with consistency in these matters. Earlier this week, as the noble Lord, Lord Condon, pointed out, we had the change in governance relating to the MoD. My own area of knowledge is in the National Health Service: I declare an interest as chairman of the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust and as a trainer consultant in the NHS. The NHS Bill had gone through most of its stages in the Commons when the Government instituted a pause and, only 10 days or so ago, announced the results of it. One of them was to strengthen governance within clinical commissioning groups. Originally, they were going to be GP consortia and a few GPs were going to sit round the table deciding how to spend £80 billion of public money. The result of the listening exercise has been that they are now going to be called clinical commissioning groups, because there has been recognition that you cannot just give that huge power to a few individual GPs.
We are now going to have two lay people appointed to those commissioning groups: a nurse and a consultant from outside the area. Why outside the area? It is because there is recognition that there might be a conflict of interest if a hospital consultant in the catchment area of the commissioning group were to be appointed. As a result of the listening exercise, what has happened is that a much stronger corporate governance structure is being put into place. What I do not understand is why the Home Office seems oblivious to what other departments are doing in relation to legislation or, for instance, to the changes in defence. It is difficult to see where there is any consistency of purpose.
Baroness Henig
My Lords, I have one amendment in the group, Amendment 228. Before I speak to it, I apologise in advance if I do not fully appreciate all the nuances of the amendments that the Government have laid. I was thinking about that in our debate on the previous amendment when the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, took us gently to task for not having appreciated how much the Government had moved on this. If the Government table amendments only the day before the debate, it makes it extremely difficult for those of us who, with the best will in the world, want to follow the changes, to do so in the short time available. As I said, I apologise if I have misunderstood some of the amendments. I have tried very hard to follow them, but it takes time for that knowledge to come across.
The amendment builds on the Government's welcome recognition that if we are to have commissioners covering very large areas—for example, 10,000 square kilometres or 2.3 million people—for 365 days a year, it is necessary for there to be a deputy. It is necessary just in case the individual does not have your Lordships’ stamina, or even if the commissioner might like to have a holiday.
On a less happy note, although a standards regime for commissioners and panels has been noticeable by its absence from the Government's plans, a deputy should be enshrined within the Bill as one step towards ensuring probity and preserving public confidence. That should be one element. For example, what would happen if a commissioner had to make a decision about contracts or appointments but had a personal or prejudicial interest in the companies or individuals concerned? In such circumstances, it would seem essential that they could call on a trusted deputy who could maintain public trust and confidence in the institution of commissioner if the individual had to stand aside for whatever reason. I can see the rationale behind that, and I am pleased that the Government have listened, taken those arguments on board and come back with a firm proposal to insert the provision for a deputy into the Bill.
At the same time, I feel I have to point out that the Government’s concept of the deputy and the job specification for it seem to me antithetical to the entire rationale for commissioners: that of democratic accountability. I listened earlier with great attention as the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne, in his usual inimitable style, laid out the great advance that we are now making towards democratic accountability. I understand the arguments, so I would expect to proceed beyond the commissioner to the deputy commissioner.
It seems odd to me that, despite pushing on with this reform and spending more than more than £100 million on introducing that direct democratic accountability into the oversight of policing, the only thing that we have heard so far is that the deputy commissioner is likely to be unelected—although I just heard that political restrictions will not apply, so that person could be a councillor. I had not appreciated that until the noble Baroness pointed it out. It is now conceivable that the deputy could be elected, but also very possible that they would not. With this direct accountability and great change, it would seem more logical to me if the deputy was elected.
I would find it difficult to find any logic in an elected commissioner handing over, for whatever reason, the bulk of their portfolio powers over policing and precept to someone who was not elected and perhaps not identified with a political party. If there is a theme running through this reform, we need to bolster it.
The main aim of my amendment is to ensure that when a commissioner is unable to act, whether because of illness, legal issues or whatever, their role should be covered by an elected acting person drawn from the panel and not by an unelected officer. That is my main concern. In a way, that is separate from the question of the deputy. There can be a deputy who is unelected. I am mainly concerned that when the commissioner is not acting, that role should be undertaken by someone who is elected.
I have to remind the Minister that there was great strength of feeling on that point in Committee, to which the Government have not entirely responded. They have responded a little by saying that the deputy might be elected but that they do not have to be. It is the “do not have to be” that worries me. The deputy could remain the deputy, but I would not want a non-elected individual dealing with a precept, for example, or a whole range of sensitive political issues and public concerns for what could be a period of many weeks. That would be totally against the central objectives of the Bill. That is what I am trying to get at; when a commissioner, for whatever reason, stands aside, the acting commissioner should be someone who was elected.
Under my amendment, it would be an elected member of the panel. I can see that there being an elected deputy might meet my concerns, but I am very sensitive to arguments that the deputies, given how they will be appointed, might be seen as cronies or pals of the commissioner. We need to look at that a little more closely. I did not altogether understand how the commissioners would choose the deputies. There are clearly issues about that appointments process, with people being seen to merit their appointment and not, in a sense, being appointed through jobs for the boys, cronyism or whatever. Perhaps I am sensitive on this matter because of my gender—I do not know—but it is a point that I feel I need to raise.
That is the purpose of my amendment. As I said, I am very interested to hear what the Government have to say, because their amendments have cut across my thinking to some extent but probably not fully.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 229, but it needs to be placed in the broader context of this group. The amendment relates to our view that a deputy should be a member of the panel and, in the context of that specific amendment, not a member of the commissioner’s staff.
If one looks carefully at Amendment 60 in this group, one will see that it gives a commissioner the power to appoint a person as the deputy for that police area and also for that deputy,
“to exercise any function of the police and crime commissioner”.
There is a very great difference between our view that the person appointed as the deputy should be from the panel and Amendment 60, which gives absolute power to the police and crime commissioner to appoint a deputy to exercise any function of the commissioner.
In Amendment 6 a number of restrictions then apply, most of them welcome. Proposed new paragraph 7A(4) is surprising. It tells us:
“Section 7 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 (appointment of staff on merit) does not apply to the deputy police and crime commissioner”.
That is an unfortunate way of putting it because it relates to a statutory provision. However, should we not have deputies who are appointed on merit, as opposed to people who are not appointed on merit? Nevertheless, there is then a proposal in proposed new paragraphs 7B, 7C and onwards for the scrutiny of senior appointments, one of which is the deputy, the others the chief executive and chief finance officer, and there is a process for a hearing in public of the person whom the commissioner wishes to appoint as deputy. However, proposed new paragraph 7E says:
“The police and crime commissioner may accept or reject the panel’s recommendation”,
and sub-paragraph (2) of that paragraph states:
“The police and crime commissioner must notify the panel of the decision whether to accept or reject the recommendation”.
In other words, a proposal is made to the panel and the panel will go through a process. It will comment and report in public, but the commissioner can turn down its view. Therefore, broadly speaking, we are now where we were before with absolute power being given to the commissioner. I have great reservations about that.
Proposed new subsection (2A) in Amendment 63 on page 15 of the Marshalled List says that the deputy police commissioner, having been appointed by the commissioner,
“may arrange for any other person to exercise any function of the police and crime commissioner which is, in accordance with subsection (A1)(b), exercisable by the deputy police and crime commissioner”.
There are restrictions in the amendment largely on the functions that are prescribed. A number of key functions are restricted; nevertheless, a number of functions still exist for the deputy.
Baroness Henig
As regards my amendment, I remain puzzled that the Government have not seen fit to move in this area. When this matter was discussed in Committee, a large number of reasons were put forward by Members on all sides of the House as to why it was a bad idea for an acting commissioner to be an unelected member of staff. I do not think that we heard any convincing reason—I cannot remember one anyway—as to why a member of staff should be asked to act up in this way for what could be a period of months. This is an obvious area where a concession could have been made with little difficulty but I am surprised that it has not been. I reserve the right to come back to my amendment at the relevant point.
Baroness Henig
“7A A police and crime commissioner must abide by regulations made by the Secretary of State in respect of the appointment of persons to paid office or employment and the dismissal of persons holding such office or employment and the taking of other disciplinary action against such persons.”
Baroness Henig
I will try to squeeze Amendment 7 in before the dinner break; I have on occasion been caught quite badly in this situation but I hope that this is a relatively short amendment. This important amendment relates to a commissioner’s senior staff. All of us have said that commissioners will need to be supported by an effective team of staff to be effective; that is, a chief executive and a chief finance officer. These posts carry statutory responsibilities, which are the same as in local authorities. The chief executive will also have the role and duties of monitoring officer.
Clearly, these duties are very important. In the case of the monitoring officer, it is a duty which applies if any proposal, decision or omission by the commissioner appears by the officeholder to be a contravention of any enactment, rule of law or code of practice made or approved by or under any enactment. Therefore, an officeholder might have to tell the commissioner that there is a problem and seek to persuade him to take a different approach. In extremis, the duty would require the post holder to report in public on a failure to follow that advice.
This does not happen often and I would not want to pretend that it did. Most politicians do not attempt to break the law and certainly do not attempt to pursue a specific course of action when they have been told that it is illegal. However, these things have happened in the past with elected mayors, and elected commissioners in some ways are an extension of elected mayors. It has to be said that the experience of recently elected mayors is not all tremendously positive. I believe that the Minister, who has passed Doncaster several times on his travels, alluded to one area where there have been difficulties. Therefore, it is important that the arrangements put in place through this Bill are sufficiently robust to deal with such a situation because we know that there will be problems. We can anticipate that there will be problems and, therefore, we need to plan for that.
In local government, the duties which apply to the head of paid service, the monitoring officer and the chief finance officer are backed up with a statutory framework to prevent their dismissal on a whim by a politician. The framework in a mayoral authority is that the mayor raises concerns of a disciplinary nature and a politically balanced panel considers whether there is a case for action. If the panel decides that there is a case, an independent person investigates and disciplinary action in line with the recommendations of the independent person takes place.
Therefore, a conversation which starts, “I'm afraid you can't do that, commissioner”, could not end with “You're fired”, because the officeholder could insist, under threat of legal injunction or judicial review, that the correct procedure is followed. Because in a local authority the head of paid service is protected and all other staff are employed by that person, the framework provides a measure of protection for all employees. My amendment mirrors Section 8 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989, which is the statutory basis for the protection which applies in local government. It does not require that the framework in local government is mirrored precisely but it requires the Home Secretary to publish regulations and requires commissioners to follow them. It is therefore for Ministers to come forward with an approach to set a clear framework that needs to be followed.
I am anticipating that the Minister may say that chief executives and treasurers will be subject to the same protection as other employees; that the commissioner will be bound by the need to act reasonably, as are all public bodies; and that, therefore, the statutory protections to which I have referred do not add a lot more value and are unnecessary. My worry is that that would not fulfil the requirements for which I am looking because it would allow a commissioner to summarily dismiss someone and leave them to argue their case at an employment tribunal. The negative publicity of such a case could damage the commissioner, particularly if they do not intend to seek re-election. Again, that is an example of very limited checks and balances. Limited as they are, they could be undermined even further.
Those of us who have spent a long time in local government know the importance of good and honest advice from senior officers. I ask the question: would an elected commissioner listen to advice? Elected mayors have not always listened to the advice offered to them and, as a result, very serious situations have arisen. I do not believe that senior executives should be put in a position in which they could be summarily dismissed and then have to fight their corner at a subsequent employment tribunal. That is not right.
I am sure that these situations will arise. I am under no illusions. The sorts of people who will be elected as commissioners will be strong-minded and strong-willed individuals. Some of them might, dare I suggest, occasionally be a little pigheaded. I believe that they will always listen with wariness and will not always heed the advice that is given to them. When a senior executive says, “No commissioner, you can’t do that”, I do not have total confidence that the commissioner will accept that. I believe that senior staff will be vulnerable, which is the purpose of my amendment and why we should make sure that they have adequate legal protection.
I have listened carefully to the Minister, who said that the panel would certainly hear if the commissioner was going to dismiss a senior member of staff and might want to find out what was going on. I should like to know a bit more about the arrangements that she has in mind. I would like that arrangement not to be so loose and perhaps to have a bit more backing. For example, I think that, under one of the government amendments, the panel now needs to be consulted if the commissioner is considering dismissing the chief constable. I wonder whether it would be possible for them also to be involved if the chief executive or the treasurer were to be dismissed along the same lines. I am not looking for a very great change from the Government. I am looking for a step forward to recognise that these people could be vulnerable and to accept that they need a little more than the Government are preparing to give them at present. This is a serious issue.
Recent experience with mayors suggests that there will be some difficulties with directly elected commissioners. I believe that we need to think about those difficulties and do something for these senior staff. I do not think that it is fair to leave them to the whims of the commissioner. I beg to move.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, I hope that the Government will accept these amendments, which as my noble friend Lady Henig has said are designed to ensure that, in respect of appointments, dismissals and the taking of disciplinary action, police and crime commissioners and the Mayor’s Officer for Policing and Crime conform to laid-down standards to ensure openness and fairness in these key areas through abiding by regulations made by the Secretary of State. It would hardly be appropriate for there to be controversy over the practices and procedures adopted in relation to these crucial areas of management, since it would surely only detract from the trust and the confidence which it is vital that police and crime commissioners will need to establish with their forces and the public.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I recognise the concern for good governance in the broadest sense that lies behind these new amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, since the Committee stage to ensure that the PCC and the MOPC are bound by regulations set by the Secretary of State for managing the appointment and dismissal of staff, and how they should manage disciplinary action. The question of Doncaster has come up again. I can only add that for five years I was president of my party’s Yorkshire region, so I have a long acquaintance with the problems of Doncaster. However, problems with local politics in Doncaster existed long before the experiment of an elected mayor, and unfortunately that move has not resolved those problems. But let us be clear that no magic answers lie in changing institutions in order to solve some of the underlying problems in local politics we face around Britain.
The noble Baroness is concerned with the worst case analysis of what might happen and would like to supply belt and braces for every possible way through it. What I have to say on behalf of the Government is that of course we recognise that it is necessary for a standard to be set for the conduct of the police and crime commissioner and the staff attached. The Home Secretary shares that view, and that is exactly why she will state in the protocol that she expects all parties to abide by the principles of public life set out by the Nolan committee and the core principles of the Good Governance Standard for Public Services. Furthermore, the protocol she will issue, drafts of which I know that some noble Lords have already seen, will apply to every police and crime commissioner and chief constable in England and Wales. The staff and chief constables of each force are expected to have regard to the principles and spirit of that document. The police and crime commissioner will be held to account for ensuring this by the police and crime panel and by the public.
As to setting out a regulated appointments, dismissal and disciplinary process, these matters are well established in employment law and we argue that it is not necessary to replicate in this Bill what already exists. The PCC will no doubt be held to account for the way in which staff are appointed by the PCP, including the steps it takes to ensure fairness and diversity. Further, the PCP will scrutinise appointments to the crucial statutory posts by means of a confirmation hearing, as we have already set out in another amendment. Accordingly, while these amendments are well grounded in the position they take, as the noble Baroness has already anticipated, to us they seem unnecessary. I therefore ask her to accept the assurances the Government are providing and hope that she will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Henig
I have listened carefully to the Minister’s reply, but I must confess that I have not studied the protocol in great depth. I am reassured that if it covers this area—and since early this afternoon I think we have been given an assurance that there will be a mention of it on the face of the Bill—that will provide a basis for the provision of redress or assistance of some sort for senior executives who might feel that they are facing difficulties; let me put it that way. I also take heart from the reference to the police and crime panel. We are strengthening the panel incrementally and I believe that I can now see the circumstances where the panel would be able to find ways of asking the commissioner about difficulties with senior staff and perhaps being able to refer to difficult situations in order to get to the root of them. While I think there may be some ways around this, I am not totally satisfied. We could have dealt with this better, and I do not think that it would take that much to do so. However, I sense that I am not going to be able to persuade the Government to put more in the Bill. Having voiced my concerns and having been given a partial meeting towards what I am aiming at, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Baroness Henig Excerpts(14 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Henig
Baroness Henig
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 220ZA, 220ZB, 221B, 228B and 228C. These amendments can be split into two groups, though both parts seek to foster appropriate safeguards which will protect the public from the possible whims or vagaries of an individual commissioner exerting inappropriate influence over the police. The first group, Amendments 220ZA, 220ZB and 221B, seek to strengthen the idea of the strategic policing requirement or SPR—a concept supported across the House but one which many think needs to be strengthened to enable it to succeed.
First, my recollection is that the Policing Minister in the other place said in Committee there that a draft strategic policing requirement document would be available to Peers at Committee stage. There has been no mention of this document in discussions in your Lordships’ House thus far. Can the Minister tell us when we might expect to see that document? It is very important that we see it because it will set out the police’s approach to dealing with national and regional threats and help us to understand what the role of police governance needs to be at this level. At present, we are being asked to approve an approach in principle to legislation without being able to scrutinise the detail in this area, when we do not know what the national police landscape might look like. I hope that the Minister might be able to tell us a bit more about that document.
The strategic policing requirement is a crucial component of the changes proposed by the Government. Under a new regime of accountability, driven by a focus on public perception and visibility while constrained by cuts, that requirement could help to ensure that less visible cross-border and specialist policing functions are not neglected while issues such as antisocial behaviour predominate in planning and local police resourcing. Amendments 220ZA and 220ZB therefore propose practical changes that would ensure sufficient time elapses between the Home Secretary producing the SPR and each local policing and crime plan being finalised. The idea is that the timescale would help to ensure that the strategic policing requirement could be wholly and thoughtfully reflected through each force’s local planning, not as an afterthought but as the core consideration that it must be if the public are to be kept safe from what are commonly known as level 2 or protective service threats.
Amendment 221B goes further in embedding the worthy idea of the strategic policing requirement by making all the members of the panel have regard to it. It is hoped that this will assist in balancing the necessary tendency towards parochialism on the part of those with an explicit role to represent a certain area with the duty to have regard to the bigger picture. It could prove a useful factor in ensuring that resources sufficient to protect the public are devoted to less visible or immediate local areas of policing. Finally, on the strategic policing requirement, Amendment 221B makes sure that although the entire police and crime commission must have regard to it, it is the commissioner who must ensure that it is fully,
“incorporated within the police and crime plan”.
I believe this requirement on the commissioner to lead from the top in delivering the strategic policing requirement is an essential component in its success if neighbourhoods are not to be consigned to a postcode lottery of unfairly inequitable levels of local protection from serious threats, such as terrorism and cross-border crime or issues such as domestic violence. That is my first set of amendments.
The second pairing of amendments, Amendments 228B and 228C, relate to the functions of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary. We heard from the Minister at a much earlier stage in our deliberations about the importance of that inspectorate’s assessment of police authorities as one means of driving improvement. Noble Lords might recall that it was urgently necessary to change from the present structure because of the inspection results that had so far come forth. It is worth detouring here just a little, if I may, to meet these criticisms: I remind your Lordships that 22 out of 43 police authorities were inspected and not one failed either an Inspectorate of Constabulary inspection or an Audit Commission inspection. I recall that the same level of success has not been achieved by the Government in their departmental inspections, or even by local authorities. So police authorities did extremely well in these inspections because the vast majority of scores assessed their performances as more than adequate or doing well, and a number attained the rank of excellent. That, not surprisingly, was reflected in a recent YouGov poll undertaken for Liberty, which revealed that 65 per cent of the public, on a nationwide sample of more than 2,300, think that the present system of police accountability is serving them well and is preferable to that proposed by the Government.
Whatever the results of these inspections, everybody has agreed that they were important, rigorous and thorough. If they have revealed the case for change, then why on earth should they not be engaged to continue driving improvement and measuring the success or otherwise of the new system? It is by no means clear to me that the Government wish the inspectorate of constabulary to have any duty to inspect police commissioners as they propose to abolish the ability and, indeed, the duty on HMIC to inspect police authorities.
By this stage in our deliberations, I think I can anticipate the Minister’s reply. I might be wrong, but I think it will go along the lines of saying that a commissioner’s fundamental accountability is to their electors and it is these electors who should have the job of deciding whether the commissioner has done a good job. We have had the argument a number of times that if there are to be directly elected commissioners, they will be responsible to their electorate. Of course, this argument is dangerously flawed because it assumes that a commissioner will stand for re-election. Certainly, those commissioners in a second term will not, and even first-term commissioners might not. Where is the accountability then?
Every time we try to put a check or balance in place to rein in a commissioner, the response is always that that runs counter to the Government’s concept that in the last resort, were we to have a directly elected commissioner, they can be accountable only to their electorate. If you accept the logic of that model, it means that you cannot have any strict checks and balances because ultimately it will all be up to the electorate. Under that model, 43 individual party politicians deploying huge resources will be able to exercise fairly decisive and possibly capricious pressure on policing and on the force senior and divisional command teams.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, quite rightly reminded the Committee earlier, the coalition agreement wording refers to strict checks and balances by locally elected representatives. The model currently before the Committee—the one outlined in the earlier amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, which found favour with your Lordships—actually provides these strict checks and balances and does so much more effectively than anything else that the Government have so far come up with.
The amendment seeks to provide another check by restoring the requirement on HMIC to inspect police commissioners who will not just be spending public money but setting public budgets and priorities for the emergency service of last resort in every community. It is important that they should be able to allow any part of the police commission to call in the inspectorate to inspect itself or a component part of the commission, as it can for any part of the force. It is an essential requirement that these inspections should be allowable. I believe that these simple changes could make a world of difference to public trust and confidence in the new system, providing, as they would, requirements on all forces to address the fullest range of threats to the public and also to provide independent verification of the efficiency and efficacy of those charged with overseeing the police and their substantial budgets. I beg to move.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I have Amendments 223, 224 and 225 in this group. I support the amendments in the group that would extend the duties to observe the strategic policing requirement to commissioners, for the reasons of which the noble Baroness has reminded us and on which many noble Lords spoke powerfully on previous days. Perhaps I can summarise those reasons as being the temptation for the commissioner to play to the local gallery, which is one of the dangerous aspects of the politicisation of policing to which many of us referred. I share, too, the concern that the words “have regard to” are insufficient. The Constitution Committee put it tactfully, saying that,
“the Government must explain why”,
the wording “is sufficiently compelling”. Those of us whose natural inclination is to go local are concerned about this; it is quite significant. As we come to the end of Part 1 of the Bill, I shall mention the need for strict checks and balances again, even though these are of rather a different kind.
My first amendment, which proposes that,
“any matter within the functions of the Serious Organised Crime Agency”—
I am aware of yesterday’s statement—
“shall be deemed to be … a threat”,
within this provision, is intended to seek assurances from the Minister on the approach to the work that is currently within SOCA. I chose that wording because I did not want to single out one area of criminality above others. I have said this before in Committee. For example, the noble Lord, Lord Laming, referred on the second day of Committee proceedings to child protection. I acknowledged then its importance. He acknowledged that child and adult trafficking, for instance, are—I hesitate to say of equal importance—within the same category. My noble friend Lady Walmsley will speak to a specific amendment on this in a moment.
It might be worth mentioning a letter that I am sure other noble Lords will have received from the Howard League for Penal Reform as we approached Second Reading. It is certainly useful to realise that some of the points that we make over and again are not just ones that we have dreamt up but are of concern outside this House. The letter mentioned the concern that the proposed elected police and crime commissioners would find it,
“electorally enticing to run a campaign aimed at”—
the example it chooses—
“the easy arrest and detention of children, rather than devoting resources to crimes that appeal less to the local media or populace”.
The Howard League for Penal Reform reminds your Lordships about the large number of sentences imposed on children, whom it describes as,
“‘low hanging fruit’ which partly accounts for their … high arrest rates”.
In what it calls the,
“harsh world of electoral politics”,
it is right to remind us of the different parts of the jigsaw.
My Amendments 224 and 225 would change the second part of the definition of a national threat from one that,
“can be countered effectively or efficiently only by national policing capabilities”,
to one that “is most likely to” be countered effectively or efficiently by national policing capabilities. The wording in the Bill, as drafted, of,
“countered … only by national policing capabilities”,
seems too restrictive. One would not want to see an argument over whether that criterion was satisfied when common sense says that the likelihood is that a national policing capability is required with regard to the matter. They may look like two rather small and insignificant amendments, but I am concerned that this part of the definition is too narrow and too restrictive. I hope this is something that the Government might take away and think about again.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, most people here know a great deal more about this than I do, but we all know that there is a golden thread between local and international policing which is based, however one organises and restructures the forces, on a necessary degree of co-operation not only among police forces but also between police forces and a range of other agencies. The NCA will help to strengthen the national and international dimension of policing; it is an evolution of where SOCA has already taken us in this regard. We shall discuss this in great detail in due course when we bring forward the necessary legislation next year to establish the NCA. The NCA will be part of this balance, but it will not provide the sort of detailed direction which deprives local and regional forces of the flexibility which they need.
I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, raised a question about planning cycles and the strategic policing requirement. It is well understood that wherever possible one should issue a strategic policing requirement in order to fit in with the financial and other planning cycles of elected police bodies. The reason why flexibility is written into the Bill is that new threats or new events may happen between October and April which will require some changes to the strategic police priorities. That is why there is flexibility in the Bill in this regard. However, it is understood that, as far as possible, revisions in the strategic police requirement should fit in with the requirements and the cycles which local forces are going through.
Amendment 222 seeks to place a specific duty on the Home Secretary to identify national threats based on objective criteria and to draw up a strategic policing requirement based on those threats. We recognise the entirely honourable intention of this. It is absolutely proper for any Government to use an objective methodology to identify national threats for this purpose, but we think that the Bill as drafted, particularly in Clause 79, answers the case. These requirements require, not enable, the Home Secretary to set out national threats and the appropriate national policing capabilities to counter the threats as identified. Clause 79 also provides that the Home Secretary must obtain advice from representatives of chief police officers and of local policing bodies before issuing the strategic policing requirement.
I say to those who raised the issue of checks and balances that we understand that accountability is a process and not just an event. Checks and balances require a number of formal processes which are reinforced by the informal processes, which is why transparency and publication, particularly the publication of HMIC reports, is written into the Bill. The role of the police and crime panels, through scrutiny, is part of the continuing process of checks and balances. The role of HMIC is part of that continuing scrutiny and publication provides informal scrutiny through press comment and other less formal mechanisms. That is fully intended to be part of the Bill.
Liberal Democrat Amendments 223 and 225ZA raise the question of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. We are all aware that human trafficking in relation to children is a growing problem which requires national and international co-operation as well as co-operation at the local level. The strategic policing requirement is intended to focus on those areas where the threats and the criminal activity cross the borders of local police authorities. Where problems are within the boundaries of single police forces, they are not within the strategic policing requirement. The question of child trafficking is clearly a strategic policing issue. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre—I have great difficulty remembering what CEOP stands for—will be an important part of the NCA. It will be part of the evolution of SOCA into the NCA.
Amendments 224 and 225 have the collective effect of broadening the scope of the strategic policing requirement to include threats that can be countered effectively by local policing capabilities acting in isolation from other police forces. This would risk broadening the strategic policing requirement and taking us back to a situation in which the Home Secretary will issue more and more detailed instructions to local police forces. That is not our intention; we are trying to loosen the degree of central direction of local police forces.
There have been a number of useful discussions on the role of HMIC and whether HMIC inspections should be exactly timetabled. Again, we return to the question of whether we should have flexibility or absolutely require inspections once a year. We consider that the phrase “from time to time” strikes the right balance. It does not put inspections on a totally regular basis, but allows additional inspections from time to time. Local police commissioners may also invite HMIC to come in and inspect. HMIC will thus become more independent from government and more accountable to the public. Inspectors of constabulary will report for the benefit of the public rather than simply reporting to the Secretary of State, and a local policing body will have the power to request an inspection of its police force, supplementing the power of the Secretary of State to do so. These arrangements do not mean that HMIC will not have a programme funded by the Home Office. A programme of work will be approved by the Secretary of State, laid before Parliament and published by HMIC. This is a supplementary provision to enable local police bodies to invite inspectors in when they feel that it is desirable. The question of how often inspections should take place merely repeats existing legislation. I did not hear any noble Lord in the Chamber say that they were dissatisfied with the current pattern of HMIC inspections. Therefore, I suggest that the case has not been made for a change in the arrangement.
I hope that I have now answered all the points in this interesting and important debate. We will look again between Committee and Report at what was said in the debate. I have listened very carefully to what has been said and I hope that noble Lords will not press their amendments.
Baroness Henig
Perhaps I may ask about the draft strategic policing requirement document that I referred to.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
There were so many questions that I missed that point in my notes. My understanding of what was said in the Commons was that the draft protocol was to be published during the passage of the Bill. Several drafts of the strategic policing requirement have been written. They are undergoing extensive consultation and the Government are concerned that they get this right. This will take some time, but I assure the noble Baroness that the process is under way. I was warned that it was quite possible that a Member of this Committee would get up and wave her copy of the report, but perhaps Members of the Committee have not yet seen the drafts. I assure noble Lords that work is under way and that consultations are taking place.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
The strategic policing requirement is intended, among other things, to inform the inspectors on the sort of things that they should be looking at. We are all aware that the strategic policing requirement feeds into a range of discussions. The question of whether there is a division between local and national policing is one that begins to dissolve once you get into it. I had a fascinating briefing some while ago about traffic policing and the extent to which it has to be a co-operative activity between different forces. I had not thought it through before. There was a great deal of linkage all the way through. I am impressed by the extent to which our forces already co-operate in the sort of specialised units that the noble Lord talked about, outside London where there are many forces smaller than the Metropolitan Police. We will look at this and make sure that it is fully in the Bill.
Baroness Henig
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply and I thank all noble Lords who participated in the debate, which covered some serious and important issues. That is why we have gone on at such length; it was necessary to cover the topics that we did. I will start with the point about having regard to the strategic policing requirement. My concern is that having regard to something is fine: “Yes, I have had regard to it, Minister, and then I have gone and done something else”. That is not the same as being inspected against it. It is not a matter of balance, but of what happens in practice on the ground. The words “have regard to” will not make people who want to have local policing requirements as a very important part of their menu do anything other than that. Being inspected against it would be the really important measure. I found the arguments of my noble friend Lord Harris compelling when he talked of the national threats that face us and the way in which they cover the whole country. Judging by the way noble Lords listened to that part of the debate, there was a general sense across the House that what the noble Lord was talking about was likely to be the situation.
Baroness Hamwee
I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness, who has gone on to another point. Does she agree that it would be helpful if the Government could produce before the next stage a briefing on how the term “have regard to” has been interpreted in other contexts? Like the noble Baroness, I have a difficulty with it. However, if we are told that the courts have given it a greater importance and weight than she and I fear, that might be very useful.
Baroness Henig
I accept that point. If it is a legally backed concept that has a very clear set of conditions attached to it, it is a very different matter from the way that I have been interpreting it, so it would be useful to have that clarification.
On the timing of the issuing of the document, I hear what the Minister says about flexibility, and that is obviously important. However, part of me has a suspicion that documents are sometimes delayed for convenience rather than flexibility. We have known that in the past. Documents have not been available in a timely way, particularly when they have come from the centre. I wanted to emphasise the importance of forces getting the document as early as possible. I accept the flexibility issue provided that that is the cause of the delay, rather than convenience at the centre, which has sometimes resulted in documents appearing late.
I listened very intently as regards the inspections role. My concern with inspections is that they should not be optional. If they are optional, then the good commissioners will have them, because that is how they work, while those who need them are precisely the ones who will not ask. I listened intently, as I said, and I got the sense that the Minister is saying that inspections will carry on very much as they are now, which is exactly what I want to happen. If that is what he is saying then I am delighted. However, I have not found that in the Bill—perhaps I am not looking in the right place. If inspections of commissioners and commissions are to continue as they are now, I am very pleased, because I think that that is the right way forward.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I can reassure the noble Baroness that that is precisely the situation as we understand it.
Baroness Henig
I am very happy about that, in particular, but also about the other issues because there are going to be further discussions. In the light of what has been said, I am very happy to withdraw my amendment.
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Baroness Henig Excerpts(14 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Harris of Haringey
My Lords, I fear that in the course of this Committee I have not always been entirely helpful to the Government, so on this group of amendments I will do my very best to be as supportive as possible. I echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, about the choice between the supplementary vote and the alternative vote. I will not get into the merits of different voting systems as this House has already spent many happy hours doing that and the country has spent rather fewer happy hours doing the same. However, I should say that if the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, were to be passed, a further anomaly would be created for London, because the Mayor of London is elected on the supplementary vote system, while the person fulfilling police accountability in London would be elected on a different system, the alternative vote, from that in the rest of the country. I offer that in the spirit of trying to assist government Ministers in refuting arguments about amendments.
My main reason for speaking on this group is to support the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, in her Amendment 234ZZF. I suspect that this relates to something about which not a great deal of thought has been given in the drafting of the Bill, which ties the hands of an incoming MOPC in London, or an incoming policing and crime commissioner, commission or anything else outside the country. That is because the Government are saying that there is only one bite of the cherry and that the transfer of staff must take place before police authorities are abolished. That would be fine if we were talking about an extraordinarily long lead-in. It would perhaps allow time for much discussion and consultation. However, we are not talking about that.
If the Government get their way, the elections of policing and crime commissioners in the 41 areas outside London will take place next May. That presupposes that in all those areas the detailed work that the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, has described will have been concluded on time and that the Minister’s officials within the Home Office will have done it in sufficient time to provide the guidance that is spelt out in the Bill. I have, of course, enormous faith in civil servants in the Home Office, but I am conscious of the workload involved in saying exactly how this is to be done. If, as is the intention or aspiration, the arrangements change in London earlier than May 2012, it would mean doing all this work on an even shorter timescale in the largest police force in England and Wales. I am sure that everyone would do their very best to achieve it, but I am not convinced that the work would necessarily be completed in time for an order to be passed by the outgoing Metropolitan Police Authority by 30 September or any later date, if it is to go earlier than May 2012.
Even if it were possible to do this in practice, I have to ask the Government whether this is really their intention in the legislation. My understanding is that these new individuals are being created—the MOPC in London and the police and crime commissioners, or whatever we end up with, outside London in the rest of England and Wales—and you are then going to say to them, “Actually, it’s tough because all the staff you might want have been transferred already to the control of the chief officer of police”. I suspect that there will be some robust discussions about all this. There is the question of what sort of offices will be put around the MOPC and the PCCs outside London. There will be discussions as to which functions are properly the responsibilities of the MOPC or the PCC, and which functions are the responsibilities of the chief officer of police. Here is an arrangement whereby all those decisions will have been made by the time the MOPC comes into force or the elections for policing and crime commissioners—if there are any elections—have taken place in the rest of the country. I suspect that that is not what the Government want, and that any person elected as a police and crime commissioner outside London would want to make an assessment of the most appropriate balance to be struck and how that is to be done. At the moment, there is no provision to allow that to happen.
This simple amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, allows there to be, if necessary, a two-stage process. If in fact it is all terribly easy—if the difficulties I have identified do not exist, which I doubt, and it is obvious that all the differing candidates for police and crime commissioners in any locality are of the same mind as to exactly what office they want around them and it goes without saying that the Conservative Party candidate, the Labour Party candidate, and the Liberal Democrat candidate will have exactly the same vision of the shape of the office that they want to have around them in the PCC—it will be fine. In reality, I suspect that the Government are tying the hands of those in the new structures that they want to be so effective before they are even created.
That is why this simple amendment, which allows, if necessary, for a two-stage process or a staged process is extremely sensible.
Baroness Henig
I shall speak to Amendment 200A in this group, concerned with the Bill's proposal to grant the Secretary of State power to create criminal offences to regulate the conduct of elections for police and crime commissioners and any related irregularities. I have to observe that this is a diverse group. There seem to be a number of distinct issues contained in it. My amendment would, by removing the unfettered power of the Secretary of State to create new criminal offences, ensure that the power is exercised appropriately. By that, I mean by your Lordships' House and the other place. Although there may well be a need to create new criminal offences as a result of the Government’s proposed creation of a whole new set of elections and the novel introduction of direct rather than representative democracy as part of a reform package costing more than £100 million, such important steps should not be the preserve of statutes but should come before Parliament.
In this Session, we are following the lengthy debate on the Public Bodies Bill, perhaps in danger of exhausting the utility of the term “Henry VIII clause”, denoting the granting of open-ended powers to a Secretary of State in statute. With appropriate respect to His Majesty's memory, I fear that I must raise the not insubstantial spectre of that monarch before your Lordships yet again. Any proposal to grant the Secretary of State unfettered powers to create new criminal offences at whim in any area will strike many of your Lordships as, at the very least, inappropriate. However, when the power to create new offences is applied to procedures governing the people's exercise of their democratic mandate, such a new power might strike some of democracy’s most ardent defenders as a little chilling.
If new offences are to be created to regulate the brave new world of directly elected police and crime commissioners, surely those offences should be appropriately scrutinised and considered by Parliament.
Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill
Baroness Henig Excerpts(14 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Shipley
My Lords, in moving Amendment 81 I shall speak also to Amendments 88A and 89A. Essentially, these amendments are about a similar thing. They are about who consults whom and who co-operates with whom between the four bodies of the police and crime commissioners, the chief constables, the local police and crime panels and local authorities. Amendment 81 simply tries to make it clear that:
“Before making a crime and disorder reduction grant, the elected local policing body shall consult the relevant police and crime panel and shall have regard to its views”.
I hope that is felt to be a non-contentious proposal.
Amendments 88A and 89A seek to add, alongside paragraphs on obtaining the views of victims of crime, that the views of victims and witnesses should be secured on matters concerning the policing of the area. There is a view that witnesses are extremely dependent upon responsive and sensitive police support to keep them updated on investigations, prepare them for giving evidence in court and provide protection if there is any perceived danger to them. It would be a good thing if consultation about a plan did not take place just with victims of crime but also with those who might have witnessed those crimes. These three small amendments seek better ways of ensuring that consultation occurs and that witnesses and victims of crime or those who have received a crime reduction grant can all feel that due consultation on the process being followed has taken place before decisions are made.
Baroness Henig
My Lords, first I declare an interest as a former chair of a police authority, a former chair of the Association of Police Authorities and the current president of the Association of Police Authorities. I wish to speak to Amendments 83ZZA, 83C, 85B, 92AA and 167ZA in this group. As the previous speaker said, I hope that my amendments are also considered non-controversial as they are extremely important. They are a constructive attempt to ensure that the Bill helps to deliver effective public consultation on policing and build on the strong relationship between police authorities and local crime and disorder reduction partnerships; and on our knowledge, after a dozen years or so, of what works best at local level in terms of co-operation between different policing bodies.
I believe that effectiveness is most likely to result from arrangements that are transparent and co-ordinated between different agencies and that make a meaningful link between neighbourhoods and the strategic force level. Amendment 83ZZA sets out to ensure that the local policing body works as effectively as possible with the local crime and disorder reduction partnerships and community safety partnerships. This amendment would remedy the Bill’s proposal to break the link which exists under the current arrangements between those local crime reduction co-ordinating bodies and the strategic level of the police authority.
In many ways the Bill builds on the innovation of crime and disorder reduction partnerships that were introduced almost 15 years ago, with their simple premise that tackling crime and disorder requires the concerted insight and action of a range of local public, private and third-sector agents. I was very surprised to find that, in trying to join up agencies concerned with crime, the Bill does not carry forward the requirement on the strategic policing oversight body to play a full role in local crime and disorder reduction partnerships. There are countless examples of these local crime and disorder reduction partnerships and CSPs providing a crucible within which creative solutions to local crime problems have been found. It would be senseless for the strategic policing body not to have an effective two-way channel of communication with such a body. I chaired my own local crime and disorder reduction partnership for six years from 1999 to 2005 and I know what an important body it can be in working to reduce crime locally, and the importance of having links directly from the crime and disorder partnership at local level through to the strategic policing body. That is what my amendment seeks to bring about.
I will not repeat the concerns voiced by many noble Lords that a single police and crime commissioner would be too remote from communities spread across literally hundreds of miles in areas such as that of which the Minister has exemplary knowledge, the Devon and Cornwall force area, or the 2.4 million people within Greater Manchester. Meaningful links between the members of the panel and the local crime and disorder reduction partnerships or community safety partnerships can help to bridge the gap and tackle perceptions of remoteness. Panel members being on these partnerships at local level can ensure that the strategic oversight of the police is not excluded from but can be influenced by, and benefit from, the insight of local partners working together to tackle crime. As I have said, I hope that this is non-contentious. To me it is common sense.
Baroness Henig
Does the Minister accept that the problem here is that, as his comment suggests, the role of the police and crime panel is simply to review the actions of the police and crime commissioner? If that is the case, all the problems that we have identified will follow. Will the Minister look at this again? This is a completely inadequate role for the police and crime panels. They need to work with the police and crime commissioner and to have some responsibilities at local level. If that is acceptable, they could liaise with the panels, as we have been suggesting, and there would not be a problem. The problem is the Government’s hang-up that police and crime panels can only scrutinise the commissioner and do nothing else. That is the issue that would facilitate more sensible discussion.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I recognise that throughout the rest of today we will discuss the relationship between the PCP and the PCC, and the relationship that the police and crime panel has with all the other agencies. The Government are certainly prepared to look at that again to make sure that that we get this right, as it is very important. However, we also recognise that practice, as well as statutory requirements, will make a great deal of difference to how this new model works. We have to make sure that PCPs and PCCs work together.
On whether the police commissioner is required to have public meetings, the PCP and the police commissioner will have public meetings together. It will be perfectly acceptable—indeed, desirable—for the police and crime commissioner to invite the chief constable to accompany her to public meetings with the police and crime panel, and that that will become part of the pattern. Again, how far that should be on the face of the Bill is something we need to consider further, but we are happy to talk off the Floor between Committee and Report on the precise role which these will have.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
It is certainly not the Government’s intention that they should not appear in public. Incidentally, I am not aware that the precise current relationship between the police authorities and chief constables is written down in as much detail as some of the amendments might suggest. Some time ago I asked a chief constable how often he spoke to the chair of his police authority, and he replied that he did so on most working mornings. That is good practice, not a legal requirement. Chief constables speaking at public meetings, to community safety partnerships and so on again is regular, normal and desirable practice, and we hope and intend that it will continue to operate.
Baroness Henig
My Lords, I want to address the issue of crime figures being provided at divisional as well as force level. I am sure that this is completely uncontentious in that it is simply common sense that people would want those figures to be provided at both levels. However, the Minister has not mentioned it, so I wonder whether he could say a word about it.
Baroness Henig
“( ) A local policing body is to appoint a member of the police and crime panel to sit on each crime reduction partnership or community safety partnership within its police area to ensure that the functions of the local policing body set out in subsection (1) are exercised effectively.”
Baroness Henig
The Minister said that the Government were anxious that everything should be seen to be thought through. None of the provisions seems to have been thought through at the local level. They have been thought through at force level but not at local level. The Minister said that the Government wanted things to be transparent and visible at all levels, but it is at the local level that they are not. Like the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, I hope that the Minister will take away this matter and look at it again. I detect a degree of rigidity here. I felt that I was putting forward suggestions that were eminently sensible and tried to improve the structure. We continually hear back references to structures that are clearly not workable. We are trying to improve the model, but I sense all the time rigidity and reluctance to accept any changes whatever. I regret that that is the case, but I am sure that the Minister is sincere in saying that he will take the matter away and look at it. He really needs to do that, otherwise the provisions will not have been thought through, which will have serious repercussions at local level. Although I shall not move my amendment at this stage, I reserve the right to bring back some of these issues on Report, because, so far, we have not had sensible answers to some of the serious issues being raised.
Baroness Henig
I shall speak to Amendment 116ZA and, briefly, Amendment 122A. We have heard a lot about checks and balances in the debate thus far and this is my attempt to provide some of them in relation to police budgets. Again, while we have heard that people want checks and balances, every time one suggests some, one is given a whole sheaf of reasons why they are not appropriate in that case. I hope that there might be some sympathetic view, at least on police budgets, that checks and balances are required here and that what is being put forward has some sense to it. Amendment 116ZA proposes that the panel must consider not only the bald, simple figure of the proposed precept but, in a timely manner, an appropriate level of detail about the proposed budget—what the precept is to be spent on.
Put simply—this relates to a point that the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, made on the previous group of amendments—how can the panel fulfil its duty to scrutinise and shape the precept, drawing on its own local public consultations and knowledge, and to make sure that it will meet local expectations if the panel is not told how it is to be spent? In other words, you need information to be able to carry out that scrutiny role. When it comes to life's fundamentals or even the simplest purchasing, do we not all start out by identifying the very basics of what we need before working out how much we shall spend? Yet the Bill proposes that the panel should consider only the overall amount to be spent, rather than what is needed and what it should be spent on. Frankly, this seems a not very sensible way to conduct the scrutiny of budgets of many millions of pounds within a total national policing spend of something over £12 billion a year.
Let us be clear: the panel is there to provide scrutiny in some detail. It is not there to provide a rubber stamp for generalisations or headline figures. While the level of precept is of course of enormous influence and importance, and will rightly command significant space in the local press, what is as important in policing terms is the detail of what that money is to be spent on. If the panel is not equipped to engage with this level of detail, it is in danger of being consigned to being little more than a forum for the exchange of generalities and political knockabout.
I hope that the Minister will forgive me for saying that police authorities and recent surveys have demonstrated that the public want not a single commissioner dictating a budget according to his or her preferences but a broadly based range of local people, with the skills and experience of a range of communities across the force area, who can shape the police budget and priorities according to the needs of the public—particularly in local terms. We have spoken many times about the near impossibility of a single politician providing an effective funnel for the needs of vast and differing communities across the widest police force areas. That is why the panel is so important, being drawn from each district or subsection of the force area. The panel members will bring their local perspective to bear on strategic decisions and there are no more strategic decisions than on the budget and the precept, matching resources to evidenced needs.
Incidentally, noble Lords here will attest from personal experience that, far from the London experience providing a test bed for the single-commissioner model where, it is claimed, one mayor provides an exemplar for the proposed solo police and crime commissioner, London’s 23-member police authority seems in fact to be an excellent example of how a panel can complement the strategic force-wide view of the commissioner, providing a golden-thread link from the cul-de-sac to City Hall. That is an example that we already have. It is crucial that a diverse multi-member body engages with the detail of the proposed budget.
Let us be clear: right now, every subdivision within the force area has a local link member on the police authority who can constructively influence the force budget with knowledge of the public’s policing priorities for their local area. Authority members can ensure—and, under my amendment, so could panel members—that the budget is fit to address local objectives within the police and crime plan. If the Bill is not amended by your Lordships, this meaningful local influence will be lost because the panel will have no say over the detail of the budget—how it is divided and spent—but will have influence only over the overall size of the public purse. In these days of austerity we know only too well that how the contents of the public purse are spent is just as important as the overall size of the budget.
Subsection (4) of my amendment makes explicit reference to the need for the draft budget to explain how the commissioner proposes to ensure that the budget is effective and efficient. Efficiency and effectiveness are two requirements currently at the heart of police authority oversight of budgets—to considerable success, it should be said. Authorities have delivered on every efficiency target set by central government and, while there is much more to do, they continue to drive innovation in collaboration and procurement, which fosters efficiency. I am puzzled about why now, of all times, amid unprecedented budget cuts in peacetime, the Government should consider dispensing with the simple, highly efficient and effective maxim that budgets must be efficient and effective, which is why I suggest putting it back in again.
In Amendment 122A, I am proposing a majority vote rather than a vote of two-thirds. That is what I am used to in local government. The only reason for two-thirds, or, originally, three-quarters, was the model that the Government set up. I have already indicated that I think that is a very poor model; it is not very workable and will not be effective. A half—or a half plus one; I could be pushed to that—is a much more normal majority in terms of local government. It is what I am used to, it is how local government works and I see no reason why we should depart from it.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, we heard at Question Time that the House gave considerable support to an issue about cheques, in a different context. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and my noble friend Lady Henig have again raised the issue of checks in the context of checks and balances—that is, other than bank balances. My amendments to Schedule 5— Amendments 116A, 117A, 117B, 121A and 121B—are intended to complement those proposed by the noble Baronesses. I entirely adopt and endorse what they say about the need for the budgetary process to be a proper process, not simply a matter in which the precept is determined.
I make no apology for once again reminding your Lordships that 11 per cent of council tax in England and 15.5 per cent in Wales goes on policing, a significant proportion of local taxation. My initial amendment is in the interests of transparency to make it clear who is levying what on local taxpayers, rather than for a combined precept to be issued, which many will assume is the entire responsibility of the billing authority—that is, the local council.
There is another aspect to this that will arise when we come to discuss the Localism Bill. I have to say that the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill is a model of brevity, clarity and simplicity compared with the Localism Bill, which we will begin to debate tomorrow. The latter Bill contains a difficult provision in this context, because it provides for a compulsory referendum to be held if the Secretary of State deems an increase, either by a local authority or by a police commissioner, to be excessive. It will be a little difficult, I suspect, for a local authority if its precept is deemed acceptable by the Secretary of State but the police precept is not. If it is all in one bill, one can see complications arising. There would have to be a referendum on the part of the bill that people are expected to pay, which would presumably hold up payment of the rest of the bill. There are practical as well as philosophical reasons for separating the two precepts. That is the object of the first amendment.
The other amendments deal with the process of determining what the precept should be. They go beyond the Bill’s present proposal, which is simply that the commissioner—assuming there is one—notifies only the panel of the proposed precept, without notifying, or apparently being under any obligation to consult, the local authorities about it. As many of your Lordships have pointed out, policing is not a stand-alone service. It is intimately connected, if it is to be effective, with the other services of a local authority. For that matter, the totality of the fiscal burden to be placed on the local community has to be looked at as well, and judgments made about the balance between different heads of expenditure. It is entirely appropriate, therefore, that local authorities should be involved in discussing the proposed police precept. This provision and the subsequent amendment, which requires the commission to have regard to those representations made by local authorities, will, I hope, deal with that. It is remarkable that there is no obligation on the police commissioner or commission to take account of representations made by local authorities in the relevant area.
The next amendment deals with the power of the panel to veto or amend the proposed precept. The previous amendments referred merely to the veto. I would be very comfortable with a smaller majority, as proposed by the noble Baronesses, of 50 per cent plus one, as opposed to two-thirds. There is a hierarchy of preference here. The least desirable is the 75 per cent in the Bill; slightly more desirable is the two-thirds proposed here. The ideal would be 50 per cent plus one, but it is perhaps sensible to have a fall-back position against the remote contingency that the Government might not be entirely happy with 50 per cent plus one. They may be slightly more sympathetic towards the middle position. However, the major feature of this is the proposal that the panel should be able to amend, rather than simply veto—and therefore presumably freeze the whole budgetary process—the recommendation of the commissioner. I see no reason why there should be no power to amend. It would be more efficient than renegotiating the whole process of a budget.
Taken together, the amendments in my name would make the situation more transparent from the point of view of the taxpayer and more efficient in the involvement of local government in the process. Indeed, it would be both more transparent and more efficient in terms of the proposed role for the panel.
Baroness Henig
Baroness Henig
In moving this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendments 101B and 101C, Amendments 234ZZA to 234ZZE and Amendments 234R and 234S. I find myself at a bit of a disadvantage in that some of the amendments in this group are consequential, arising out of another group of amendments dealing with chief officer appointments, suspensions, professional standards and dismissals. The explanation of their effect will therefore be disconnected from the main body of the debate but I will outline their effect briefly and perhaps refer back to them when we come to the appropriate group.
Amendments 101A to 101C revise the proposals in the Bill in relation to the delegation of functions by police and crime commissioners. They would enable a police and crime commissioner to delegate functions to a police officer and to another local policing body—I will explain shortly why I think that this is necessary. They would also enable the appointment, suspension and removal of chief officers to be delegated to police and crime panels in certain circumstances, which are set out in a separate group of amendments that we shall come to later.
Amendments 234ZZA to 234ZZE deal with redefining the meaning of local policing bodies and elected local policing bodies in the interpretation part of the Bill. They would include police commissions in this definition rather than police and crime commissioners, as currently drafted. That would, of course, affect the use of these phrases throughout the Bill.
Amendments 234R and 234S affect Schedule 16 by reamending the changes set out in the schedule to the Police Reform Act 2002 dealing with chief officer appointments and like matters. As I mentioned, these are the subject of a separate group of amendments that I shall bring forward. The Bill as drafted removes the definition of “senior officer” and replaces it with “chief officer” in relation to the roles of local policing bodies in appointments and removals. My amendments would effectively revert back to the current position whereby the local policing body appoints all ACPO-rank officers, not just the chief officer.
I believe that my amendments in relation to the delegation of functions by the police and crime commissioner are important. Noble Lords will recall that, on the previous day in Committee, I argued that chief officers should not be corporations sole. I am not going to go over those arguments again but, if they are not to be separate corporations, some other mechanism is needed by which they can be given responsibility for the day-to-day management of police finances and other matters by the governing body. This would make it essential to be able to delegate functions to chief officers. At the moment, the police and crime commissioner cannot do this because the Bill specifically prohibits functions from being delegated to a constable. A chief officer may be a very grand constable, but he is none the less a constable and, as the Bill stands, cannot have police and crime commissioner functions delegated to him or her. As a matter of general principle, this prohibition lacks flexibility, as there may be other functions that the police and crime commissioner might want to delegate that can be more effectively carried out by the force than by the local policing body. As a specific matter in relation to the delegation of budgetary management, such delegation would be essential if the chief officer is not to be a corporation sole. I am, if you like, outlining alternative means.
My next amendment would remove the prohibition on delegating functions to another local policing body. This is intended to be used within the context of collaboration where it is currently not possible to formulate a lead authority model of collaboration—that is, where one authority deals with a particular collaboration agreement or a particular aspect of collaboration on behalf of other authorities. The Bill would continue this prohibition into the new model of police governance. That means not only that every collaboration agreement has to be signed by every party to it, but also that every one has to be managed by every party to it. This will greatly increase bureaucracy, so it would streamline the processes if one governing body was able to manage an agreement on behalf of the others. My amendment would enable this to happen. That seems a matter of common sense and good management practice, as well as a way of reducing the burden of administration in difficult financial times.
I suspect that the Minister sympathises with the desire to reduce bureaucracy but will tell me that this would be tantamount to abrogating responsibility for collaborative matters. He may also say that it could be used to abrogate responsibility for other types of functions, which could be disastrous. I do not think so. As I think I have mentioned, a delegation agreement is a tightly drawn document which is very specific about what functions can be delegated, in what circumstances and to what extent. It is not a casual carte blanche. However, if the Committee thinks that there are loopholes, I would be happy to consider putting conditions around this to ensure that it could be used only in the context of collaboration agreements, which is the intention of the amendment.
The third amendment in this group is effectively a consequential amendment to those on chief officer appointments, which fall in a different group to be debated later. It would bring consistency to an amendment that I am going to propose in that group, which is that in certain circumstances, where the police and crime commissioner has a conflict of interest in appointing, disciplining, suspending or dismissing the chief officer, the police and crime panel or police commission may undertake this function.
My next five amendments relate to earlier changes voted on by this House to create police commissions. They would change the definition in the interpretation part of the Bill so that the phrases “local policing body” and “elected local policing body” became synonyms for police commissions rather than police and crime commissioners. This would have a significant effect on the entire Bill and I hope that it more accurately reflects the intentions of this House in relation to the role of police commissions. The commissions having been created, the amendment would give them a significant role in police governance and funding throughout the Bill. Police commissions comprise both the police and crime panels and the police and crime commissioner, so giving effect to the more collaborative approach to police governance that I believe the original amendment intended. I know that time is short today and I shall not elaborate every area of the Bill that the amendment would affect, but I note in passing that, in my view, it would not affect the arrangements set out in the Bill in relation to London.
As previously noted, the final amendments in my name are effectively consequential on the group of amendments dealing with senior officer appointments. They would ensure that the local policing body retained police authorities’ current responsibility for appointing, disciplining, suspending and dismissing all police officers of ACPO rank—that is, assistant and deputy chief constables as well as chief constables. The Bill proposes that chief constables take this role in relation to deputy chief constables and assistant chief constables. I shall not take the time now to set out my arguments about why I believe that this is a mistake, but I shall certainly do so under a later appropriate group of amendments. Meanwhile, I beg to move.
Baroness Harris of Richmond
I support the amendments put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Henig. If many of us in the Committee are concerned about the unfamiliar concept of corporations sole and giving this status to chief officers, it makes absolute sense to look at alternative approaches. I would support an amendment that allowed a PCC to delegate certain functions for the management of police budgets and related issues to a chief officer.
I have been concerned in the past about the way in which collaboration agreements and arrangements work. I fondly recall putting forward some amendments about exactly that while the House was considering the then Policing and Crime Bill two or three years ago. They suggested that a police authority should be allowed to delegate certain responsibilities for managing collaboration agreements to another police authority, which is currently prevented. I complained at the time that this made managing better collaboration unnecessarily bureaucratic and burdensome. The same argument applies to PCC functions for managing collaboration agreements. I strongly support the amendments.
I also congratulate the noble Baroness on her amendments to the interpretation part. They are exactly the sort of thing that is required to give force to the more collaborative approach to police governance that I intended by my amendment creating police commissions. Amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, suggest that a PCC and a panel should share responsibility for handling of force complaints and conduct matters. I support that, but the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, goes just that little bit further.
I am also happy to support the other amendments in this group to which the noble Baroness has spoken. However, as many of them relate to ACPO-rank appointments and complaints, and a later grouping deals with these matters, I shall speak in more detail at that stage.
Baroness Henig
It seems that the Government are tying themselves more and more into knots. One reason for that is the uni-dimensional nature of the model. If everything has to go through commissioners, you will get more and more problem areas, as we have already identified, and we are not going to get a very rational model. I was pleased to hear that the Minister was able at least to attend his allotment. I have to tell him that my garden has recently been very neglected. One reason for that is because I find it inconceivable that this present coalition wants to turn the clock back 15 or 20 years where policing is concerned and is not prepared to build on policing best practice, which is actually there, up and down the country, as we speak. The Government are apparently not prepared to learn the lessons of the past two or three decades either, so I have felt it necessary to neglect my garden and to try to do everything that I can to improve this Bill. If that means tabling detailed amendments, so be it. I feel that I have to try and I know that others feel the same about trying to make this model work. It can work only if we all collaborate on tweaking it in different ways to make it work. A lot of really sensible suggestions have been made that would improve this Bill enormously, and I am sad, but not surprised, that the Government have so far shown no real interest in listening to anything that any of us have had to say. I heard the Minister say that he was going to take this away, and I appreciate that. I am sure he will do that, but I would like a little more give in this.
There are people in this Chamber who have spent decades in policing and really understand how policing works, not just at force level but at local level. I get the sense that all that knowledge is actually being treated with contempt. People do not really want to hear about it or to know what works. They say: “There is this model and we are going to stick to it, come what may”. Those of us who have experience and want to say, “Look, this or that may not work. Have you considered the alternative?”, might as well save our voices. I feel that we cannot do that because we owe it to people out in the country to say, “This has worked; this won't work”. We have to continue to do that although, as I say, I have the sense that we are not really getting very far and are not being listened to. While I am therefore willing to withdraw my amendment at this point, I think that many of us will return to a lot of these matters on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Henig
“( ) Every police and crime panel shall have 15 members.
( ) Schedule 6 has effect in relation to the membership and composition of police and crime panels.
( ) A police and crime panel has—
(a) the functions conferred by this section; and(b) the functions conferred by this Act and other enactments.( ) The police and crime panel for an area must—
(a) co-operate with the police and crime commissioner for that area;(b) appoint a police and crime commissioner by majority vote of all the members of the police and crime panel from amongst the members of the police and crime panel at an annual general meeting or emergency general meeting of the Police Commission;(c) appoint co-opted members of the police and crime panel in accordance with Schedule 6;(d) assist the police and crime commissioner in the discharge of all matters over which the panel has a power of veto;(e) agree decisions by majority vote in relation to all such matters;(f) review and scrutinise decisions made or other actions taken by the relevant police and crime commissioner, and make recommendations or reports to that police and crime commissioner about the discharge of his functions.( ) The police and crime panel for an area must in particular—
(a) monitor the delivery of police and crime plans and police performance at local and divisional level;(b) engage with and consult the public at a neighbourhood and local level to ascertain their views about policing and crime;(c) nominate one or more of its members to answer questions at meetings of the local authority or local authorities within its police area.”
Baroness Henig
My Lords, I shall also speak to Amendments 123D, 124A, 135A, 135B, 137A, 137B and 138A to 138F in this group. Amendment 122AB sets out new proposals in relation to the composition of police and crime panels and sets out overarching functions of the panels. Amendment 123D would remove references to Schedule 6, because this is referred to in my Amendment 122AB. Amendment 124A would radically revise the current Schedule 6 to make new detailed proposals about the membership of police and crime panels. The remaining amendments in my name are consequential amendments to Part 4 of Schedule 6, which deals with general provisions about police and crime panels.
In an effort to save time and not go on too long, I will not address every provision in these amendments, but I will make some key points. For me, these amendments go to the heart of making the police and crime panel or the police commission into an effective body. By that I mean a body which does not just confine its activities to scrutinising the police and crime commissioner but which collaborates with him or her and has real powers and responsibilities in terms of local policing. If we are serious in our wish to have strict checks and balances in place, these amendments will help to create them; that is their purpose. They also flesh out the police and crime panel or police commission and make them more businesslike and cohesive, as well as an essential collaborative body with the police and crime commissioner.
What should the key functions of a police and crime panel be? To save time, I will not deal with every change that I propose, but some key points need to be made. A number of the new functions that I have outlined deal with the more collaborative approach between the police and crime commissioner and the panel, which is predicated on the creation of a commission. In particular, there is an obligation on the panel to co-operate with the police and crime commissioner, which mirrors a similar obligation that I have suggested should be placed on the police and crime commissioner. There is also a provision that the panel should assist the police and crime commissioner in discharging his or her functions.
I have also suggested that the panel should have a particular role in monitoring police performance at divisional level and in engaging with communities at a local level. That plays to the strengths of involving local councillors in policing governance. This is absolutely essential if the panel is to provide checks and balances on the work of the police and crime commissioner and to complement their activities. In my opinion, the police and crime panel is best placed to deal with divisional and local policing and to collaborate with local councils. The panel is much better placed than a police and crime commissioner, who is responsible for the whole police area at a strategic level. It is the panel members, rather than the commissioner, who are best placed to get involved in local issues. In my view this should include not just engagement, but also an element of oversight of police performance and delivery at a local level.
That would also be consistent with the more supportive approach to the relationship between the panel and the commissioner. Panel members could bring concerns about local engagement or police performance to the attention of the police and crime commissioner, to escalate if necessary. I do not understand this concept that there has to be a commissioner and that is an end to it—that anything else would dilute this revolutionary new concept. I am sorry, but if we really want effective policing, there has to be engagement at local level that is collaborative with what the commissioner is doing. I do not see why a police and crime panel cannot provide that level of input into local policing and then collaborate with the commissioner. I do not understand why that model is regarded as not valid, while the commissioner doing everything is regarded as a valid model. I hope that the Minister can perhaps explain that to me, because I do not fully understand it at the moment.
On the make-up of the police and crime panel or the police commission, I am concerned that the current proposals in the Bill are not strict enough in ensuring that the political balance of the whole police area is reflected in the make-up of the panels. To address this, I have borrowed the wording that is currently used to regulate the political balance of police authorities. The effectiveness of this has been well tried and tested. Police authorities have worked effectively for 15 years and their members have operated very well across party lines because of the provision in the 1996 Act. It is important that police bodies should not operate in party-political ways. They can be political, but they should not be party-political.
One reason why many of us in this Chamber can work effectively on policing issues across party lines is that we are used to doing so in police authorities and in some areas of local government as well. We do not find it surprising that we should be able to work with Members from other parties on policing issues. That has been a huge strength of police authorities in the past 15 years. This goes to the heart of the arguments about politicising policing. My amendment is an attempt to ensure that a panel—and, by extension, a police commission—cannot be entirely dominated by one political party.
That is also important because if the end result of this Bill is a directly elected police commissioner, there will be a tendency in different parts of the country for one of two things to happen. The first is that, in some parts of the country, the panel could be packed with political opponents of a commissioner, which could lead to a state of constant warfare between the commissioner and the panel, making any proper governance of the force a daily struggle. The other tendency could of course be the opposite: a panel is packed with people of the same political persuasion as the police and crime commissioner. Here the temptation will be to pick panel members who are little more than cheerleaders for the commissioner, so that they do not exercise robust scrutiny of the way in which the force is governed. It is a fundamental issue that the police and crime panel must be politically balanced.
I was interested to read that, in Committee in the other place, a comment was made about political balance on this issue. The Police Minister said that he agreed with political balance in principle but that it would be extremely difficult to implement it in practice because you could not tell a council that you had to send a Labour or Conservative person. I am sorry, but that has been happening for the past 15 years; the Minister may not realise that. For example, in Lancashire, to have the required political balance because of how the Lancashire electorate are politically represented, Blackburn has in the past been told to send a Labour member and Blackpool to send a Conservative member. This has happened across the country. It has not caused problems; it has enabled police authorities to work very effectively. I do not understand why this is suddenly deemed to be far too difficult. It is just turning back the clock and I do not understand it.
Baroness Henig
I thank the Minister very much for her very lengthy response. I also thank everyone who took part in the debate. The intention of the amendments was very much to start off a debate on these issues. I thought that the many points to which the Minister has just referred needed to be explored in debate. There has been an extremely full and good debate on a whole range of issues. Perhaps I may mention one or two of them.
The first issue is the composition of the panels. I feel the same way about the composition of the police and crime panels as I do about the composition of the House of Lords—I believe that composition should follow function. The composition of the panels should, in a sense, follow the functions of the panels, and I accept that I am trying to change those functions. I am trying to get the panels to have a more collaborative role. I do not want them just to be scrutinising the commissioner because I think that that would be a total waste of the panel members’ expertise. I am therefore trying to change the role. I am also suggesting that if the role should be more one of collaboration and getting involved in local policing, the composition will need to follow that. It will need to be somewhat more cohesive and to be balanced in the sorts of ways that I have mentioned. If the commission’s only function is to scrutinise the commissioner, which was the original model, then there is a greater case to be made that everybody should be included in this scrutiny exercise. But if that is all that the panels are going to do, it will be a complete waste of local talent.
Lord Harris of Haringey
Given that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, has been telling us how, as a substitute for involvement in crime and disorder reduction partnerships, local authorities will be represented on the police and crime panels, does that not suggest that this is not just about scrutiny but about a much more important role? Therefore, all the noble Baroness’s points are even stronger.
Baroness Henig
I was going on to say that I remain absolutely convinced that political balance is essential. The political balance on police authorities at the moment—I lost the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, at one point—is established by the votes cast at the previous general election. That is the basis on which the composition of police authorities exists. It has worked extremely well for the past 15 years, and I see no reason why we should depart from that. In a sense, it is not that we want to keep police authorities in existence. That suspicion was voiced by the Minister, but that is not the issue. The issue is that we want to build on existing good practice. There are things that have worked very well in the past 15 years, and it seems stupid to throw them away. That is what we are trying to argue. The political balance of police authorities over the past 15 years was one of the positive changes that took place. To throw that away and to return to politicisation as we had it in the 1970s and 1980s is something that some of us want to avoid at all costs. That is one of the points about political balance.
The second point is about independent members. In the past 15 years, we have seen how effective independent members have been on police authorities. We know that two will not be sufficient. We know that you need diversity, gender balance and geographic balance. My suggestion of five or six independent members was intended to build on good practice. That is what I was trying to do in some of these amendments. It goes without saying that these independents would be appointed on Nolan principles. That has been established in the past few years, and I think it would continue.
On the other place sending us legislation, I have read all the debates. MPs came up with problems similar to those that we have been wrestling with here, and I have to tell the Minister that on more than one occasion people not just on the opposition side but also on the government side commented that they hoped that the Lords would be able to amend the legislation to meet the point. That was said more than once in the Committee stage in the other place and it is precisely what we are trying to do. We are trying to do what the other place suggested when it came up with problems. We are trying to find solutions, and that is running headlong into what the Minister confessed right at the outset—that there would be no changes to the overall structure of the Bill—and that is where we have problems. There is tension between no changes on the one hand and people in the other place knowing that there are serious flaws in the legislation and hoping somehow that the Lords will find a way to deal with them. We are trying to deal with these issues.
This was a probing amendment. I do not claim to have all the answers, but we have to try to meet some of these points. There are serious problems to be dealt with in this legislation, and that is what I think many of the amendments are trying to address—not in any hostile way, but simply to try to improve the legislation. If there are going to be no changes to the overall structure of the Bill—we will come back to that at the end—that will give us problems. However, at this point I will withdraw my amendment, but I shall feel free possibly to bring it back at a later stage.
Baroness Henig
“(5) A police and crime panel has the following functions in relation to complaints—
(a) to refer complaints against the police and crime commissioner to the IPCC in accordance with Schedule 7 or, where appropriate, deal with such complaints directly;(b) to monitor the police and crime commissioner’s compliance with the code of conduct;(c) to arrange for complaints against members of the police and crime panel to be dealt with in accordance with subsection (5A);(d) to monitor the discharge of the police and crime commissioner’s functions to deal with complaints in relation to the police force for its area.(5A) Every police and crime panel shall establish an independent subcommittee to discharge its functions under subsection (5) in accordance with Schedule (Conduct Committees) which has effect.”
Baroness Henig
I shall speak to a number of amendments. I will try to be as brief as I can be in view of the time, but it will be very difficult because this is an important set of amendments made up of Amendments 123AB, 139A, 147A, 148C, 148D and 149C. I am sorry about this, but this is a very large group of amendments and I hope I will not be testing the patience of the Committee too strongly. These are important amendments and although I do not want to speak at inordinate length, their implications and significance need to be spelled out.
My first six amendments in this group make new provisions about conduct and complaint matters in relation to the police and crime commissioner and the police and crime panel. Amendment 139A inserts a new schedule to the Bill requiring panels to establish arm’s-length conduct committees to deal with ethical standards for all members of the police commission. I shall briefly outline the effect of these amendments and say why I think they are necessary. Amendment 123AB proposes specific new functions for panels in relation to conduct and complaint matters. Amendment 147A replaces the criteria about criminal offences in relation to suspending a police and crime commissioner with a more generic standard about reaching required standards, and Amendment 148C reflects parallel wording in the event that a police and crime commissioner ceases to be suspended. Amendment 148D makes new provisions about when and how a commissioner could be removed from office by the panel, and Amendment 149C provides that the Committee for Standards in Public Life will devise a code of conduct for all members of the police commission, which would include police and crime commissioners, setting out the required standards of behaviour.
My next four amendments deal with ensuring that the police and crime commissioner appoints, disciplines, suspends and dismisses all officers of ACPO rank within the relevant force. That is currently done by police authorities, and I am suggesting that it should also be done by police and crime commissioners. Amendments 178EA to 178EC deal with strengthening the role of the panel in the appointment, suspension and dismissal of all ACPO-rank officers within the relevant force. Amendments 214ZA and 216ZA make some changes to the disqualification provisions. The first suggests that it is not appropriate for a serving police officer or someone who has served as a police officer in the previous five years to be a commissioner. The second would allow people who are currently members of police authorities to stand as police and crime commissioners. My final amendment, Amendment 216B, ties a strengthened standards regime for police commission members to the disqualification provisions, and stipulates that any police commission member who does not sign the code of conduct within a month of taking office is disqualified.
I have a problem with the whole way the conduct regime is drawn in the Bill at present because it basically predicates all meaningful action that can be taken against a police and crime commissioner on the yardstick of criminal or corrupt behaviour. In my view, this is a woefully inadequate standard for a person who is charged with overseeing the police. If public confidence in the police is to be maintained, communities need to be reassured that the standards expected of them are beyond reproach, not merely slightly better than criminal. The people who scrutinise the police and crime commissioners should also be expected to observe similar high standards. I remain unconvinced that the IPCC is the best organisation to oversee serious police and crime commissioner complaints because its expertise lies in regulating the professional standards of forces, and I am not sure that it is well equipped to deal with the often more politically motivated complaints that police and crime commissioners will attract. I am most concerned about what happens with lower level complaints and with conduct where behaviour cannot be proved to be criminal or corrupt. At the moment, the Bill suggests that these should be matters for informal resolution between the commissioner and the panel, subject to regulations by the Secretary of State, but I find this hopelessly vague. It gives the panel no obvious sanctions over an errant police and crime commissioner. It also fails to deal with the conduct to be expected of members of the panel. Low-level complaints could be about things such as conflicts of interests, a community’s perception of poor engagement or being ignored or inappropriate behaviour. None of these is criminal, but they can all be corrosive and can all impact on and undermine public confidence.
I keep being told that the public can vote out a police and crime commissioner who has become a laughing stock or an object of distrust after four years and that it is all about accountability, but much more urgent action may need to be taken to ensure that policing is not put at risk. It assumes that a police and crime commissioner will stand after four years. They may choose not to stand after four years, in which case they will not be accountable at all. In that situation, they could cause enormous problems over a four-year period and then stand down. It is that sort of situation that I find very alarming. I am conscious that dealing with standards of behaviour in a political environment can be difficult because many complaints are likely to be motivated by political point-scoring. Equally, they could be legitimate complaints from members of the public and others.
Baroness Browning
My Lords, I am grateful and I shall be happy to write to noble Lords. This is a large group of amendments and a lot of detail has been discussed across several subjects relating to the amendments. I shall be very happy to write but perhaps I may begin by touching on a couple of matters that might be helpful to noble Lords.
The noble Baroness, Lady Henig, mentioned the fact that members of police authorities are not allowed under this legislation to stand as police and crime commissioners. That is the case. I have just looked at the legislation again. But if they were to resign their position as a member of the police authority they would then be eligible to stand as a candidate. They would not be able to do so while retaining their position. That is not uncommon. For example, many people standing for Parliament are required, because of the nature of the job that they hold, to give up their job in order to stand as a candidate so that there is no conflict of interest there. If they were keen to stand as a candidate, they could resign from the police authority and then stand.
Baroness Browning
I am very grateful to the noble Baroness. I realise that the House feels under some time pressure at the moment. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, that the case to which he refers relating to the Mayor of London was one in which the person concerned was aware of the investigation, but I do not want to delay the House too much on that. It is important to state that the police and crime commissioner will be regarded as a Crown servant and subject to the Official Secrets Act.
I have to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, that I am afraid that since I last said this half an hour ago I have not changed my mind about the code of conduct for police and crime commissioners. The House heard what I said about that at the time. I have concerns around that.
Amendment 178EC and Amendments 178G to 228 would greatly increase the role of the police and crime panel and the Secretary of State in the appointment, suspension and removal of chief officers. I have heard what noble Lords have said about their concerns around this. It was the intention that a police and crime commissioner be democratically accountable for their decisions regarding the appointment, suspension and removal of a chief constable. Following the vote in this House at the beginning of the Committee's proceedings, perhaps noble Lords will want to consider whether that is still the case.
It is a fundamental principle of these reforms that those responsible for taking decisions about the appointment, suspension and removal of a chief officer are accountable for that decision. The election of the police and crime commissioner would, for the first time, mean that those responsible for taking key decisions, such as the appointment and suspension or removal, are directly accountable to the public for those decisions. While the PCP provides an important scrutiny function during this process, it is not the primary decision-making body; that is the role of the PCC, as set out in the original Bill that came from another place to this House.
Amendments 169B and 178F would limit the pool of candidates from which PCCs would be able to choose. By limiting the pool of candidates to those and only those forces covered by Schedule 2 to the Police Act 1996, we would prevent PCCs from appointing individuals that have acted in equivalent posts in other relevant services. At this crucial time of reduced budgets and increased financial challenge, it would be vital that PCCs and chief constables are able to avail themselves of as wide a pool of talent as possible.
Amendments 177ZA and 178BA would transfer the power to appoint, remove and suspend deputy chief constables and assistant chief constables away from chief constables to the PCC, supported by a panel of people. It is a fundamental principle of the Government’s programme of police reform that the command team of each force be appointed by the chief constable. I have heard what noble Lords have said about that, and I see one or two still shaking their heads who do not agree, but we believe strongly that this responsibility should rest with chief constables, as they are best placed to decide who they need to make up posts in their chief officer team and what skills they need. Noble Lords may wish to note that we have the support of Sir Paul Stephenson, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, in this regard.
I am sorry that I am probably not going to do as much justice to the detail of these amendments as noble Lords may have wished but I am conscious that we have had quite a time now on this group. I hope that noble Lords will accept that I will write on those points which I have not been able to cover in my response.
Baroness Henig
I thank the Minister and I apologise to the House. As someone who did not really want to start at the time we did, I am really sorry to those who have been waiting for the next debate. Again, I am short of time but I have to tell the Minister that I found the response completely inadequate for what I believe was a most serious group of amendments. We really have not had a satisfactory response. Perhaps I could just cite, on the mention of it being the first time that somebody directly elected would be taking these powers and that therefore we would have to have a completely different response, that I was elected and took decisions in relation to chief officers but I was covered by standard legislation. I do not see why commissioners should not be accountable to standards procedures, with proper committees of conduct and so forth. I really cannot follow that argument at all.
I cannot accept the argument about chief officers appointing their own team. I am well aware of what some chief constables think about this. I have been a friend of Sir Paul Stephenson for more years than I could tell the House and this is one of the issues on which we have always disagreed, although we did so behind closed doors and did not necessarily advertise our differences to the public. I think he is wrong on this one, as I happen to believe that lay governance is important in top-team appointments. It works for local government in town halls, where a chief executive does not appoint their whole team. In fact, local councillors take part in appointing people in the team and I do not see why the same should not be true of policing. Why is policing different? I am sorry; I do not see the argument at all. As I say, I find the responses inadequate but, in view of the time, as I am sure that we will return to some of these matters on Report—I would be very surprised if we did not—I will withdraw my amendment.