Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Jolly Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 12th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, since I have been gratuitously referred to, I ought to say some words. Archbishop Robert Runcie said, “A saint is a person whose life has never been fully examined.” All our lives have never been fully examined, but I confirm that I never committed any crime at the age of 15 or 16, and have not done even now. Even if I committed one, I am already excluded from becoming an archbishop again because I am now 72. Age would discriminate against me and push me out.

What I do not get is why being a police commissioner is the only calling where there is discrimination if something was done at the age of 16. I would have thought that, 40 years on, the person has done their time. Yes, there is a record but it does not have to be the only thing over which you exclude them, because they have come on in age. In wanting to remove this for police commissioners, we are not sending out a message that it does not matter whether you commit a crime at the age of 16. We are saying: why is there this hindrance to this profession? Because one day I may become a saint and my life will never be fully examined, I want to vote for this amendment. I hope that the Minister will just accept it and it will be put into statute without more debates, because this just does not make sense. But I speak like a fool.

[Baroness Jolly (LD)]

My Lords, as we said in Committee, we are in principle supportive of this amendment. However, we would want in an ideal world a balancing amendment to ensure the possibility of recall and by-election should a police and crime commissioner be found guilty of misconduct, along the lines of the Recall of MPs Act 2015. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bach, about the discrimination of early offences. Currently, because police and crime commissioners are democratically elected, they can be replaced only by means of another election, and as things stand there is no mechanism to force such a by-election. It is hoped that a disgraced PCC would resign but this should not be at the sole discussion of the PCC concerned. Therefore, we are reluctant to support the amendment without another along the lines of the one described earlier. My noble friend Lord Paddick says that he thinks it is unfortunate that the noble Lord, Lord Bach, did not take the hint that he gave him in Committee.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, I will be brief. I recall that the Minister said in Committee on this amendment

“I fear that my ice thins a little here”.

One can only say that I think it has got even warmer since then. The Government said in Committee:

“Having said all that, I have heard everything that has been said around the Chamber this evening, across party, and I will make sure that those arguments are reflected back to the Home Office.”


What happened when those arguments were then reflected back to the Home Office, to whom in the Home Office were they reflected back to, and what was the response?

The rules on previous convictions, which the Government said in Committee were necessary to ensure

“the highest levels of integrity on the part of the person holding office and to protect the public’s trust in policing”

do not seem to have been very effective or relevant in North Yorkshire on two occasions already where two different PCCs have already departed the scene in interesting circumstances.

I conclude, in indicating our support for this amendment and thanking noble Lords for all the arguments and points made, that in Committee the Government referred to part 2 of the review of police and crime commissioners. They said that it is “currently under way” and that

“this review will also assess the benefits and demerits of a trigger mechanism for the recall of PCCs; it is being debated.”—[Official Report, 22/11/21; cols. 649-50.]

Will this part of the review of PCCs also now look at the issue of the current bar, in its present form, on a potential candidate being able to stand for the position of police and crime commissioner, which is the issue we are debating tonight? If the Government cannot even say that this will now be included in part 2 of the review, what is the reason for that stance?

I very much hope, like my noble friend Lord Bach, that the Government will accept this amendment, or at the very least agree to reflect on it further prior to Third Reading so that it can be brought back again if the Government’s reflections are not very satisfactory.