Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer given in another place by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary on the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.

“I know the whole House agrees with me when I say that the work of this inquiry is absolutely vital. Victims and survivors must have justice, and we must learn the lessons of the past.

The inquiry’s remit is to examine whether institutions in England and Wales have failed to protect children from sexual abuse. It is an independent body, established under the Inquiries Act 2005. The Home Office is the sponsor department. I am responsible for the terms of reference, appointing the chair and panel members, and providing funding. Last year the inquiry had a budget of £17.9 million and underspent by more than £3 million. The appointment of staff and the day-to-day running are matters for the chair.

I appointed Professor Alexis Jay as chair of the inquiry on 11 August, following the unexpected resignation of Dame Lowell Goddard on 4 August. I am aware of questions around the reasons for her resignation. Let me spell out the facts. On 29 July, the secretary to the inquiry met my Permanent Secretary and reported concerns about the professionalism and competence of the chair. My Permanent Secretary encouraged the inquiry to raise those matters with the chair. He reported this meeting to me the same day. My Permanent Secretary also met members of the inquiry panel on 4 August. Later that day, Dame Lowell tendered her resignation to me, which I accepted. Less than a week elapsed between concerns being raised with the Home Office and Dame Lowell’s resignation. My Permanent Secretary’s approach was entirely appropriate for an independent body.

The second issue relates to my evidence to the Home Affairs Committee. I was asked why Dame Lowell had gone. Dame Lowell had not spoken to me about her reasons, so I relied on the letter she had sent to the committee. In her letter she said that she was lonely and felt that she could not deliver, and that was why she stepped down. Dame Lowell has strongly refuted the allegations about her. The only way we could understand properly why she had resigned would be to hear from Dame Lowell herself. To echo any further allegations, which are now likely to be the subject of legal dispute, would have been entirely inappropriate.

We now owe it to the victims and survivors to get behind the inquiry in its endeavour. My own commitment to the inquiry’s work is undiminished. I invite the House to offer its support in the same way”.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the response to the Urgent Question, which frankly gives very little further information, apart from telling us that a chair of the inquiry, appointed by the previous Home Secretary, had been the subject of concerns about professionalism and competence, expressed by the secretary to the inquiry to the Home Office Permanent Secretary on 29 July. Does that not raise questions about the judgment of the previous Home Secretary in making the appointment concerned? We are now on the fourth chair and it is two years since the inquiry was established, yet little evidence has been taken and there has been a series of resignations among the senior staff of the inquiry. Why do the Government now think the position will change? Are there to be any changes in the remit, structure, staffing or financing of the inquiry? When is it anticipated it will complete its work? What steps are the Government taking to reassure victims who held high hopes of the inquiry and whose confidence and trust have now been severely shaken by recent events, including the apparent helplessness of the Government to do anything to sort out this highly unsatisfactory situation over the progress of the inquiry?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, the inquiry has made good progress since it was established. It is not appropriate for me or the Home Secretary to be briefed in detail on the activity of an independent inquiry while it is under way. However, the inquiry has indicated that it is making good progress in all 13 investigation strands. Preliminary hearings have taken place, evidence has been called for, and the inquiry has received more than 47,000 documents. A research project has been established to support the inquiry’s existing investigations, assist to scope and define future investigations, publish original research on child sexual abuse and analyse information that the inquiry receives from victims and survivors. In addition, sessions have been arranged for hundreds of victims and survivors to come forward and share their experiences with the inquiry. Noble Lords may have seen a statement made earlier today by the chair on her view of the terms of reference. She says that she believes that the terms of reference for the inquiry are necessary and deliverable. She had previously undertaken that an interim report would be with the inquiry before the end of this financial year.

On financing, as I said, the inquiry had a budget of £17.9 million last year. It underspent on that by some £3 million.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches are concerned that lessons of past child sex abuse cases should be learned and applied as quickly as possible. Can the Minister reassure the House that immediate steps to address obvious weaknesses in the way such cases are dealt with will not be deferred pending the outcome of this inquiry?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I understand that an internal review of the inquiry will take place. The noble Lord talked about consideration of current cases. Sorry, will he repeat the final bit of his question?

[Lord Paddick]

The concern that we have is that because this inquiry is taking such a long time, there might be some obvious weaknesses in the way that these cases are currently being dealt with that could be addressed but are being put off because the inquiry is still ongoing.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

That would be a matter for the inquiry to consider. It is an independent inquiry and it is not for us to try to micromanage or dictate what it does. It is independent. But I take the noble Lord’s point and I am sure the inquiry will be mindful of that.

[Lord Morris of Aberavon (Lab)]

My Lords, on 13 September, in view of the concerns of Judge Goddard, I asked the Minister that the terms of reference be amended. This was refused point blank. The Home Secretary told the Commons committee that the only reason that she knew of for Judge Goddard’s resignation was her loneliness et cetera. Her Permanent Secretary, sitting beside her, and officials, may have had much longer knowledge of concerns about Judge Goddard. Could this be clarified? Would it not be better for there to be a pause for reflection so that all involved, including the victims, could be satisfied that we are now on the right course—including having the right terms of reference?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, the terms of reference were drawn up by the chair in consultation with the Home Secretary. The chair has made a statement today expressing her satisfaction with the terms of reference. As regards Judge Goddard, I understand that no concerns were raised formally and that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary had both a letter from Judge Goddard and what was presented to the Home Affairs Select Committee. Pausing for reflection is a matter for the independent inquiry. It is for the inquiry to decide whether it wishes to do that; it is not for us to tell it what to do.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I suggest to my noble friend that the purpose and scope of the inquiry is hopelessly flawed and that it would be better now to scrap it entirely rather than waste any more money on it. If that is wholly impossible, can we have a much tighter remit as to procedure, purpose and timescale? That needs to be given immediate thought.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, judging by today’s statement by the chair, I do not think that there is any intention of scrapping the inquiry. As I said earlier, an internal review of the inquiry is going on and an interim report is due out before the end of the financial year. I have outlined some of the things that the inquiry has achieved to date. But I must reiterate that it is independent and therefore we cannot dictate what it should do.

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, while I welcome the Statement, I agree that there is very little in it that clarifies what the inquiry is achieving, especially for the victims of this crime. As Victims’ Commissioner, I am a little concerned about where their voice is. This inquiry was set up to hear their voices, both historic and present. I spoke to some victims recently who were very worried and concerned about when their voices would be listened to, where their voices would be and how they would effect change through this inquiry.

While I welcome Professor Jay’s announcement today that there will be an interim report in November, my concern is about communication with the victims. I have seen huge gaps in the communications sent to them. This does not raise confidence throughout the country to encourage victims to come forward. Indeed, we have heard today that some victims want to sue the inquiry for causing them further trauma because of the up and down rollercoaster that it has started with. As Victims’ Commissioner, I am concerned that their voices are being missed. Will the Minister look at what support is being given? The Statement makes a good point about the underspend of £3 million. As Victims’ Commissioner, I would like that money to be used to support the victims while we get everything sorted, because the bureaucrats will go on but the victims are still suffering as we speak.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My noble friend makes a very valid point about the victims, because they are at the heart of the inquiry. If she wishes to raise any specific concerns with me, I will certainly take them up. If she believes that there are deficiencies in funding for the inquiry and victim support, again, I would like her to raise them with me. But the underspend tells me that funding has not been the issue here, and Alexis Jay herself said that she wants the inquiry to proceed with clarity and pace so that the victims from the past can be heard and we can all learn lessons for the future.

[Lord Faulks (Con)]

My Lords, of course we all want the victims to be heard and for there to be, as the chair herself said, a thorough examination of these issues—but how is it possible to have a thorough examination that is fair to the victims and to those who may be incriminated by any finding within any reasonable timescale so that lessons can truly be learned before so much time has elapsed that we will simply be left to treat this as a matter of history?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Alexis Jay said today that,

“the concerns that our terms of reference cannot be delivered are founded on an assumption that we must seek to replicate a traditional public inquiry in respect of each of the thousands of institutions that fall within our remit. We will do so for some, but we would never finish if we did it for all”.

I understand from that statement that the inquiry intends to look at some things in more depth than others. I hope that that results in a thorough inquiry, and I am sure that it will.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, I support the point made by my noble friend, which I think the Minister missed—namely, that this inquiry will take a very long time and that some pretty glaring lessons for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service can already be learned. We should not argue that nothing can be done by those bodies because we are waiting for the result of the inquiry.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. Perhaps I did the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, a disservice by slightly getting the wrong end of the stick as regards his question. Of course those inquiries must go on as the independent inquiry proceeds.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness referred to the meeting on July—

Migrants in France: UK Contribution

Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sheehan]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what agreement they have made with the Government of France as to how the £17 million contribution of the United Kingdom towards the management of the migration situation in France, announced on 3 March, is to be deployed.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, the UK and France are committed to resolving the situation in northern France together. Our joint strategy, set out in the August 2015 joint declaration, includes measures to strengthen the border, move migrants away from Calais and provide protection in France for those who need it. The £17 million contribution announced on 3 March is being deployed over the financial year to drive progress against those priorities.

[Baroness Sheehan]

I hope to return to the question of money at a later date, as the urgent crisis in Calais at the moment is the demolition of the camp—which I have on excellent authority will take place on Monday 17 October. In the words of the police, it will be swift and it will be violent. This is a tragedy unfolding in slow motion before our very eyes and on our border. I fear for the safety not only of the people, especially the children, in the camp, but of the volunteers, the vast majority of whom are British. Will the Minister make urgent representations to the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister to urge the French to delay the destruction of the camp until people are safely accommodated elsewhere? I will make the same request of the French ambassador when I meet her later today.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I have not had the date of the demolition of the camp confirmed as next Monday but the noble Baroness is absolutely right that it is imminent. She will also know that the Home Secretary met the French Interior Minister on Monday. They agreed that the safety and security of the children is absolutely paramount and that all the children in the camp should be moved to places of safety during the clearance operation. The French are currently drawing up plans, working closely with the UK staff in Calais, on the provision of facilities in the camp during the clearance which will be specifically for children to guarantee their safety and allow those cases to be processed.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, the Question relates to the £17 million being spent. I understand that a large proportion of that will be spent on a massive wall. We have all heard about walls being put up. What consultation has taken place with the road hauliers who have been suffering from the actions of those trying to push people into this country illegally? What consultation has taken place with them? Building this wall might simply move the problem down the road.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The £17 million is for priority security infrastructure work, alternative accommodation outside Calais and returning people to their home countries. One of the reasons for the renewed emphasis on building the wall is to prevent people such as hauliers being attacked by people on the other side, in France, on the roads and in the camps.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)]

My Lords, can we send a note of gratitude to the volunteers and organisations that have manned the camps in Calais, without whom life would have been impossible for the refugees there? Can we also remember that it has taken us a long time to consider welcoming 387 child refugees? Does the Minister have confidence that by 2020 we will have accommodated 20,000 Syrian refugees, as was pledged?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

On the latter point, yes, I am confident. I also join the noble Lord in paying tribute to the volunteers who have given their time to help in a dire situation in Calais. I am sure we all pay tribute to them.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I hope my noble friend will say nothing to the French authorities to delay the clearance of the camps. The attacks on British subjects who are using the roads nearby are intolerable.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My noble friend makes a valid point about these camps not being a suitable place for anybody to be. Therefore the renewed effort by the British Government and the French authorities to get people away from the camps, and either back to their countries or to reception centres where they will be safe and able to proceed with asylum claims or access other areas of support that they might need, is definitely the right approach.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)]

My Lords, would the Minister tell me how the Government calculate what age children are when it comes to government policy for resettling them? I have heard that the Government may be limiting children to those aged eight and under, but children over the age of eight are extremely vulnerable.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right. Children under the age of eight—in fact, I think the Home Secretary referred on Monday to children under the age of 12—are extremely vulnerable. It can be very difficult to determine what age a child is, as they may not have papers and there may be communication problems. It can be difficult, but we have to take what people, including perhaps their supporters and some of the people who are giving them care, say about exactly what age they might be.

[Baroness Afshar (CB)]

My Lords, friends who have been working in the Calais camp who have just returned are telling me that not only is there no protection for children but there is absolutely no understanding and no appreciation of the rafts of children who disappear every day as the camps continue. They are not protected, they are not recognised and it seems that at the moment there is an argument between France and England as to which is going to be the least helpful to these children. Can we please consider the lives of these youngsters, who are being thrown every which way and who do not know where they are?

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, all the questions that have come to me in this House have been on the protection of children. The top priority, certainly of this Government and I hope of the French Government, should be to protect the vulnerable. We have put £10 million into a child refugee fund solely dedicated to separated and unaccompanied children. I pay tribute to the work of the FTDA in France, to which we have also contributed, in identifying victims of exploitation and trafficking, because that is a particularly vulnerable area at this point in time.

[Lord Richard (Lab)]

My Lords—

Calais Camp: Lone Children

Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hussein-Ece]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many lone children in Calais with family links in the United Kingdom have been allowed into the United Kingdom in the past 12 months.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, under the Dublin regulation more than 80 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have been accepted for transfer from France into the UK this year, most of whom have arrived in the UK. More arrive each week and we continue to work closely with France to consider and implement transfers.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

That is a very disappointing figure. Does the Minister not recognise that what was an urgent issue is now a child protection crisis? According to the Red Cross, which contributed a report over the weekend, it is taking up to 11 months to process a single child to come to this country. With hundreds of children who have family links and legal rights to come here, why is it taking so long and why has the will of this House—the Dubs amendment was passed on 9 May with support from all sides of this House—not been properly implemented? Even the Daily Mail is championing this cause; why are the Government not?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, the Government are working very closely with the French Government to ensure that transfers are as speedy as possible. In fact, the Home Secretary is meeting today with Bernard Cazeneuve. In terms of children who meet the criteria under the Immigration Act, 50 of them have been accepted for transfer and 30 have arrived. We now have a dedicated team in the Home Office Dublin unit and we are working with the UNHCR, UNICEF and NGOs, together with Italy and Greece as well as France, to speed up the process.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister confirm that the majority of the children under Dublin III have been identified not by Home Office officials but by British NGOs? Is it not a sad comment that we have to keep on, as it were, complaining to the Government that nothing is happening when they gave an undertaking that they would accept the letter and spirit of the amendment? They are neither doing that nor dealing with children who have long had a right to be here.

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I slightly dispute that. We are all working together in the best interests of these children to transfer those who meet the criteria under the Immigration Act as quickly as possible. That process has speeded up in recent weeks and we hope to speed it up further still.

[The Lord Bishop of Norwich]

My Lords, given the Prime Minister’s welcome reminder last week of the good that government can do, does the Minister not agree that at the top of the list for doing good should be traumatised children in Calais who are young and unaccompanied, who often have family already in the UK and who are increasingly endangered by criminal gangs as the demolition of the Calais camp draws near?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I totally agree with the right reverend Prelate; children are at the top of our agenda. It is not just the Prime Minister who thinks that; I think that we all agree that children, especially vulnerable children, are our top priority. That is why we are working together, by putting additional funding into this, speeding up the process and engaging with officials in the French Government on a daily basis.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, we are told that the French authorities are proposing to close the Calais Jungle camp some time in the next month or two, so the question of the children is extremely urgent. I fail to understand what is holding it up now. If there is a dedicated team and everybody else, who on earth is not pulling their finger out?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble and learned Baroness asks a very pertinent question. As we have heard, the camp closure will begin soon. We have put in place various processes—as I have just said, we are speeding up transfers. We are working with NGOs and others to make sure that the process is speeded up. No unaccompanied child—or any other child—should be in the Calais camp. That is why we are redoubling our efforts, together with the French, to get those children to safety.

[Baroness Chalker of Wallasey (Con)]

While not wishing to dispute what my noble friend has just said in answer to another good friend on the Cross Benches, there is a need for the Home Office and other departments to put more staff on to this and not to leave it until there are complaints from Members of this House or another place, or from NGOs. I can envisage just how difficult this is, but you need the numbers to work through the papers as fast as possible—and I say that with a little experience.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I pay tribute to my noble friend’s experience; she has an awful lot in this area. We are putting more staff capacity into this. We are seconding a second asylum expert to France and we now have a dedicated team in the Home Office Dublin unit.

[Baroness Jowell (Lab)]

My Lords, I register my interest as patron of Help Refugees, an organisation working on the ground in Calais with these children. There is a dispute about the number of children who have arrived in this country. There is urgency about processing their cases before the Calais camp is closed. Last time, when part of the camp was destroyed, 129 children disappeared. Will the Minister undertake to provide the House with a list, with identities suitably concealed, of children who have been given entry to this country and placed under Dublin III, as opposed to those children whose cases are being processed under the Dubs amendment—the Dubs children, in honour of my noble friend?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, as I said earlier, since the beginning of 2016, 140 children have been accepted for transfer, 80 of whom are from France. Since the Immigration Act, I understand that 50 children have been accepted for transfer, 35 of whom have arrived. I will double-check that the figures are correct, as the noble Baroness seems to think they may not be, but, as I understand it, the figures are correct to date.

France: Dublin Regulation

Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they are making to the government of France on the application of the Dublin Regulation in that country.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, the application of the EU’s Dublin regulation on French territory is a matter for the French Government and the European Commission. However, we continue to work closely with France to ensure the effective application of the regulation in cases which engage the UK’s obligations, including through regular, official-level contact and ministerial meetings.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for that reply but does she not agree that, as a matter of European law, the Dublin convention, as amended by the regulations, should be applied as it was intended, which is that the asylum claim be made at the point of entry? If that had applied from the outset in France, the Calais camps would never have arisen. Will she use her good offices to ensure that when the Calais camps are disbanded, claims are made at the point of entry, in France and in every other country that applies the Dublin regulation as it stands?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My noble friend makes the very good point that under the Dublin regulation, asylum claims should be made in the first country in which the claimant arrives. I will certainly follow that up on behalf of my noble friend.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister talked about an official being sent over to Calais. Is that just a single official? In the damning report that was mentioned earlier, the Red Cross said that one key way of speeding things up would be for officials—plural—to be sent to Calais as a matter of urgency.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, the noble Baroness asks a good question. One asylum expert is already seconded to France and another is being seconded. France and the UK have of course established a senior-level standing committee, and there is regular contact on Dublin and transferring children, including ministerial and senior-official contact, and daily contact between officials. In addition, as I said in answering the previous Question, we have a dedicated team in the Home Office Dublin unit.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that what we are seeing today—the largest mass movement of people in Europe since the Second World War—is a scenario that the Dublin III convention is unable to deal with? We have to deal with the reality of the situation. What representations have the Government made to the UNHCR to organise and co-ordinate action in the camp, including setting up a proper centre to assess and process claims, so that maybe we can get some progress on moving people to places where they really ought to be?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Baroness is right—the situation is absolutely terrible. As I said earlier, we are working with the UNHCR, UNICEF, NGOs and the Government to ensure that the process is speeded up. As I said, the Home Secretary is today meeting with Bernard Cazeneuve.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, do not the Answers to both this Question and the last one indicate that it is time the Home Office had as its motto “Action this day”, not “Festina lente”?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, that is what I have, I hope, been explaining that the Home Office is in fact doing.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister says that there are now going to be two officials in Calais looking into these crises for children. I find that unacceptable, as I think the whole House will. I hope she will take back to the Home Office the fact that we do not think two officials working in Calais is enough. There may be a special unit in the Home Office, which is very welcome, but we need more people on the ground processing these children’s applications.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, there are not just two officials working on this: there is an asylum expert seconded to France, and another one will be following. There are a number of people, both in France and in this country, working on a number of areas, as I hope I have outlined in answering these two Questions, and funding is going in—for example, to the FDTA—to identify people who are vulnerable to exploitation. There are not just two people working on this; myriad people, both in France and in this country, are working to get children and vulnerable people in particular to places of safety within France.

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[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

I will repeat that: be citizens of the world and accept these children. Insist that they are brought over now.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I certainly pay tribute—it is a very good week to be remembering the Aberfan disaster of some 50 years ago. We do not forget these children but we have obligations and processes that we must follow, relating to other laws and child safeguarding, in order to place those children in the appropriate situation for their safety and their future.

Calais Jungle

Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement delivered in the other place by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary.

“Mr Speaker, today I met with my counterpart, Bernard Cazeneuve. We agreed that we have a moral duty to safeguard the welfare of unaccompanied refugee children, and we both take our humanitarian responsibilities seriously. The UK Government have made clear their commitment to resettle vulnerable children under the Immigration Act and to ensure that those with links to the UK are brought here using the Dublin regulation.

The primary responsibility for unaccompanied children in France, including those in the Calais camp, lies with the French authorities; the UK Government have no jurisdiction to operate on French territory and the UK can contribute only in ways agreed with the French authorities and in compliance with French and EU law. The UK has made significant progress in speeding up the Dublin process. We have established a permanent official level contact group and we have seconded UK experts to the French Government. Part of the role is to assist co-ordinating efforts on the ground to identify children. Since the beginning of 2016, more than 80 unaccompanied children have been accepted for transfer to the UK from France under the Dublin regulation, nearly all of whom have now arrived in the UK.

Within these very real constraints, we continue to work with the French Government and partner organisations to speed up mechanisms to identify, assess and transfer unaccompanied refugee children to the UK, where this is in their best interests. While the decision on the dismantling of the Calais camp and the timing of this operation is a matter for the French Government, I have made it crystal clear to the French Interior Minister on numerous occasions, including at our meeting today, that our priority must be to ensure the safety and security of children during any camp clearances. We have made good progress today, but there is much more work to do. To this end, I emphasised to Monsieur Cazeneuve that we should transfer as many minors as possible from the camp, eligible under the Dublin regulation, before clearance commences, with the remainder coming over within the next few days of the operation.

I also outlined my views that those children eligible under the Dubs amendment to the Immigration Act 2016 must be looked after in safe facilities where their best interests are properly considered. The UK Government stand ready to help fund such facilities and provide the resourcing to aid the decision-making.

I made clear in my meeting today with Monsieur Cazeneuve that we should particularly prioritise those under the age of 12 because they are the most vulnerable. The UK remains committed to upholding our humanitarian responsibilities on protecting minors and those most vulnerable”.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for repeating the Answer to the Urgent Question in the other place. Many people, including in this House, just do not believe that the evidence shows that the Government have been doing as much as they should to bring unaccompanied refugee children in Calais with family links in the United Kingdom over here as quickly as possible, yet alone act on the terms of the amendment of my noble friend Lord Dubs to the Immigration Act. The Government have referred to what they are doing now, much of it only very recently, which simply has the effect of highlighting how little they have been doing up to now. How many unaccompanied children who have a relative in the UK are still in Calais? We must surely have established the answer to that question by now.

A recent British Red Cross report stated that on average it takes up to 11 months to bring a child to the UK under the procedures for reuniting families when there appears to be no reason why the process should take that long. Do the Government accept that the figure of 11 months is correct, or broadly correct, in relation to the process to date? Will the Government now undertake to ensure that all unaccompanied children with families in the UK will be brought over here before the unofficial refugee camps in Calais are shortly demolished? If the Government refuse to give that commitment, what action will they take to ensure that those remaining children are protected and not dispersed?

I do not doubt that responsibility for the delays can also be laid at the door of the French authorities, but it does not appear that we have acted on this matter with the urgency required in terms of resources and applying pressure on behalf of vulnerable unaccompanied children who are eligible to come to this country, some of whom have disappeared in the meantime.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, we know that there are approximately 1,000 unaccompanied children in the camps in Calais. The number of children who may come over here is of course yet to be determined. However, we have been assured by the French that they are working on a list and that it will be provided in the next few days before the camps start to be cleared. The noble Lord asked about the average time being 11 months. Most of the children have been transferred relatively quickly. I appreciate the House’s concern but this can be a very complex process. Certainly, we have been very keen to get the list from the French. They are now keen to speed up the process of giving us that list, and as I say we hope to get it in the next few days. This Government have spent literally tens of millions of pounds and dedicated our time to speeding up the process. We have a team in place in the Home Office Dublin unit to ensure that the process is speeded up. We have also established a senior-level standing committee between ourselves and France. We have regular contact on Dublin issues and transferring the children, including ministerial, senior official and daily contact between officials. We are very keen to get those children here as quickly as possible. Today’s conversation proves that there is now a renewed commitment from France to ensure that that happens.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

I have spent much time in the camp in Calais over the course of both this year and last year, and I returned from my most recent visit just this weekend. There is very good reason to believe that the camp will start to be demolished on Monday 17 October. In a meeting with camp associations last week, the police said that when the demolitions start they will be, in their words, swift and violent. Therefore, I am sorry that in responding to the Urgent Question, the Minister did not say that she made strong representations to her French counterpart that the demolition planned for Monday 17 October be delayed to make more time available to remove children to safety so that they do not disappear, as they did last time. Will she ask the Home Secretary to take heed of the joint statement issued by the Children’s Commissioner, Anne Longfield, and her French counterpart, expressing their extreme disquiet at the lack of planning and provision for the children in the face of the impending demolition of the Jungle camp?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, as I have said a couple of times today, those children remain everyone’s concern. Certainly, as the camp is demolished, that concern increases. As regards the date, I have not had one, but certainly it sounds like it is imminent. Previous statements from the French have said that the camps will be demolished by Christmas. On the children’s care, today the Home Secretary made it quite clear that children must be looked after in safe facilities, where their best interests are properly considered. She also reiterated that the UK Government stand ready to help fund such facilities and to provide resources to aid the decision-making.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, has the noble Baroness had the chance to view the sobering insight of a recently broadcast ITV documentary called “The Forgotten Children”? In contrast with the 80 children whom the noble Baroness said the United Kingdom has taken, that programme highlighted the 88,000 children who are without parents in Europe, 10,000 of whom it said had gone missing, their whereabouts no longer known. The same documentary highlighted the plight of a brother and sister aged 13 and 12, who had escaped from Aleppo and who are now living in a tent in a derelict petrol station. How do we square that with the idea that we are providing protection for vulnerable children? How on earth can we sleep easily in our own beds at night when we know that these things are happening? Why are we not doing more to ensure a realistic and European-wide response to the magnitude of this crisis?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord makes an important point that we are not the only country in Europe. Today’s discussions have highlighted that each country in Europe has an obligation to the people who arrive in those countries. The news that the camp clearance is imminent has helped to focus the minds of not just France but Italy, Greece and other countries which may have received people and families who require asylum.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister clarify one point? It is good that we are, though all too slowly getting the Dublin III children to come to this country. What about the Immigration Act children, who were the specific subject of a vote that was passed in this House? Can the Minister give some assurance that it is just as urgent to get those over here to safety as the Dublin III children?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. We consider these children to be children, whether they are Dublin III or Dubs Immigration Act children. We now know that under the Dubs amendment 50 have been accepted for transfer and 35 are here. However, the noble Lord is absolutely right; it is vital to get children from either category over here as soon as we can.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

My Lords, some years ago I was asked to chair a government inquiry into services for disabled people. We produced 30 recommendations and I was amazed at how difficult it was to change anything in this country and move things along. As I listened to the debate about the problems in Calais I began to wonder just how many obstructions we have to overcome, so I went round your Lordships’ House asking various people who I thought might know how many obstructions—forms, regulations, French and English laws—there are. No one could tell me. We ought to have some idea of exactly what the obstructions are before we are too critical of the Minister. Can she therefore tell us, not necessarily now but perhaps in writing, just how many forms, regulations, and French and English laws have to be overcome to get the children over? That would be helpful.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank my noble friend for that question. Certainly a large number of hoops have to be gone through in placing these children in the appropriate country of safety, and I will try to get a full list, with precise details, of the bureaucracy that has to be overcome. I hope that in the coming weeks some of that bureaucracy will be simplified so that we can expedite these cases. However, we have to abide by the laws of the countries that the children are coming from and we also have to be very mindful of the safeguarding arrangements in place in those countries. It is incredibly important that we verify that the children go to the right place to meet their needs but also that we verify that they are who we think they are. We have to avoid any awful unintended consequences of trying to rush things rather than doing them properly.

Calais: Refugee Camp

Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts

Thursday 15th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. Since I have been a Minister I have answered a question almost every day on the issue of not just migrants in Calais but children in Calais. Not only does that show the importance this House places on the issue; we also join the country at large in being concerned about children who are, as many noble Lords have described, traumatised and in great difficulty and under the jurisdiction of other countries.

The Government are clear about our moral responsibility to assist those who are suffering as a result of the conflicts in the world, and we recognise that those fleeing persecution have a legal entitlement to protection. Refugee children are particularly vulnerable, as we know, and our priority is to protect them as best we can.

I shall set out the context of the wider situation, particularly with reference to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Roberts. For those children in the Middle East and north Africa, we have set up a new vulnerable children’s resettlement scheme, which will bring children most in need to the UK from the regions. Under this scheme we will resettle several hundred individuals in the first year, and up to 3,000 by the end of this Parliament. That is in addition to our commitment to resettle 20,000 vulnerable Syrians over the same period. To give the noble Lord some comfort, in the year ending June 2016, 2,682 people were resettled under the Syrian resettlement scheme, half of whom are children.

The previous Prime Minister announced earlier in the year that the much-needed Syrian relief effort would be doubled to over £2.3 billion, so that is a doubling of our efforts in terms of the money we are putting in. For those in Europe, we have made significant progress in improving and speeding up the existing processes. That is reflected in the number of children who have been accepted for transfer to the UK this year under the Dublin regulation, which currently stands at over 120.

In France, we continue to build on this progress and are working with the French Government to ensure that children in Calais with family links in the UK are identified, receive sufficient support and can access the Dublin family reunification process without delay. More widely in Europe, we are in active discussions with the UNHCR, other partner organisations and the Italian and Greek Governments to strengthen and speed up mechanisms to identify and assess unaccompanied refugee children and transfer them to the UK where that is in their best interests. The noble Lord might think it is in all the children’s best interests to be in the UK but that is not necessarily the case; these things are more complicated. While I share his view that the welfare of children in Calais is paramount, I believe we should be acting in the best interests of the child, and for that reason we are focusing on prioritising family reunion cases.

Both the UK and French Governments are clear that those in France who require international protection should claim asylum in France. For unaccompanied children the UK will consider requests to take responsibility for an asylum application made in France when lodged by a minor with close family connections in the UK, and both Governments are committed to ensuring that such cases are prioritised. To start this process, the child must engage with the French authorities.

We have made significant progress in speeding up the transfer of unaccompanied children who already have family members in the UK, under the Dublin regulation. Since the beginning of this year, over 70 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have been accepted for transfer to the UK from France under the family provisions of the Dublin regulation. More than 30 of the Dubs children have met the Dublin criteria and most have been transferred. I said yesterday and I say again today that whether a child is a Dublin child or a Dubs child, they are a child, and more than 30 of them are now here.

Many noble Lords have talked about the co-operation between the UK and France. It is intense. We are working so hard to improve the operation of the Dublin process. We have established a permanent official-level contact group and will be seconding another expert to the French Interior Ministry in the next few weeks to build on the very real progress that has been made. We have also established a dedicated team in the Home Office Dublin unit to lead on family reunion cases for unaccompanied children.

On camp clearances, we recognise that there are indeed children living in the migrant camp in Calais. Noble Lords have told a variety of heartbreaking stories of what they have seen and heard, but we must make it clear that the management and protection of children in Calais is predominately a matter for the French authorities. The French Government have been clear that they intend to clear the camps in Calais by the end of the year. The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, asked for a more exact timing. I cannot give it, other than to say that they have talked about the end of the year.

Both Governments understand that the camp clearances will have an impact on the children who are still there. That is why the UK and France are working more closely than ever before to ensure that the children in Calais have access to decent accommodation and the appropriate support services in France. The picture so far is that 5,000 people have taken up alternative accommodation, and I must emphasise that no one is forced to remain in the camps, although I appreciate some of the stories that noble Lords have told about the difficulty of getting out of them.

To assist with the clearances, I understand that the French Government intend to create additional places in temporary accommodation centres and asylum accommodation places across France by the end of the year. I understand that figure to be 12,000 in total. The British Government understand that the total number in the camp is about 7,600; NGOs estimate it to be more like 9,000; but if the number of places to be provided is 12,000, that is indeed welcome news. Ultimately, anyone impacted by the camp clearances in Calais has the option of engaging with the French authorities. We have assurances from the French Government that no child or adult has to stay in those difficult conditions and that care and support by the French state is readily accessible.

My noble friend Lady Jenkin, the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, talked about identifying and informing vulnerable people who may be traumatised and not know what to do. The UK and France have put in place a programme—there was a question about it yesterday—the FTDA, to identify and help direct vulnerable people in the camps to the support that they require. Since November 2015, the FTDA has led a project on human trafficking in Calais called Aide aux Victimes de la Traite, which means support to victims of human trafficking. The aim is to enforce identification and orientation of victims in the camp in Calais. The team comprises four field officers, who are multidisciplinary. Crucially, they have legal and social work skills, can speak English and Arabic, and conduct daily patrols of the camps to identify victims of trafficking. The people identified by FTDA as vulnerable or potential trafficking victims are mainly young women or unaccompanied minors at risk of sexual exploitation or coercion to commit offences, and victims of violence from other migrants, mainly smugglers. The British Government are contributing £530,000 to this project, and the French Government have tasked FTDA with identifying 150 unaccompanied minors with family links to the UK. The French Government have doubled the FTDA’s resources, as I said yesterday, and extended the project at least until December.

On oversight of the project, which is important and which I mentioned yesterday but will say again for the benefit of noble Lords, the project steering group is made up of representatives from the Home Office, alongside officials from the French Interior Ministry, the Jules Ferry centre, the Calais prefecture and French law enforcement.

The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, asked about funding. I can confirm that it will be £41,460 per annum per child. The money to boost regional structures will be £60,000 per annum.

I am aware that I am about to run out of time. We all understand that the camp clearances in Calais will have an impact on everybody in them, particularly the children. That is why we are working closely with the French Government to deliver our shared aims. Any child in the camp has options available to them, and we are confident that the French Government are able to provide the appropriate services and accommodation for those impacted by the clearances. We will obviously continue to work closely with our French counterparts to ensure that children in the camp have access to the appropriate services, and that those with UK links can access the Dublin family reunification process without delay.

I thank all noble Lords for taking part in the debate.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

My Lords, before the Minister sits down, can she assure us that the 387 children whose names are already with the Home Office will receive immediate consideration, before the winter, which we hope will not be harsh, sets in?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I am pleased that the noble Lord asked that, because the other day, there were 110 names, according to the right honourable Member in the other place, Yvette Cooper. Yesterday, I understood from the noble Baroness, Lady Jowell, that it was 300, and the noble Lord has given me a different figure. All those names are being considered. There may be crossover, we do not know, but they are all being considered and processed in the usual way.

Hate Crime

Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts

Wednesday 14th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Singh of Wimbledon]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why their report Action Against Hate: The UK Government’s plan for tackling hate crime, published in July 2016, does not report on the incidence of hate crimes against non-Abrahamic faith communities.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, we take all forms of hate crime very seriously. Until April, the police did not routinely record religious hate incidents by faith. However, we are grateful to both the Community Security Trust and Tell MAMA, which have provided anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim hate crime data for some time. The first disaggregated police recorded data will be available in 2017. Action Against Hate brings together a range of departments and agencies, and includes funding for places of worship and further action in education.

[Lord Singh of Wimbledon (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response but it does not address my concerns over the narrow and biased thinking in a report that details 45 examples of hate crime against Abrahamic faiths but not a single example of the many, well-documented mistaken-identity hate crimes suffered by Sikhs and others—and this in a report emanating from a department with specifically designated officers to consider hate crime against the Jewish and Muslim communities but not anyone else. Would the Minister agree that that omission is more due to ignorance than deliberate discrimination? Would she further agree that those who preach the need for religious literacy should first themselves acquire some basic religious literacy, and apologise to those they have offended in such a way?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, the Government have engaged with non-Abrahamic faith communities and will continue to do so. In Manchester in July, in my previous role, I held round-table events with victims of hate crime, including members of the Sikh community alongside other faiths. On Monday, my noble friend Lord Bourne also hosted a round table to discuss hate crime with Sikh organisations as the latest engagement with the Sikh community. We find such round tables a good way to discuss widely concerns on hate crime and look at a variety of issues and approaches. However, while we know that there are common issues across the strands of hate crime, we also accept that there are issues that affect communities specifically. I and/or officials will be very happy to meet the noble Lord to discuss his concerns. On religious literacy, we have talked about this in the past. People such as the media have a role to play in improving their religious literacy.

[Lord Polak (Con)]

My Lords, sadly, we are all too aware where hate crime can lead. Will my noble friend join me in welcoming the launch of the international design competition for the national memorial and underground learning centre commemorating the Holocaust, announced by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister earlier today and officially launched in 15 minutes’ time by Sajid Javid, the Secretary of State for Communities, next door in Victoria Tower Gardens? Would my noble friend also agree that this memorial and learning centre aim to inspire future generations to respect and embrace difference, and to fight prejudice and hatred?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I most certainly join my noble friend in welcoming this announcement and the fact that my right honourable friend Sajid Javid will be launching it in about 10 minutes’ time. My noble friend is absolutely right that these memorials do not just serve to help us remember. The education centres alongside them ensure that our children and the children of future generations know the horrors that went on in the past and, we hope, learn from them for the future.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

Can the noble Baroness tell me how the genocide of the Roma people is to be commemorated in the Holocaust memorial drawn attention to by the noble Lord opposite?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, of course the killing of the Roma people was all part of the terrible Holocaust. I will provide more details to the noble Baroness in due course.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)]

My Lords, do the Government agree that when we describe hateful and violent people as “radical”, “extreme” or “militant”, we are nearly always referring to Islamists and not, in this country, to the adherents of any other religion?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I am afraid to say to the noble Lord that we are not talking about just Islamist extremism. Hate crime against Polish people rose in the aftermath of the EU referendum, and of course, hate crime against the Jewish people has been happening for as long as we can all remember. It is not confined to Islamist extremism.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

My Lords, just yesterday a woman in a headscarf was attacked and lost her baby as a result. We know from the rise in this sort of hate crime that it is now a daily occurrence. Can the public sector equality duty be used to reduce such hate crime, and will the Government consider looking at the analysis of the figures she is collecting as a way of trying to reduce it?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I know the case that the noble Baroness refers to—on the face of it, a truly horrific thing has happened to this lady, but I cannot comment on it further as it is being investigated. The public sector equality duty and other elements of the Equality Act certainly have their role to play. The hate crime action plan which my right honourable friend the Home Secretary published just a few weeks ago will add to measures on what is really quite a vicious crime.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, perhaps I may bring the Minister back to the original Question, which is about the concern felt by the Sikh community regarding the reporting of crime. The police have to be able to identify those who have been attacked because they are Sikhs. What discussions has the Minister had with the College of Policing and chief constables about the training of police to ensure that they can accurately record such crimes?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

As I mentioned earlier, the police are disaggregating the types of hate crime by religion, such as against the main Abrahamic religions plus crimes against Sikhs and Buddhists. That disaggregation went live in April. However, we have published a new cross-government hate crime action plan to drive forward action, including training for the police, against all forms of hate crime.

Calais Jungle Camp

Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts

Wednesday 14th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sheehan]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the nature of their collaboration with France Terre d’Asile (FTDA), with respect to refugees in the Calais “Jungle” camp, and what assessment they have made of FTDA’s effectiveness.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, the UK has jointly commissioned and part-funded France Terre d’Asile’s project to identify vulnerable people and victims of exploitation within the camps, directing them to protection and support within France and delivering training for French officials and volunteers on identifying victims. Performance is regularly monitored. The French Government have also commissioned FTDA to identify children within the camp with potential UK links. Staffing has been increased and the project extended to December.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

I thank the Minister for her reply. France Terre d’Asile is the only authority in the camp allowed to enter cases into the French asylum system, which is an essential first step for family reunification cases in the UK. But this falls at the first hurdle because there are not enough child protection guardians. In France you need administrateurs ad hoc, who are a prerequisite to initiating the process. Is it not the case that 66 of the 70 successful reunification cases to the UK have been completed by British NGOs and volunteers? So why are British taxpayers paying a French agency more than £500,000 to do a safeguarding job that it is patently unfit to carry out?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, this is a joint effort. These children are in France and therefore obviously under the jurisdiction of the French Government, but we are very much involved. We have provided funding of more than £500,000 but the staffing has also been increased, which will hopefully bring an improvement in performance.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that the new directive given by the French Government to prefects in metropolitan France and its overseas territories to accept precise details of migrants is a significant departure? It is a recognition by France of her responsibilities and should be welcomed.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I agree with the noble Lord.

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

I have no knowledge of the organisation mentioned in the Question, but is it not the case that there should be much greater co-operation between British and French NGOs and the two Governments, in particular to identify cases for family reunion and to ensure that there is adequate protection for unaccompanied children?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord is absolutely right, and that is precisely what is happening with the partnership work between the British and French Governments. There is a steering group of the FTDA project, made up of representatives of the Home Office and officials from the French Ministry of the Interior, the Jules Ferry centre, the Calais prefecture and French law enforcement.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister will remember that we passed the Immigration Act on 8 May this year. Under it, the Government will accept an unspecified number of child refugees in the coming year. How many children have been accepted under the renowned Dubs agreement? None. Not a single child has been accepted. Is it not time that we took our finger out as far as the children of Calais and Dunkirk are concerned? I am sorry if I am taking my time. Is now not the time to register the children and the families which will receive them so that when the nod comes that they can come, there will not be a rush as the information will already be known by the Government?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, 120 children have been accepted here under the Dublin regulations since the beginning of the year, 70 of them from France. There are 30 Dublin cases that meet the Dubs criteria, and most of them are here already. I must say that, whether a child is a Dublin child or a Dubs child, it is still a child.

[Baroness Jowell (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her remark in support of my noble friend’s intervention. Is she aware that last Friday the names of 387 children considered to be eligible under the Dubs amendment for admission to and care in this country were submitted to the Home Office? Will she bring forward to the House a detailed statement of progress on placing these children?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I am aware that a list of children was brought forward. Obviously those children will go through the same process as other children. They may be the same children who are being identified. Certainly I am being tasked twice a week at the moment on progress on what is happening in Calais, and I expect that that will continue.

Policing and Crime Bill

Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts

Wednesday 14th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken so constructively to this group of amendments. I shall start with its government amendment, Amendment 4. Part 1 places a duty on the three emergency services to enter into collaboration agreements where it would be in the interests of efficiency or effectiveness to do so. In one place, the Bill inadvertently specifies a test of “efficiency and effectiveness”, and Amendment 4 rectifies that. The noble Lords, Lord Harris and Lord Rosser, rightly ask why the duty applies when the collaboration agreement would be in the interests of efficiency or effectiveness rather than both. Collaboration can lead to service improvements through either increased efficiency or increased effectiveness. Consequently, it should not be a precondition of a collaboration agreement that it should improve both. If an initiative would improve the quality of the service but not save any money, for example, we would still want the emergency services to give effect to that project. I hope noble Lords are satisfied with that explanation.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, is the noble Baroness leaving that point? It looks as though she is. I understand if she is saying that the collaboration must improve one of them and not have a negative effect on the other, but that is not what “effectiveness or efficiency” necessarily implies. If it means that it must be neutral about efficiency but improve effectiveness, say that. If it means that it must improve effectiveness but is neutral about efficiency, again, say it. By leaving the wording as “or”, the implication is that one might be detrimentally affected but that it would still be appropriate. So that we can understand what the Government are getting at, will she give us an example of a collaboration agreement that has improved one but not the other?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

As I said, a collaboration agreement could vastly improve the quality of a service, which is a good thing, but it may not save any money. However, the improvement of the quality of that service may be deemed to be very effective in that collaboration agreement. It obviously ties to both: it could increase the efficiency or it could increase the effectiveness. The happy outcome is that it might improve both. I hope that that is a decent explanation.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

I have just one point. Could it be more effective and less efficient or vice versa?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

It could be.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

I am sorry to do this to the noble Baroness, because she is trying to be helpful. However, her answer to my noble friend has actually made the situation worse. If she had said, “As long it does not hurt either efficiency or effectiveness but there is an improvement in one”, that would have been fine. But she is now saying that there can be an improvement in efficiency that makes effectiveness worse, or vice versa. The question then is: how much will that have to be balanced and how will that balancing effect be measured? Surely the argument must be that it does not make either efficiency or effectiveness worse and it improves at least one of them.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

In that case, I will stick to the answer that I gave the noble Lord and perhaps disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. We are so used to agreeing that that is almost my default position.

Perhaps we could move on to Amendments 1 and 2. I start by talking about some of the very good examples of emergency services collaboration that have gone on up and down the country. As noble Lords have said, there is clear evidence that emergency services can deliver real benefits for the public and help each service better meet the demands and challenges that they face. On Friday, I visited the emergency services collaboration in Greater Manchester. I was deeply impressed with the activity I saw, both in improving the service provided to the public—in all sorts of ways, as the noble Lord, Lord Bach, said in his speech—and in saving the taxpayer money.

On my visit to the Earlham tri-service station, I saw the benefits of collocation between the police, the fire and rescue service and the ambulance service in practice. Not only is this breaking down professional barriers but it is leading to far more innovative ways of delivering local services. If the noble Lord, Lord Bach, visits Earlham, he will see that the critical-risk intervention teams, which are led by the fire and rescue service in collaboration with Greater Manchester Police, respond to low-priority calls from the ambulance service regarding falls and mental health incidents. This innovative working is not only saving money, with an estimated £13 million in value being added across the region, but it is better protecting the public from harm.

There is a wide range of other examples from across the country of where emergency services collaboration is improving outcomes for local communities. For example, as the noble Lord, Lord Bach, said, in Leicestershire, the Braunstone Blues project has built on the success of a home fire-safety visit programme to involve all three emergency services in health, safety and well visits to local communities and schools. As he said, the programme is in its early stages, but I am sure it will be very successful.

[Lord Bach]

Now that the Minister has made those kind remarks, I hope that if she has time she will visit to see that project for herself.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord gave me that invitation this morning. I was happy to take it up then and I am happy to take it up now. It is good to see how things are working well on the ground. It gives one a much better picture than hearing about the theoretical application. I would be happy to visit.

I was talking about Northamptonshire, where there is an interoperability programme working towards bringing the police and fire and, in the longer term, the ambulance service even closer together. Their achievements include joint delivery of training, shared fleet and logistics, co-location of premises across a number of sites and a fully integrated prevention and community protection team. That has delivered savings of more than £460,000 to date.

In Hampshire, the H3 project has successfully integrated police, fire and county council back-office functions to deliver savings across the three services of approximately £4 million per year. I hope that this goes to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Harris. He asked why, if it is working so well, we are doing what we are doing. There are so many more collaborative projects that I could list, but collaboration is still patchy. More needs to be done to ensure that it becomes common practice at a local level. That is why the Bill introduces a raft of measures to ensure that collaboration can go further.

Amendments 1 and 2 probe why the test for making a collaboration agreement is whether the proposed collaboration would be in the interests of efficiency or effectiveness, whereas the first limb of the test for making an order establishing a PCC-style fire and rescue authority is based on whether the PCC’s proposal would be in the interests of economy, efficiency and effectiveness. Of course it is important that the potential economic impacts of collaborations are taken into account by the emergency services. However, these considerations are already provided for in the Bill. I hope that that answers the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. The Bill states that services must consider whether potential collaborations are in the interests of the efficiency or effectiveness of the services involved. Considerations of the financial implications for the service in question would form part of that process.

That aside, the reason for the drafting approach taken in Clause 2 is essentially one of consistency. The test for the duty to collaborate in this clause mirrors that in respect of collaboration agreements between police forces under Section 23A of the Police Act 1996. Similarly, the adoption of the three “Es” in the test for making an order establishing a PCC-style fire and rescue authority mirrors the existing tests, in the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004, in relation to the merger of fire and rescue authorities. As we are operating in this Bill on existing legislation, it is important to maintain consistency where possible.

The noble Baroness also talked about “its”. The “its” in Clause 2(4)(a) relates to the first proposed party. The “its” in Clause 2(4)(b) relates to the second or further proposed parties. No one will be frogmarched into a collaboration agreement; it must be agreed between the parties.

Amendment 3 would introduce additional and in our view unnecessary barriers to collaboration and duplicates existing duties on the emergency services to engage with local people when exercising their functions. For instance, PCCs have existing duties under Section 96 of the Police Act 1996 to engage with local people when exercising their functions. “Local people” is broad in its scope. It is up to individual areas and localities to agree what that means. Further, ambulance services are also required to make arrangements for the involvement of users when there are proposals to change the way in which the services are provided under Section 242 of the National Health Service Act 2006.

Similarly, fire and rescue services must have regard to the Fire and Rescue National Framework for England, which provides that they must be transparent and accountable to their communities for their decisions and actions, and must provide the opportunity for communities to help to plan their local services through effective consultation and involvement. Given these existing requirements, I am not persuaded that the additional, bespoke duty to consult before entering into a collaboration agreement is either necessary or proportionate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Rosser]

I thank the Minister very much for her response to Amendment 6 and for what she just said about who defines efficiency and effectiveness, which was certainly a very clear answer. I will ask this as a question, rather than advocating that it should necessarily be done. In order to get some consistency, are the Government intending to send out any guidelines on how to interpret efficiency or effectiveness in the context of these clauses?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I can certainly follow up on that question and give the noble Lord an answer before Report, but it would not be unusual in these circumstances for guidance to be issued to relevant people. I think the answer would be yes but I will double-check that and get back to the noble Lord.

The noble Lord asked what happens if a party refuses to collaborate. All local services would be under a duty to explore opportunities for collaboration and to enter into such collaboration agreements where it is appropriate to do so. They should be open and transparent about their reasoning. We will consider how the service inspectorates could take these decisions into account as part of their inspection programmes.

The noble Lord also asked about consultation with staff and trade unions. I sort of answered this question but the Bill is not prescriptive about consultation. It is relevant to the local area. Existing consultation duties will apply only to each of the services. This will not prevent consultation on a voluntary basis at all. I hope I made that clear in my remarks but thought I would answer it again now as the noble Lord asked a specific question.

The noble Lord, Lord Harris, asked how the new duty to collaborate will work in practice. The Bill places a new statutory duty on the police, fire and rescue, and emergency ambulance services to keep collaboration opportunities under review, and further for them to implement collaboration where it would be in the interests of their efficiency or effectiveness. Ambulance trusts will not be obliged to enter into collaboration agreements where they would have an adverse effect on either their non-emergency functions or the wider NHS. The duty is broad. It allows for local discretion in how it is implemented so that the emergency services themselves can decide how best to collaborate for the benefit of their communities.

My noble friend Lady Scott asked—this is an important issue—about the Government considering proposals to demerge FRA areas to enable further collaboration. As I am sure my noble friend knows because she was here with me on the devolution Bill, where police and fire boundaries are not coterminous it would be for local areas to consider how boundaries could be changed to support that further collaboration she talked about between the emergency services. The Government will consider any local case for a fire boundary change that demonstrates that it would be in the interests of economy, efficiency and effectiveness.

[Lord Rosser]

Would the Government also look at it if two PCCs decided they wanted to merge their police areas?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

If two PCC areas came to the Government with a proposal for change, the Government would consider it, just as in devolution where the Government considered any proposals that came forward. For example, just thinking of home, if Manchester and Cheshire wanted to come together—I am not saying they do—they could put forward a proposal. I hope that I have answered all noble Lords’ questions and that the noble Baroness will be content to withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I am grateful for the care that the noble Baroness took in the detail of her response. On my Amendment 7 and operational matters for the police, I am not sure whether she was saying that if a PCC disregards concerns expressed by a chief constable about operational matters—she several times used the phrase “have regard to” such concerns—that would be a breach of the 2011 Act. I am not clear on that. Maybe that is not a matter for answering now. I would be happy to hear from her after today if that is a better way of dealing with this.

I am not sure which of the noble Baronesses who lead their respective councils used the phrase further collaboration—I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Redfern. But since this is about further collaboration, it raises the question: why? The LGA argued strongly, I think in response to the Government’s consultation paper, that the sector should be enabled to continue to effect change without the Government resorting to legislation. It said that a duty to collaborate was,

“likely to provide a constraint that stifles innovation and broader collaboration. In the LGA’s view, the provision of incentives like transformation funding is more likely to produce greater collaboration between the emergency services, and between them and other public services”.

It said that such incentives,

“would also encourage the ambulance service, which in some cases has been less ready to engage with collaborative programmes”.

Despite what we have heard, that question still hangs in the air.

There was also the comment about consultation on a voluntary basis. When people resist consulting, that is when they most need to be required to consult; I think that must be the experience. The examples used about where things have worked well from the bottom up, prompted by what has been identified locally as desirable, obviously bear careful reading. There are still questions hanging over this but for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 1.

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Moved by

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

4: Clause 2, page 3, line 4, leave out “and” and insert “or”

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There is so much here that is untested and unanswered. It would be a mistake simply to write a blank cheque by supporting the proposals in the Bill. One fears that once that is done, incrementally a process will develop under which, increasingly, authorities will be leaned on to adopt the proposals contained in this Bill without really having any sensible opportunity to monitor progress on the ground, as and when authorities come together or the elected mayor as police and crime commissioner assumes the responsibility. It is uncharted territory and given the importance of that territory to life, limb and safety, it is risky to embark on the course that the Bill lays out. I hope very much that the Government will respond to the points made by my noble friends Lord Rosser and Lord Harris. My noble friend Lord Harris in particular has great experience in these matters and has a voice that the Government should take very seriously.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank noble Lords who spoke so articulately to this group of amendments, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Bach, who is the only PCC in both Houses of Parliament. To hear his experience is incredibly helpful. My noble friend Lady Scott also articulated very well some of what I will say. I think we know how Leicestershire and Rutland will proceed in due course.

On what the noble Lord, Lord Harris, calls “timidity”, the Government came into office with a clear manifesto commitment to,

“enable fire and police services to work more closely together and develop the role of our elected and accountable Police and Crime Commissioners”.

If the Government had been dictatorial and autocratic in what they expected, I am sure there would be a lot more complaints in both Houses. The provisions in Part 1, including those in Clauses 6 and 8 and in Schedule 1, give legislative effect to that commitment. Noble Lords have a proper role to play in scrutinising the details of the Government’s proposals.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

I hesitate to intervene so early in the Minister’s response, but she referred to the Conservative Party manifesto. I assume she quoted from it. The quote she gave was about improving collaboration, which is covered by Chapter 1 of the Bill. The second part was about strengthening the role of police and crime commissioners. I do not think it said strengthening the role of police and crime commissioners specifically in terms of the fire service.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, the quote,

“enable fire and police services to work more closely together”,

is captured—

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

In Chapter 1.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

If I could make some progress, I am sure the noble Lord will come back to me if he feels he needs to.

As the noble Lord said, the provisions in Part 1 give legislative effect to that commitment. Noble Lords will have ample opportunity to scrutinise the details of the Government’s proposals and to put forward amendments to them, but I am a bit disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, now seeks to strike out the key provisions in their entirety.

There are clear benefits to fostering greater joint working between the blue-light services, from better managing the changing nature of demand for services to providing greater value for money for taxpayers’ money in the interests of local people. While there are many excellent examples of collaboration between the emergency services across the country, which I talked about earlier—I draw the Committee’s attention to the excellent overview of such collaboration published by the Emergency Services Collaboration Working Group—it is clear that there is still more that can be done to secure smarter working, as I said. Collaboration is still patchy. We would like to make a more consistent service across the country.

The noble Lords, Lord Harris and Lord Beecham, talked about pilot schemes and trials. As I said, there is already substantial evidence to show that collaboration can work. The measures are locally enabling to reflect the Government’s view that local areas are best placed to determine the type of collaboration, but the provisions will in effect, by their very nature, be piloted as some areas will go first. A number of PCCs, such as Essex PCC, have already actively worked with their local fire and rescue services to develop a local business case.

[Lord Beecham]

Could the noble Baroness clarify what that means for responsibility for that service? Is it a collaboration between two services, or is she proposing that a single person should ultimately have responsibility for both services?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

It is about a single person having responsibility for both services. By their very nature, some will go before others and some are more advanced in working up their business cases. The public consultation that the noble Lord asked about took place over a period of about six weeks, I understand. People had an opportunity to respond.

The noble Lord also asked whether I had had any individual representation. I certainly have from Greater Manchester, which will not surprise him. I probably have not been in post long enough for my mailbag to start filling up with people’s views. I suspect that the Fire Minister, Brandon Lewis, may have had rather more.

To go back to what I was saying, Sir Ken Knight, whom noble Lords have mentioned, carried out an efficiency review of the fire and rescue service back in 2013. He concluded that opportunities to foster innovation and joint working were “hindered by local relationships” —of course, things can be vastly enhanced by local relationships in parts—and that greater leadership was required to overcome barriers to collaboration. He concluded that police and crime commissioners are well placed to provide that leadership and could clarify accountability to the public.

Taken together, Clause 6 and Schedule 1 enable a PCC to take on responsibility for the fire and rescue service in his or her local area. The Government believe that the directly accountable leadership of PCCs can play a critical role in securing better commissioning and delivery of emergency services at a local level. By overseeing both services, they can maximise the opportunities for innovative collaboration between policing and fire services, and ensure that best practice is shared.

As noble Lords have alluded to, we are introducing two models for PCC governance of fire and rescue services. The first, the “governance” model, will enable the PCC to take on responsibility for fire and rescue services in their area. In this model, the two distinct organisations will remain, with a chief constable in charge of the police force and a chief fire officer continuing to have operational responsibility for the fire and rescue service.

As a further step, a PCC could put in place the “single employer” model, under which the PCC would appoint a single chief officer, who would employ both police and fire personnel. This approach will remove the barriers that can prevent the full potential of fire and police collaboration, including the need to draw up contracts and collaboration agreements. This model will also enable upper tiers of management to be streamlined, with a single chief officer at its head. To ensure consistency, Clause 8 applies the single employer model to combined authority mayors to enable mayors with both policing and fire functions to secure the same benefits of closer alignment of policing and fire as their PCC counterparts.

I stress that the provisions in Schedule 1, providing for PCCs to take on the functions of fire and rescue authorities, are locally enabling. I hope this gives the noble Lord, Lord Bach, comfort. I stress that the Government are not mandating the transfer of these functions to PCCs. We know that a one-size-fits-all approach would clearly be inappropriate and it should be up to local communities to have a say in how their services are provided. Rather, PCCs will be able to take on responsibility for fire and rescue only where a strong local case is made that it is in the best interests of either efficiency, economy and effectiveness on the one hand, or public safety on the other, for the transfer to take place. They would be required to consult locally on that case.

If the PCC does not have local agreement to their proposal but still wishes to proceed with their case, the Home Secretary will be required to seek an independent assessment of the PCC’s business case and consider it and the representations made by the relevant local authorities before taking the decision whether to give effect to the proposal. This will be a robust process that ensures local concerns are fully taken into account and provides for independent verification of the merits of the case.

It is also important to be clear—the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, asked about this—that under these reforms, local police forces and fire and rescue services would remain distinct front-line services, albeit supported by increasingly integrated back-office and support services. It is not an operational merger. The important distinction between operational policing and firefighting will be maintained, with the law preventing a warranted police officer being a firefighter remaining in place. There is no intention to give firefighters the power of arrest or other core powers of a constable.

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[Lord Rosser]

I have one or two points. Bearing in mind that this is not necessarily about a clause standing part, I am not sure I am in the position of being invited to say whether I am withdrawing something.

However, in response to the argument about having a pilot exercise first, the noble Baroness said that in effect there will be a pilot exercise because inevitably one or two PCCs may want to go down that particular road. The inference was that we will then be able to assess from what happens how well it works. Does that mean that the Government are saying that if, for example, one or two PCCs decide they want to go down this road and that is approved by the Home Secretary, there will then be a period to see whether the PCC with responsibility for the fire and rescue services actually achieves what the Government say it will before there are any further transfers of responsibility for a fire and rescue service to a police and crime commissioner?

In that context, the Minister pointed out that there will be two distinct organisational models. Would that mean that we will await the outcome of the first transfer of responsibility of a fire and rescue service to a PCC under both those organisational models, with a sufficient period to evaluate how well it worked, before there were any further moves? I am not entirely convinced by the Government’s argument that in reality there will be a pilot unless the Minister can give me an assurance that there will be a gap after the first one or two go over to see how well this works and for it to be properly evaluated. That is my first question in response to what the noble Baroness said on behalf of the Government.

She then spoke about the provision in the Bill for a PCC to make an application to take over responsibility for the fire and rescue services and said that there would be consultation. Will there at that time also be consultation on alternative ways to improve efficiency or effectiveness, for example through greater collaboration, or will the only option on the table be the proposal from the police and crime commissioner, with no discussion or consultation on whether there is a better way to achieve what the Government say will be achieved by a police and crime commissioner taking over responsibility for a fire and rescue service? It would be helpful if the noble Baroness gave a response to those two particular points.

Finally, I asked in my contribution whether the fact that the Government say that police and crime commissioners should be able to take over responsibility for fire and rescue services meant that they were also saying that the structures of the two organisations— fire and rescue, and the police and crime commissioners and police forces—would effectively remain the same? The point has been made that they are not already co-terminous in all cases. The inference of the Government’s intention to seek to go down the road of PCCs having responsibility for fire and rescue services is that they deem the best organisational and governance structure for fire and rescue services to be, in effect, the same as that for police forces and the police service, and that that is the longer- term intention of the Government: to leave things basically as they are as far as the structure of the police service is concerned. Is that what the Government are saying?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I talked about the provisions in effect being piloted as some areas will go first. Not every area will move at the same pace, so clearly it will be a matter for local determination. Some PCCs might come forward with proposals in 2017 and others in 2018. The Bill will also be subject to post-legislative review in the normal way. Consulting on the proposals is—

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

On the question of pilots, the Home Office has no doubt given careful consideration to what has been in essence a 16-year pilot, in that since the office of the Mayor of London was created in 2000, the mayor has had responsibility for both police and fire. Although the mayoralty of London has been an enormous success, as everybody around the world acknowledges, can the Minister tell us what administrative or back-office savings have been delivered as a result of a single elected person having responsibility for both services in that intervening period? Having some degree of knowledge about that, I am not sure that there have been an awful lot.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Being of Haringey, the noble Lord probably has a far better idea of what efficiency savings have been achieved over those years. It is funny that he said that the mayoralty of London has been such a great success. It has been, but there was huge scepticism about it among many people and across parties when it began. I made the point about the noble Lord, Lord Bach, because, as time goes on, people are seeing the merit of having very accountable leadership at the top of organisations.

I return to the point on consultation. The Government have already consulted on their proposals for emergency service collaboration and that consultation informed the development of the clauses in the Bill. PCCs will undertake further local consultation on their business case, which brings me back to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, about the alternatives. Clearly, things evolve locally and change over time, but I do not think that they will be consulting on alternative proposals.

[Lord Rosser]

Does the Minister not think that that would be desirable? A proposal by a PCC who sought to take over responsibility for fire and rescue services would, to state the obvious, involve collaboration between those two services. But as we have heard today from a number of noble Lords, there are already many examples of effective collaboration that go way beyond simply the police service and the fire service. If a PCC has a desire to take over responsibility for a fire and rescue service, surely it is legitimate to raise the question of whether more and better collaboration would not be achieved through other means. The greater collaboration provided for in the first part of the Bill, which we have already discussed, would potentially go over a much wider range of services, authorities and organisations than simply between the police and the fire service.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, there is no barrier to wider collaboration. I keep harking back to my visit to Salford last week, where the police, fire and ambulance services are collaborating. Much wider collaboration has been going on for years, and this is just part of it. The noble Lord was talking about the PCC developing the business case, but the alternatives are not the purpose of the consultation.

Clause 6 agreed.

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[Lord Rosser]

I will be brief. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, mentioned, Amendments 12, 30 and 44 in this group are in my name as well as hers. As she also said, they seem not too dissimilar to the issue we discussed earlier when we debated Amendment 6. Amendment 12 provides that before the Secretary of State may make an order for a police and crime commissioner to take over the fire and rescue authority, it must appear to the Secretary of State that it would be both,

“in the interests of economy, efficiency and effectiveness”,

and,

“in the interests of public safety”.

It is that last bit which the amendment seeks to achieve.

Amendments 30 and 44 are in a similar vein in respect of the making of an order by the Secretary of State for the delegation of the functions of a fire and rescue authority to the relevant chief constable and in respect of a police and crime commissioner submitting a proposal to the Secretary of State to take over a fire and rescue authority.

Without wanting to labour the point too much, it is not clear why the Government, on this major change in organisational structure for the fire and rescue services, consider that it being,

“in the interests of economy, efficiency and effectiveness”,

and it being,

“in the interests of public safety”,

should be separated and alternatives when it comes to the Secretary of State making an order for a police and crime commissioner to be the fire and rescue authority. It raises issues about in what circumstances the Secretary of State would make an order when he or she considered it to be in the interests of economy, efficiency and effectiveness but not in the interests of public safety, which the Secretary of State would apparently be entitled to do under the terms of Schedule 1. Likewise, in what credible circumstances would the Secretary of State make an order based on it being in the interests of public safety when it was contrary to the interests of economy, efficiency and effectiveness, as apparently he or she could also do under the terms of Schedule 1 as it stands?

As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, suggested, I am rather hoping I may get a fairly sympathetic response, similar to the one I had on Amendment 6. I will wait to hear what the Minister has to say.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, where a PCC is interested in taking responsibility for fire and rescue, he or she will work with the local fire and rescue authority to prepare a business case setting out their assessment of the benefits and any costs of a transfer. The business case will then be subject to local consultation. The business case would need to show the Home Secretary how the proposals would be in the interests of economy, efficiency and effectiveness on the one hand or public safety on the other. The Home Secretary is able to make the order only if she is satisfied that one or other of these tests has been met. Amendments 12, 30 and 44 would instead require both tests to be satisfied. Amendment 99 seeks to apply the same change to the single employer model operated by a combined authority mayor.

The provisions as currently drafted mirror those for fire and rescue authority mergers. Section 2(2) of the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 sets out that the Secretary of State may make a scheme combining two or more fire and rescue authorities only if it would be in the interests of economy, efficiency and effectiveness or public safety. This is a long-established test, enacted by the previous Labour Administration, for the closer alignment of two services, and we therefore do not agree that an amendment is required.

We would expect that any assessment of the impact of a proposed transfer of governance on effectiveness would include an assessment of its impact on public safety, which is a primary function of the emergency services. In forming a view on the first test of economy, efficiency and effectiveness, the services’ role in protecting the public should therefore be paramount in the PCC’s consideration.

However, the provisions which, as I have said, mirror those that have been tried and tested for fire mergers, also provide for a separate test based on public safety. There may be exceptional circumstances where a current service is failing to protect the public and urgent action is required. In such a case, it is right that the Home Secretary should be able to make a Section 4A order solely on the grounds that to do so would be in the interests of public safety.

While I do not agree with the proposed amendments, I recognise the principle behind them. Police and fire and rescue services perform an important function in protecting the public, and we would not want a transfer of governance to have a negative impact on public safety. It is absolutely not the intention for these provisions to permit cases that would save money but damage front-line provision—which I almost said in my answer to Amendment 1—and the Home Secretary would not approve such a proposal. Indeed, such a proposal would not satisfy the test that it would be in the interests of economy, efficiency and effectiveness for a Section 4A order to be made.

However, there might be other ways of incorporating the spirit of these amendments in Clause 8 of and Schedule 1 to the Bill in order to make it absolutely clear that there is no question of an order being made that would have a detrimental impact on public safety. If the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, would be content not to move the amendment, I will reflect further on what he and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, have said in advance of Report, although they will understand that I cannot give a commitment at this stage to bring forward a government amendment.

Amendments 10 and 11 are on assessing the duty to collaborate. I cannot be so accommodating with these amendments. As I have set out, where a PCC wishes to seek responsibility for fire and rescue, they will be required to prepare a local case setting out their proposal. The Home Secretary will then give consideration to whether it would be in the interests of economy, efficiency and effectiveness or public safety for the order transferring the functions to be made.

Amendments 10 and 11, proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, in the place of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, would, in effect, additionally require the Home Secretary to assess the extent to which opportunities for collaboration under the provisions of Chapter 1 of Part 1 had been maximised before she decides whether to agree to the PCC’s business case for a Section 4A order.

I do not agree that such additional steps are required. The duty to collaborate and the fire governance provisions in the Bill are distinct. It is not necessary for a PCC to have exhausted all local opportunities for collaboration in order to make a case for a transfer of governance. While PCC governance of both police and fire and rescue services can maximise the opportunity for collaboration between policing and fire and ensure that best practice is shared, the benefits extend beyond collaboration alone. As Sir Ken Knight found in his efficiency review, the directly accountable leadership of police and crime commissioners can clarify accountability arrangements to the public.

On the basis of that and the undertaking that I will reflect further on Amendments 12, 30, 44 and 99, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, will be content not to press his amendment.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I reserve my right to consult my noble friend after today.

The start of the Minister’s explanation of “and” and “or” made me wonder whether consistency was more important than logic and safety, but it would be unkind to pursue that thought. The thought I will pursue is the Minister’s comments about safety being encompassed within economy, efficiency and effectiveness —effectiveness in particular, if I understood her correctly. Clearly they are not, otherwise it would not be necessary to have paragraphs (a) and (b) as separate paragraphs and to have paragraph (b) in addition to paragraph (a). We are all grateful to the Minister for offering to consider this further. I think we are not going to come to a meeting of minds on the two earlier amendments. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Paddick and I have Amendment 23 in this group. It is a probing amendment, although it no doubt looks as if it may be more than that. It would take out what will be the new Section 4E in the Fire and Rescue Services Act, which is the requirement for an authority created by Section 4A to have a fire fund and for receipts and expenditure to be dealt with through that fund.

I am not of course challenging the need for transparency or the need to enable audit trails and all the rest of it, but a separate fire fund presumably means a separate policing fund, and our amendment is intended to probe how this will work. If there are to be efficiencies through shared facilities, and perhaps shared sites and some shared staff, how are those to be dealt with? Is there to be an allocation of costs of the shared services to the fire fund and to the policing budget? What is to stop virement between police and fire—or between fire and police, whichever way you look at it? I hope that the noble Baroness can explain a little more how the budgetary and accounting arrangements are to operate.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, public safety is of course paramount and it is important that fire and rescue authorities are properly resourced to carry out their life-saving and other functions. When a PCC is interested in taking on the governance of fire and rescue, they will work with the local fire and rescue authority to prepare their proposal, including an assessment of why it would be in the interests of economy, efficiency and effectiveness, or public safety, for the transfer of governance to take place. If the noble Lord is amenable, we can address the issue of consultation in Amendments 47 and 48, as it is relevant to them. It is also important to remember that fire and rescue authorities are required, under the duty to co-operate, to provide the PCCs with necessary information to inform their proposal. It is reasonable to expect that an authority’s funding provision will be a key piece of information for any PCC to consider.

Amendment 13, put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, appears, at least in part, to be based on the assumption that under the governance or single-employer model it would be possible to divert fire service funding to the police force. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, also talked about virement. I assure the Committee once again that there will be no change to the way funding is allocated to fire and rescue authorities that are the responsibility of PCCs, and no question but that FRAs will have the resources they need to carry out their important work. As the then Policing Minister said during the passage of the Bill in the House of Commons, under both the single-employer model and the governance model, there will continue to be two separate precepts and two separate central funding streams for the police and the fire and rescue service.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, talked about the position since 2010 regarding firefighter jobs et cetera. There has been a long-term downward trend in the number of both fires and fire deaths, which recently reached historically low levels. Despite the latest increases —which I concur with the noble Lord about—fire deaths in England in 2015-16 were still 9% lower than they were some six years ago and fire injuries requiring hospital treatment were 25% lower. At this point, I pay tribute to the fire service for installing smoke alarms in people’s homes and advising them on how to reduce the risk of fire. I am sure that has helped with the long-term reduction in these numbers.

Given that assurance, I hope the noble Lord agrees that the amendment is unnecessary. By driving efficiencies in the way that back-office and support functions are provided to both the fire and rescue service and the police force, the provisions in Part 1 will help to strengthen front-line services.

I understand that the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, in tabling Amendment 23 is, as she said, to probe how any joint service functions could work in practice if the funds continue to be separated in the way I have set out. The Committee should be in no doubt that under the provisions in the Bill, a police and crime commissioner will not be able to use the fire budget for policing and vice versa. The money spent on each service will need to be accounted for separately in order to ensure transparency and accountability.

However, I assure the noble Baroness that it will still be possible for police and fire funding to be allocated for the purposes of shared back-office functions or other collaboration arrangements, but the costs for these functions will be apportioned back to the appropriate budget and accounted for separately. This ensures that clarity and transparency in funding is maintained. Requiring the police and crime commissioner to hold a separate fire fund for their fire funding mirrors the existing arrangements in place for them to hold a police fund.

Given those assurances, I hope that the noble Lord will be prepared to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Rosser]

I thank the Minister for her response. Although I intend to withdraw my amendment, I am not quite as confident as the Government that at some stage in the process of transferring responsibility for fire and rescue services to a police and crime commissioner, there will not be at least a temptation to switch some resources away from one service to the other—because of pressure on finance, not for any other reason—and that will be in a situation where the police service is the dominant service. In those circumstances, I would have thought it would be something of a safeguard for at least the Secretary of State to be required, before the move took place, to assess the level of funding the police and crime commissioner would need to retain the resilience of the fire and rescue service. However, I note what the Minister has said, and once again I thank her for her reply. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness explained, these amendments are about the delegation of fire and rescue functions by a police and crime commissioner and sub-delegation by the chief constable under a single-employer model. I understand these to be probing amendments—the noble Baroness confirmed that—which are designed to test why arrangements for delegation are required, and to ensure that the chief fire officer or chief constable, as appropriate, will continue to have operational responsibility. I hope to be able to reassure the noble Baroness on both those points.

Where an order is made transferring responsibility for the fire and rescue service to the police and crime commissioner under new Section 4A of the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004, it is necessary for that order to make provision about the delegation of functions by the police and crime commissioner. As the fire and rescue authority, the PCC will have the functions of the fire and rescue service vested in it as a corporate sole. However, in practice we would expect it to delegate the majority of functions to a chief fire officer who, under arrangements to be made by the PCC, would have operational responsibility for the service.

The order therefore needs to specify which functions may or may not be delegated, including the strategic functions that must be performed by the PCC and those operational functions we would expect to be performed by the chief fire officer. It is right that the PCC should be enabled by the order to delegate fire and rescue functions to its fire and rescue staff, including firefighters, to secure the delivery of an efficient and effective fire service. I have also tabled technical amendments to ensure that the PCC is able to delegate fire and rescue functions to the staff of its PCC office so that the office can operate effectively, appoint a single chief executive and share policy support if it so wishes to drive efficiency.

Where an order is made under new Section 4H of the 2004 Act implementing the single-employer model at the request of a PCC, it is also necessary for that order to make provision about the delegation of functions by the chief officer. The chief officer will legally be the chief constable of the police force area, but will be the employer of both police and fire and rescue personnel. In order to secure the effective delivery of the fire and rescue service, the chief officer will need to be able to sub-delegate functions that have been delegated to them by the PCC to fire and rescue staff who have transferred to them, as well as to any fire and rescue staff they employ, including firefighters.

Additionally, to help them to maximise the benefits of collaboration between the two services, the chief officer will also be able to delegate fire and rescue functions to their police personnel. However, let me be absolutely clear that this is not an operational merger, as I have said before. The delegation of functions is subject to the clear restriction that police officers cannot be employed for the purposes of fighting fires and that firefighters cannot perform functions that are reserved for warranted officers.

Finally, I would add that, in practice, the arrangements with regard to the delegation of functions will operate in similar fashion to the way in which they do now. The 2004 Act confers functions on fire and rescue authorities, but those authorities do not discharge all functions themselves. Many are delegated to a chief fire officer and sub-delegated beyond that. We need similar flexibility under the scheme provided for in the Bill. With that explanation, I hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, the first thing I should do is thank the Minister for putting on the record the answer to a question that I put to the Bill team a little while ago seeking some clarification. It is good to have that on the record. That was in regard to officers in different types of authority—police and fire—carrying out one another’s functions.

I remain a bit confused about sub-delegation, as distinct from arranging for functions to be carried out by what under this scheme is a sub-delegatee—I do not know whether that is the right word for the person further down the chain. I will think about what the Minister has said, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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Moved by

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

18: Schedule 1, page 176, line 25, after “authority” insert “or of the relevant police and crime commissioner”

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Moved by

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

20: Schedule 1, page 176, line 27, after “authority” insert “or of the relevant police and crime commissioner”

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Moved by

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

25: Schedule 1, page 179, line 16, leave out from “the” to end of line 18 and insert “delegation by such a chief constable of the chief constable’s fire and rescue functions.”

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Moved by

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

31: Schedule 1, page 179, line 47, at end insert—
“(6A) In this section “fire and rescue functions”, in relation to a chief constable means— (a) functions which are delegated to the chief constable under provision made under subsection (1)(a), and(b) functions relating to fire and rescue services which are conferred on the chief constable by or by virtue of any enactment.”

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Moved by

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

33: Schedule 1, page 180, line 14, leave out from second “of” to end of line 15 and insert “the chief constable’s fire and rescue functions.”

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Moved by

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

38: Schedule 1, page 183, line 7, at end insert—
“4KA Application of fire and rescue provisions(1) The Secretary of State may by order—(a) apply (with or without modifications) any provision of a fire and rescue enactment in relation to a person within subsection (2);(b) make, in relation to a person within subsection (2), provision corresponding or similar to any provision of a fire and rescue enactment.(2) Those persons are—(a) a chief constable of a police force for a police area to whom an order under section 4H applies,(b) a member of staff transferred to such a chief constable under a scheme under section 4I(1),(c) a member of staff appointed by such a chief constable under section 4I(4),(d) a member of such a chief constable’s police force to whom functions have been delegated by virtue of section 4H(1)(b), and(e) a member of the civilian staff of such a police force (as defined by section 102(4) of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011) to whom functions have been delegated by virtue of section 4H(1)(b).(3) The power conferred by subsection (1)(a) or (b) includes power to apply (with or without modifications) any provision made under a fire and rescue enactment or make provision corresponding or similar to any such provision.(4) The Secretary of State may by order amend, revoke or repeal a provision of or made under an enactment in consequence of provision made by virtue of subsection (1).(5) In this section “fire and rescue enactment” means an enactment relating to a fire and rescue authority (including, in particular, an enactment relating to an employee of such an authority or property of such an authority). This includes an enactment contained in this Act.(6) References in this section to an enactment or to provision made under an enactment are to an enactment whenever passed or (as the case may be) to provision whenever the instrument containing it is made.”

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Moved by

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

41: Schedule 1, page 183, line 26, leave out “Act” and insert “enactment”

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[Lord Rosser]

We have a number of amendments in this group. The first, Amendment 46, provides that, before a police and crime commissioner submits a proposal to take over a fire and rescue authority, the commissioner must consult each relevant fire and rescue authority and any local authority or part thereof whose area forms part of the fire and rescue authority area, in addition to seeking the views of people in the commissioner’s police area about the proposal. This is a particularly relevant and apposite amendment, with the requirement to consult widely. That requirement applies to the other amendments that we have tabled, since the Minister has already confirmed that, when it comes to a PCC making a proposal to take over a fire and rescue authority, there will be no requirement to look at alternative options that might be better, such as collaboration agreements involving a wider range of emergency services and other relevant organisations. There is hence a need to make sure that there is very thorough and effective consultation on the PCC proposal and that every effort is made to ensure that such proposals have full support and meet the wishes of those most affected.

Amendment 48, provides that police and crime commissioners seek the views of people in the fire and rescue authority area before submitting a proposal. I note the comment made about the amendment by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, but since it is the fire and rescue service that is to be taken over, those people who will be most affected are those within the fire and rescue authority area. It is their fire and rescue service that is likely to be considerably affected by the proposed takeover.

Amendment 50 provides that a Section 4A proposal, whether modified or not, may be made only with the consent of all relevant local authorities and fire and rescue authorities or, if that is not achieved, by a majority vote in support of the proposal in a referendum of the local population. The purpose of this amendment is to explore the extent to which the Government intend to make sure that there is genuine, majority consent to what the PCC is proposing among those affected. Under the terms of the Bill, it is clear that a proposal to take over a fire and rescue authority by a police and crime commissioner could be driven through irrespective of the views expressed, including those expressed by other elected representatives.

Amendment 51, the final amendment that we tabled in the group, provides that the Secretary of State must obtain an independent assessment of the police and crime commissioner’s proposals. There is, of course, provision already in the Bill for the Secretary of State to obtain an independent assessment, but apparently that assessment need not be by somebody with some expertise in looking at the issues involved or in looking at the proposals and the kind of justification for those proposals that would be put forward. Hence the amendment, which would provide that the independent assessment of the proposal will be,

“from an independent panel of experts chosen by the relevant police and crime commissioner and the relevant local authorities”.

I hope that the Minister, even if it is not her intention to accept the amendments—I am not anticipating that she is about to do so—will at least be willing and able on behalf of the Government to address the concerns that these amendments represent.

I accept the point that the Minister made earlier, that I was not really raising my point in respect of the appropriate group of amendments. Hence, I willingly agreed to put it back and raise the issue when this group of amendments on consultation was discussed. Although the Bill refers to consultation and seeking the views of certain groups and people, it does not appear to provide any statutory provision for the views to be sought of the employees of the organisations that will be affected, which are the police forces and fire and rescue services concerned, and their representative organisations—that is, the trade unions involved, when there are trade unions representing them. Will the Minister address that point?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, these amendments raise a number of important points about the process for bringing forward a proposal for a police and crime commissioner to take on the governance of the fire and rescue service. I shall take each of the amendments tabled in turn.

Amendment 45 would require a police and crime commissioner to meet the costs incurred by a fire and rescue authority in providing information requested by the PCC for the purposes of the preparation of his or her proposals. To produce a comprehensive business case, police and crime commissioners will have to work with the fire and rescue authorities in their police area. This will obviously require a degree of information-sharing, which is why the Bill places a duty on fire and rescue authorities to co-operate with police and crime commissioners in the development of their proposals.

Requiring police and crime commissioners to meet the costs incurred would be contrary to the principle of local collaboration—we talked about common costs—and could introduce barriers to effective co-operation between police and crime commissioners and fire and rescue authorities. I want to be clear that, under the duty, fire and rescue authorities are required to provide only such information as the police and crime commissioner might reasonably require. Therefore, fire and rescue authorities would already have grounds to refuse a request if they considered it to be unreasonable. That strikes the right balance between ensuring that police and crime commissioners are able to prepare a robust business case, while safeguarding fire and rescue authorities from being subjected to unreasonable and burdensome requests.

Amendments 45 to 49 and Amendment 55 all deal, in one way or another, with the issue of consultation. Amendment 47 requires a PCC to consult fully with people in their local police area before submitting their proposal to the Home Secretary. The Bill already requires a PCC to seek the views of people in their police area, but provides flexibility over how this is done. That is important to enable PCCs to reflect the different local arrangements that exist in different areas.

I note that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, expressed some scepticism about the requirement to seek local views, and whether it was robust enough. Just to speak from my own experiences in Greater Manchester, given how the PCC—we have an interim mayor who is also an interim PCC—and all the various authorities and agencies interact with each other, it is no environment for an autocrat to ignore the feelings of local authorities or other agencies with which he or she works. It would make for a very unsatisfactory outcome if he or she ploughed ahead regardless, without considering the concerns of other bodies. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, mentioned trade unions, which in some places are crucial in the determination of these things; local authorities most certainly are, in Greater Manchester. The way it operates is collegiate, and always has been, for some 30 years. I give noble Lords the comfort from my own experiences. As a lone Conservative in a group of 10 local authorities, of which one other was Lib Dem, I know that to work in that collegiate way is crucial to the fortunes of the combined authority and the PCC. I contend that, in practice, what the noble Baroness suggests might happen is very unlikely to happen.

Amendment 48 seeks to replace the reference to the police area with one to the fire and rescue authority area. Such a change would, however, have no material effect. Any proposal put forward by a PCC, or two PCCs acting jointly, must maintain co-terminous police and fire and rescue authority areas, as we have said. For example, any proposal put forward by the Sussex PCC must relate to taking on the governance of both East and West Sussex fire and rescue authorities. It follows that, in seeking the views of people in the Sussex police area, the PCC would also seek the views of people in the two affected fire and rescue authority areas.

The noble Lord talked about referenda. Those are not just expensive undertakings—we estimate the average cost in respect of an average-sized police force would be £1.6 million—but lengthy. We are talking about individuals who are directly elected by the people; making them additionally go through a referendum when they are already mandated by the people would probably not be wise. There is a remedy to PCCs not entirely doing what is in the best interests of local people: voting them out at the next election.

Amendment 49 makes provision for a PCC to publish the outcome of the consultation on their local business case. I recognise the important principle behind this amendment and am sympathetic to it. It is generally considered good practice for public bodies to be clear and transparent about the outcome of any public consultation, and we would not expect a PCC to behave any differently in this instance. Accordingly, I would be content to consider this amendment further in advance of Report.

Amendment 55 seeks to extend the duty on a PCC to consult relevant local authorities on a local business case to encompass any local authority which might be affected by the proposed transfer. I hope the noble Baroness will agree that, in the example I have given, it would almost be a given that local authorities would be involved in the process.

A police and crime commissioner’s proposals will need to set out clearly the benefits that a transfer of governance will bring. It is only right that a local authority that shares its boundaries with the fire and rescue authority or whose boundaries fall within the fire and rescue authority should definitely have its say, but I do not agree that it is necessary to extend this duty any further. While it is true that decisions on the deployment of resources have the potential to impact on neighbouring local authority areas, or authorities with which the fire and rescue authority collaborates, I want to be clear that these are operational issues and, as such, would be a matter for the chief fire officer, rather than for the PCC’s business case. Furthermore, where a police and crime commissioner intends to submit a local business case, the Bill does not prohibit consulting with additional local authorities, should they wish to do so.

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Moved by

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

56: Schedule 1, page 190, leave out lines 4 to 6 and insert—
“(b) references to the chief officer’s functions were to the relevant chief constable’s fire and rescue functions.”

Policing and Crime Bill

Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts

Wednesday 14th September 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

71: Schedule 1, page 201, line 33, at end insert—
“_(1) Section 1 (police and crime commissioners) is amended as follows.(2) In subsection (3) for “The” substitute “Unless subsection (3B) applies, the”.(3) After subsection (3) insert—“(3A) Subsection (3B) applies if the person who is the police and crime commissioner for a police area is also the fire and rescue authority for the area which corresponds to, or an area which falls within, the police area.(3B) In that case the name of the police and crime commissioner is “the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for” with the addition of the name of the police area.””

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, these government amendments respond to one tabled on Report in the Commons by Amanda Milling. It is important that the public know that, where a police and crime commissioner is also the fire and rescue authority for an area, they are electing someone to both roles and are able to hold them to account for the delivery of both services. We therefore propose changing the legal title of a PCC to “police, fire and crime commissioner” where they additionally have fire and rescue responsibilities to ensure absolute clarity on this point.

Further, to ensure consistency, we similarly propose to amend the legal title of a police and crime panel for the area in which the PCC is also the fire and rescue authority to “police, fire and crime panel”. Again, this will provide greater transparency to the public as the new title reflects the additional scrutiny responsibilities of the panels in these areas. The Government consulted both police and fire partners on these amendments and it is clear that there is broad support for the new titles. They will preserve the identity of the fire and rescue service, which we have been clear will remain a distinct and equal partner to the police. I beg to move.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

I will make just a few brief comments on these government amendments. I suppose we have achieved a great deal if we have managed to get away without endless discussion of what the new title of a police and crime commissioner who takes over responsibility for the fire and rescue service should be. That is the kind of issue on which there are usually interminable discussions.

Looking at the proposal that the individual who takes over responsibility for a fire and rescue service should be renamed the police, fire and crime commissioner, that title does not include reference to the rescue function. It is a fire and rescue service but the title simply refers to a police, fire and crime commissioner. I note that the Minister said that there had been consultation and discussion on this and that the proposed name change seems to have found general favour. I simply ask: why was it decided to exclude the reference to the rescue activity of the fire and rescue service from the renamed PCC where that PCC takes over responsibility for a fire and rescue service?

The other point I would raise refers to Amendment 72, which deals with the change of title to the police and crime panel. I do not intend to repeat the point I made about the new title of the police and crime commissioner in relation to these panels. However, have the Government carried out or do they intend to carry out any assessment of the effectiveness of these panels, bearing in mind that greater responsibility will be placed on them where the police and crime commissioner takes over responsibility for a fire and rescue service?

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[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, no doubt there was extensive consultation about the name that the new commissioners should have. No doubt, in typical fashion, that was conducted over the summer months when there was perhaps not a huge response. It more or less must have been then because this amendment was brought in at a late stage, at the tail end of the Commons consideration. I would be interested to know exactly how many responses there were and the substance of those responses.

Lumbering the commissioners, who I suppose we will have to get used to calling PFAC commissioners, is not necessarily the most helpful of things. My noble friend Lord Rosser has pointed out the omission of “rescue”.

Look at the order of the words: police, fire and crime. One might have thought that crime sat more comfortably near police than with fire, and while the Government are about it, they are compounding the problem that the original Act created of having somebody whose responsibility is to commission crime. They are making it worse because now this person commissions fire. If they said that this person was the police and rescue commissioner, it would make sense. It would be their job to commission people to do policing and rescue, but at the moment there is this strange amalgam which loses half the role of fire and rescue and at the same time manages to imply that the commissioner is responsible for all fires and crimes in their area. This is frankly not sensible. Rather than embark on another intensive consultation that perhaps nobody knows about, perhaps the Home Office might want to think again.

While it is thinking again, perhaps the Minister could give us a little more explanation about the proposals to have a police, fire and crime panel. Noble Lords will be pleased to know that I shall not rehearse the same set of arguments about why the various things should be bundled together and in what order the words should be, but my noble friend Lord Rosser raised an extremely important and pertinent point. Police and crime panels were bolted on to the legislation that created police and crime commissioners, I think probably because of some rumblings on the Liberal Democrats Benches at the time. It was a half-hearted gesture in the direction of creating an accountability mechanism, but it is a gesture that does not work. The panels have created a mechanism whereby people are brought together from different local authorities, perhaps three or four times a year, to carry out the statutory functions. It is not a cohesive team. The budget available for servicing them is microscopic, which means that there is no staff work which supports that work. It is not surprising that the learned study which my noble friend referred to is quite so scathing about them. I also wonder why it has been decided that this scrutiny function is best located in a single body. Why would you not have a body which focused on policing matters and one which focused on the fire matters, given that the Government keep telling us that these will continue to be separate functions with separate streams of funding? Perhaps the Minister can enlighten us.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank noble Lords for the points they have made. On using the word “rescue” in the title, apart from the fact that it is a bit of a mouthful, chief fire officers in the Chief Fire Officers Association do not have the word “rescue” in their title. I think that is the reason. I take the noble Lord’s point, but too many words can be a bit cumbersome. We consulted police and fire stakeholders between the amendment being made in the Commons and our suggestion to change the name.

On whether the panels are effective, I was on the police authority for a year. At that time there was a lot of criticism of police authorities being remote from people and questions about whether they were fulfilling their function of bringing police authority to account. The police and crime panels under the Bill have clear powers to scrutinise the actions and decisions of each PCC and to make sure the information is available to the public. The meetings are held in public, so not only is the information available to the electorate but they can watch these meetings, which are often recorded. For example, the meeting of Sussex PCP is broadcast, and members of the public can submit questions to the panel for the commissioner ahead of the regular scrutiny meetings. I will not disavow what the noble Lord said—I have not read the book—but their powers are clear, and the decision-making and the scrutiny process is transparent. The scrutiny meetings are often available for broadcast, and members of the public can ask questions ahead of them.

[Lord Rosser]

Does the Minister not agree that if the Government are satisfied that the police and crime commissioners have been in existence for long enough to form a view that they would be competent and suitable to take over responsibility for a fire and rescue service, the police and crime panels have also been in existence for sufficient time for the Government to properly evaluate their effectiveness and the extent to which they have or have not achieved the objectives that were laid down? The Minister acknowledged that the points I was making were not my personal views—they came from the study that had been undertaken—and I would have thought that there was an argument, now that their powers and responsibilities are to be extended, to at least have a look at the extent to which they are delivering on the objectives to which the Minister has just referred.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I undertake to ask, between now and Report, whether any reviews have been undertaken on the effectiveness of police and crime panels and to get back to the noble Lord. I will write to noble Lords on that point and, if that is not the case, say whether the Government intend to review the process in light of the previous criticism of police authorities.

Amendment 71 agreed.

Moved by

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

72: Schedule 1, page 202, line 5, at end insert—
“ In section 28 (police and crime panels outside London) after subsection (1) insert—“(1A) Subsection (1B) applies if the person who is the police and crime commissioner for a police area is also the fire and rescue authority for the area which corresponds to, or an area which falls within, the police area.(1B) The police and crime panel for the police area is to be known as “the Police, Fire and Crime Panel”.””

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[Lord Rosser]

We have Amendment 81 in this group. Clause 7, to which our amendment refers, inserts a provision into the Local Government Act 1972 to the effect that:

“A relevant police and crime commissioner may attend, speak at and vote at a meeting of a principal council in England which is a fire and rescue authority”.

A sub-paragraph then sets out the circumstances in which that applies, and one of those is,

“only if and to the extent that the business of the meeting relates to the functions of the principal council as a fire and rescue authority”.

Our amendment seeks to address what happens if there is a dispute as to whether or not council business is fire-related, and whether the relevant police and crime commissioner is able to exercise their power to attend, speak at and vote at the meeting. The amendment says that if there is a dispute on this point, the decision of the monitoring officer in that authority should be final—in other words, the monitoring officer will adjudicate if there is a difference of view regarding the extent to which the business of the meetings relates to the functions of the council as a fire and rescue authority. Naturally, one would hope that such a situation would not be a common occurrence, to say the least; indeed, one might hope that it would never be an occurrence, but clearly there has to be some effective means of resolving the matter if there is a dispute.

I suggest only one particular circumstance in which problems of this kind might arise: if a police and crime commissioner wanted to take over a fire and rescue service against the wishes of the local authority concerned. The local authority concerned might then seek to look very closely at the extent to which the business at the meeting related to its functions as a fire and rescue authority and therefore perhaps seek to preclude the police and crime commissioner from attending, speaking or voting at it.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, Clause 7 provides for PCCs to request to be represented on fire and rescue authorities within their police areas where they do not take responsibility for the governance of the fire and rescue service. This is what we have described as the representation model. When an FRA accepts such a request, we have set out that PCCs will be treated as if they were a member for the purposes of bringing agenda items, receiving papers and so on, and have full voting rights to ensure that they can take part in the business of the fire and rescue authority in a meaningful and effective way.

The amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, would remove those voting rights, which would be a great shame, as the PCC would not have real influence behind their contribution. Again going back to my experience, it would set an incredibly negative tone to the whole environment. In fact, it would make me wonder how they managed to get that far in the first place. We want PCCs and FRAs to consider the representation model as a viable option for promoting greater collaboration between the two services. To limit the PCC’s involvement would weaken representation as a serious model for collaboration; it would be quite anti-collaboration. The amendments also remove the necessity for a fire and rescue authority to publish its decision and reasoning in considering PCC membership. I would be concerned that to do so would remove transparency and accountability from the process, because these provisions enable PCCs to seek representation where they wish to while respecting local fire governance arrangements.

The final decision on representation rests with the fire and rescue authority, although we would fully expect that in most instances the FRA would accept the PCC’s request and if it does not, their reasons should be made clear to both the PCC and the public. This ensures that the process is fully transparent and open to effective scrutiny.

Amendment 81, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, would make the monitoring officer the final arbitrator of disputes about whether business is fire-related. We do not consider this to be an appropriate role for the monitoring officer. Where a county or unitary FRA does not have a dedicated committee for fire, the Bill provides that the PCC’s ability to attend, speak and vote will be restricted to matters relating to the functions of the fire and rescue authority. It will be for local appointing committees to consider how these arrangements work in practice.

As the noble Lord knows, monitoring officers have existing duties under Section 5 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 to report to the local authority if, at any time, it appears to them that any actions of the authority are or would be in contravention of legal provisions. It would therefore be a conflict of interest for them also to take a role in arbitrating on decisions.

As a further safeguard, PCCs will be subject to the local authority’s code of conduct for the purposes of their representation on the FRA. Were they to act outside of the code, the monitoring officer must refer the matter to the relevant police and crime panel, which will make a report or recommendations to the PCC.

I believe that the Bill as drafted allows for the representation model to be considered as a serious alternative to other governance models, and I hope that I have been able to persuade the Committee of the merits of the approach taken in the Bill and that consequently the noble Baroness will be content to withdraw her amendment.

[Lord Rosser]

Perhaps I can clarify what the Minister said. I understood the point that she sought to make about the unsuitability of the monitoring officer, in the Government’s view. I am still unclear, and she may need to explain to me again, what will be the process to resolve an issue if there is an argument about whether a police and crime commissioner is entitled to attend, speak at or vote at a particular meeting, because that relates to whether business is being discussed which is relevant to the role of a fire and rescue authority. Will a process or procedure exist, will guidelines be issued on it, or do the Government argue that they do not envisage that such a problem will ever arise?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

As I have explained, in most instances, the FRA would accept a request, and it would be in the interests of good working, good faith and collaboration for it to do so. As to the process if it refused such a request, as I understand it—I will write to noble Lords if it is any different—if it refuses it, it refuses it, and there is no recourse thereon in.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, perhaps I should make it clear that the deletion in the amendments of the transparency provisions, as the Minister described them, were consequential—or possibly presequential. I am not sure about the point on voting. That was not really the thrust of our amendments. I am not comfortable about this. She described the amendments as being anti-collaboration, but collaboration by its very nature requires two parties—not merging the parties into a single authority. However, we are where we are, certainly for tonight, so I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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Moved by

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

87: Clause 7, page 9, line 40, after “or” insert “, in the case of a combined authority for an area which is wholly within England,”

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Moved by

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

88: Clause 8, page 11, line 19, leave out from “exercise” to end of line 20 and insert “the chief constable’s fire and rescue functions.”

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has explained, these amendments relate to the process for adopting the single employer model by a combined authority mayor. I will take each amendment in turn.

Amendment 93 removes the requirement for a mayor to request that the Home Secretary approves an order implementing the single employer model. In effect, it enables any person to make such a request of the Home Secretary. As I explained during our consideration of the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill, we considered that directly elected combined authority mayors provided that strong, clear accountability necessary to exercise the wide-ranging powers that were devolved to an area. The processes in the Bill reflect this, giving the mayor the discretions and powers to be exercised locally that it is right for the mayor to have, given their own local mandate and direct accountability locally through the ballot box. Mayors should be able to take the big decisions that they are elected to make, with appropriate safeguards. Where a mayor is responsible for police and fire functions, we believe that the mayor should be the person to make such proposals to the Home Secretary about how these functions are run. Adopting this amendment would be counter to this devolutionary approach, whereby powers and duties usually exercised by Whitehall have been devolved to the mayor.

Amendments 94, 95 and 98 require a mayor seeking to put in place the single employer model to carry out a public consultation on the proposal. The Bill already requires the Home Secretary to consider whether a proposal for the mayor to put in place the single employer model is in the interests of economy, effectiveness and efficiency or public safety before approving it. These provisions do not prohibit a mayor from consulting locally on a proposal. Should the mayor wish to do so, the Home Secretary would be required to have regard to any responses to the consultation when considering whether to give effect to the proposal. Where powers have been devolved to an area, it is for the directly elected mayor to decide how particular proposals, be they for creating a single employer model or any other exercise of powers, should be taken forward. It is important that any proposals brought forward by a mayor are properly scrutinised. Noble Lords will have the opportunity to debate them, as orders to implement the single employer model under a mayor will be subject to the affirmative procedure.

Amendment 97 seeks to lower the threshold for triggering an independent assessment of a proposal to implement the single employer model under a mayor, while Amendment 96 takes the further step of requiring the Home Secretary to order an independent assessment of a proposal, regardless of whether there is local agreement. The amendment would also require a mayor to submit to the Home Secretary any representations made by elected members of the combined authority about the proposal and the mayor’s response to those representations.

It would not be proportionate to lower the threshold or strike out the limiting provisions for ordering an independent assessment of a proposal. The approach we have taken mirrors that of devolution deals agreed to date, whereby members are able to reject specific proposals brought forward by the mayor where there is agreement from at least two-thirds of members of the combined authority. Given that the combined authority mayor will have been directly elected with a strong democratic mandate, we consider that two-thirds threshold entirely appropriate. Not to bore noble Lords too much about Greater Manchester but, as I explained, my position was as one of 10—the only Conservative—and that was the situation that faced me year on year, quite often frustratingly. But the two-thirds majority worked. Lowering the threshold would give room for more regular mischief-making, should members of local authorities see fit. In my experience—noble Lords may disagree—it is an entirely appropriate threshold, and I hope the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I am sure the Minister, even as only one of 10, was quite capable of making enough mischief. I was never going to win an argument against the strong mayor model and the implications of that—but I do not think having a strong mayor means that there should not be consultation. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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Moved by

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

101: Clause 8, page 13, line 22, leave out from second “of” to end of line 23 and insert “the chief constable’s fire and rescue functions.”

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Moved by

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

105: Clause 8, page 16, line 10, at end insert—
“107EEA Section 107EA orders: application of fire and rescue provisions(1) The Secretary of State may by order—(a) apply (with or without modifications) any provision of a fire and rescue enactment in relation to a person within subsection (2);(b) make, in relation to a person within subsection (2), provision corresponding or similar to any provision of a fire and rescue enactment.(2) Those persons are—(a) a chief constable of a police force for a police area to whom an order under section 107EA(2) applies,(b) a member of staff transferred to such a chief constable under a scheme made by virtue of section 107EC(1),(c) a member of staff appointed by such a chief constable under section 107EC(2),(d) a member of such a chief constable’s police force by whom functions are exercisable by virtue of section 107EA(2)(b), and(e) a member of the civilian staff of such a police force (as defined by section 102(4) of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011) by whom functions are exercisable by virtue of section 107EA(2)(b).(3) The power conferred by subsection (1)(a) or (b) includes power to apply (with or without modifications) any provision made under a fire and rescue enactment or make provision corresponding or similar to any such provision.(4) The Secretary of State may by order amend, revoke or repeal a provision of or made under an enactment in consequence of provision made by virtue of subsection (1).(5) In this section “fire and rescue enactment” means an enactment relating to a fire and rescue authority (including, in particular, an enactment relating to an employee of such an authority or property of such an authority).(6) References in this section to an enactment or to provision made under an enactment are to an enactment whenever passed or (as the case may be) to provision whenever the instrument containing it is made.”

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Moved by

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

108: Clause 8, page 16, line 30, leave out “Act” and insert “enactment”

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Moved by

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

110: Schedule 2, page 205, line 15, leave out paragraph 4 and insert—
“4_(1) Section 45 (the Mayor’s periodic report to the Assembly) is amended as follows._(2) In subsection (6) omit “except as provided by subsection (7) below.”_(3) Omit subsections (7) and (8).”

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, in replying to the noble Lord, I hope that I have the right end of the stick as to what he is saying; I will give it a go anyway and I am sure that he will intervene if I am wrong. The amendment relates to the rules on political restriction in Sections 1, 2 and 3A of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989, in so far as they apply to the deputy mayor for fire and the deputy mayor for policing and crime. Those rules do not apply to the deputy mayor for policing and crime. I therefore put it to the noble Lord that they are not applicable or relevant for this amendment.

The provisions for appointing the deputy mayor for policing and crime are set out in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011. The Bill does not seek to change those provisions. The 2011 Act does not restrict a member of the Assembly from being appointed as the deputy mayor for policing and crime, and for that member to continue to be a member of the Assembly.

The purpose of paragraph 8 of Schedule 2 to the Bill is to enable a person who is an Assembly member to remain a member of the Assembly or to become one despite having been appointed or designated as the deputy mayor for fire. The amendment would remove the political restriction rules completely for that position, which is perhaps what he was seeking. I did not think that was what the noble Lord intended, but it may be. If I have misunderstood his purpose, I will be very happy to reflect on what he has said and write to him.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

I will certainly be grateful to receive a letter from the noble Baroness, Lady Williams. However, I think she has slightly missed the point—namely, that, under the current legislation, if the deputy mayor for policing and crime is not an Assembly member, he or she is politically restricted. It is just conceivable that, because of the convoluted way in which legislation is frequently drafted, the political restriction is derived from something other than those particular clauses in the Local Government Act, but I rather doubt it. Therefore, we are talking about those people who are not already Assembly members who are appointed as either deputy mayor for policing and crime or deputy mayor for fire. The Bill seeks to apply that provision to the deputy mayor for fire if they are not an Assembly member, so they are politically restricted. As I have said before, I think that is a nonsense. Therefore, I hope that the noble Baroness will check precisely how the legislation applies to them. But it certainly has applied to the last two deputy mayors for policing and crime in London, because both of them have been obliged to resign their council seats as a consequence not of any disqualification laid down other than the fact that they have become politically restricted, so clearly the measure has applied under those circumstances. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, no doubt has encyclopaedic knowledge on this.

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[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Harris, on this. I remember quite clearly, during the passage of the Greater London Authority Act, the then Minister—or the government representative at the Dispatch Box; I think it was a Whip at the time—saying firmly, on the basis of notes coming to her from the Box, that the London Assembly should be allowed to sort out its own procedure. I think we were debating an issue around a quorum. The same applies here, probably in spades. It is also interesting that the Government, who are concerned about efficiency, effectiveness and economy, should insist on procedures that must have the potential to be less efficient and more expensive.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, explained, the amendment would delete the provision which prevents the assembly arranging for any of its non-fire and emergency committee functions to be discharged by that committee. The role of the fire and emergency committee will be to review how the London Fire Commissioner exercises his or her functions and to investigate and prepare reports on the commissioner’s actions and decisions. The committee will also review draft documents presented to it by the London Fire Commissioner and make a report or recommendations to the mayor. The committee will also undertake confirmation hearings in respect of the appointment of the London Fire Commissioner and the deputy mayor for fire. In addition, it will have the power to require the deputy mayor for fire, the London Fire Commissioner and any officer of the London Fire Commissioner to attend proceedings of the committee to give evidence.

The functions are set out in the Bill so that it is clear that the fire and emergency committee has a specific fire-related purpose. It follows that the committee should not be used for any non-fire-related business of the assembly. This is clearly different from everywhere else in the country, as the noble Lord said—and I am sure that other places in the country will argue for what London has. The position in London is different. There will be two separate functional bodies and no move to a single-employer model, so in that sense it is not the same as elsewhere. I apologise for doing it again, but I compare Greater London to Greater Manchester—it is four times the size.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

Four times as good.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I would not agree with that, but with that explanation I hope that the noble Lord will feel happy to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, to be honest, I do not think that it was really an explanation. The issue is not that London is more complicated even than Greater Manchester, nor that there will be two separate functional bodies headed by the deputy mayor and so on—although I have to ask: if the Government are enthusiastic about such a model everywhere else in the country, why would it not make sense for the two functions to be brought together in London, or for there to be a single employer? I am not advocating that, by the way, because I do not think that it would be a good idea, but I find it inconsistent with everything else in the Bill.

As the noble Baroness says, the Bill specifies in enormous detail exactly how the Assembly will have to organise this:

“The Assembly must arrange for the functions”—

the noble Baroness listed them—

“to be discharged on its behalf by a particular committee of the Assembly … The Assembly may not arrange for the fire and emergency committee functions to be discharged on its behalf otherwise than in accordance with subsection (1)”,

which sets up the committee.

“The Assembly may not arrange for any of its other functions to be discharged by the fire and emergency committee”.

This is really laying it down—“You have to have a fire and emergency committee. It can do only this, it mustn’t do anything else, and nobody else must do it”. It really is not very much of a statement in favour of localism. The Bill then goes on to say that:

“The special scrutiny functions may only be exercised at a meeting of the whole panel”.

I do not know where “panel” comes from; the rest of the new section talks about a committee; no doubt that is a technical issue that I do not understand, but officials might want to look at whether the Bill should say “panel” or “committee” at that stage.

Had I been really malevolent, I would have taken out all that and just said, “These are the functions that the Assembly must consider how to administer”. Laying things down in that detail and limiting the discretion of the Assembly to decide how it wants to organise itself seems a nonsense. Although I am happy not to press the amendment to a vote tonight, I hope that I am getting an assurance from the noble Baroness that she will look at it again and come back on it on Report, otherwise I will.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

By the sounds of it, my Lords, we both will.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, the amendments proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, would extend the powers of the assembly fire and emergency committee to investigate and prepare reports about the deputy mayor for fire and any other matters which the assembly considers to be of importance to fire and rescue services in Greater London.

With regard to Amendment 114, the noble Baroness makes a valid point about the need for scrutiny of the actions and decisions of the deputy mayor for fire. I am happy to consider this amendment further in advance of Report. On Amendment 115, any other matters which the assembly considers to be of importance to fire and rescue services will inevitably have already been considered by the London Fire Commissioner in the exercise of his or her functions, and consequently will be subject to scrutiny by the fire and emergency committee. We are not therefore persuaded that this catch-all provision is needed. On the basis that I will consider further Amendment 114, I hope that the noble Baroness will be content to withdraw it at this stage.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for offering to look at Amendment 114. However, I wonder whether before Report she could look also at Amendment 115 in the light of Section 33(3)(f) of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011. Section 33(3) of that Act gives powers that cover,

“actions and decisions of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime”.

That is the equivalent, in policing terms, of the deputy mayor for policing. It also gives powers that cover,

“actions and decisions of the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime”.

Quite separately, in paragraph (f), are the,

“matters which the Assembly considers to be of importance to policing and crime reduction in the metropolitan police district”.

This is the exact equivalent, I would have thought, of my Amendment 115. They really do go together—it is a package of scrutiny.

If there is a difference between the provisions relating to policing and the provisions relating to fire and rescue in terms of the assembly’s powers, somebody is going to make the distinction and say, “No, you can’t go there”—when actually, they should go there. However, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 114.

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Moved by

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

116: Schedule 2, page 215, line 2, at end insert “or more”