Scotland Bill

Earl of Kinnoull Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, I will briefly speak to Amendments 41 and 42. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, for having tabled these amendments and for putting the case so eloquently. We had quite a wide-ranging discussion in Committee and I am very disappointed indeed that the Government have not come forward with proposals—a number of constructive options were suggested.

I have been trying to think of two words to explain the conduct of the Official Opposition over the Bill, and “kowtow” would sum it up. They are utterly terrified to say anything that could be interpreted in any way as not being in line with the Smith proposals or as doing anything that might upset the Scottish Government, which is very disappointing, particularly in the context of this issue.

As the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, pointed out, the British Transport Police has for nearly two centuries served our country extremely well. It is a while since I was Secretary of State but I remember the important role it had in ensuring that we were able to cope not just with terrorism but with drug traffickers and other criminals who use the transport network. It is a highly specialised area and it is an act of utter vandalism to break up the British Transport Police in the way that is being proposed.

It is a particularly stupid of the Government to go along with the idea that the British Transport Police should be fragmented and the Scottish element of it included in Police Scotland which, I am sad to say, is in Scotland regarded as something of a joke and a disaster. Prior to the Scottish Government making the changes we had independent police forces operating extremely effectively throughout Scotland. The advocates of devolution decided to take power away from those police forces and centralise them into Police Scotland, and the results have been disastrous as regards communications and operational failures. I place responsibility for this not on the individual members of the police force but on the Scottish Government, who have created this chaos. Both the notion that we should break up the British Transport Police and hand it over to an organisation which has just sacked its chief constable and appointed a new one to sort out its problems, and the amendments which have been put forward by the Labour Party tonight which suggest that we set up a quango to help deal with the problems of implementation and administration, are just breathtaking in the scale of their irresponsibility.

We have no reason to interfere with the operations of the British Transport Police, so what offends the Scottish Government about it? The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, put his finger on it: it could be the B word —the fact that it is called “British”—which offends. However, this is not a Scottish issue but a United Kingdom issue. It is about the security of the United Kingdom as a whole. I very much hope that the Minister will think again about the options which have been put forward in the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, about how we can maintain a British force.

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord is developing a very interesting point. I wonder whether, in doing so, he would like to refer to the no-detriment principle—principle number 5, of which I can hand him a copy now—and whether or not this offends that principle of the white sacred document, the Smith commission report.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Indeed, I am familiar with the no-detriment principle, which is that policy changes on either side of the border should not have a negative impact on either country, and this is a classic example. So it is actually against the Smith commission proposals and, as the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, pointed out, it is perfectly possible to maintain the integrity of the British Transport Police and meet the requirements of the Smith commission.

Can this be the same Government who are busy arguing that it is necessary for us to maintain our relationship with the European Union in order to maintain our security because of the importance of being able to share cross-border information et cetera? That same Government are now arguing and supporting a proposal that we should break up within our country a police force that operates cross-border. What is going to happen when the train gets to the border? Do the British Transport Police get off the train and somebody from Police Scotland gets on the train? How are they going to share information? What will the cost of all this be?

We have already had a glimpse of what might be in the fiscal framework: £200 million will be given to the Scottish Government to administer the welfare proposals that are being administered in large part in Scotland at present. That is money that would have been far better spent on welfare and not on bureaucracy. And here we are again. I always use the old cliche, “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it”. This is an organisation that has, as far as I am aware, served the public on the Glasgow Subway and throughout the rail network system. It is a specialist area, with the force operating on trains in dangerous circumstances using an experienced cohort with an esprit de corps. No one I have seen in the British Transport Police or among anyone with experience in this area supports what is being put forward. It is being put forward in order to kowtow to this obsession with trying to put a kilt on everything. It seems to me that the Government would do well to consider the amendments that have been put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, think again and come back at Third Reading with something that looks to protect the interests and security of the people on both sides of the border.

I listened to the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy. He said that, basically, this is all very difficult and, although we would like to do something, we cannot offend against the principles of the Scottish Government being able to decide these matters. I say to my noble friend the Minister in all seriousness: if there is an incident as a result of this change which would not have occurred otherwise, Ministers will find themselves suffering extreme criticism, and deservedly so. I hope that my noble friend will think again on this and come back with an amendment at a later stage that preserves the integrity of this important force.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Kinnoull]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Faulkner and Lord Empey, for speaking to these amendments—which, as I said in Committee, are most important. I am also grateful to the Minister for organising the drop-in yesterday. I regret that I turned up 27 minutes late, as I was detained on other business of the House, so I was only able to get a debrief—a very interesting debrief—from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, and the noble Lord, Lord Empey.

I approach this matter from the point of view of the citizen, as I have done before. I think that the citizen is interested in security. They are interested in not having their daughter thumped on a train, and in drug smugglers not getting through. They are interested in terrorists being arrested. Our two holy documents—the white Smith agreement and the green Bill—as ever, need to be a good guide. This is another instance where they are in conflict. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has been eloquently telling us about the no-detriment principle now for three months. I know that he knows it, but I thought that it should be read out. The agreement should,

“not cause detriment to the UK as a whole nor to any of its constituent parts”.

That is one of the core principles of the negotiations. Coming as it does at the start of the Smith commission report means that it has extra power. It is even more powerful than the many paragraphs that follow. Of course, paragraph 67 says very curtly:

“The functions of the British Transport Police in Scotland will be a devolved matter”.

Those two paragraphs—I stress again the no-detriment principle, which has been so much the core of what we have been talking about for three months—are at odds with what is in the sacred green document, and that needs to be resolved. It is something this House needs to work hard to resolve. It is not resolved at the moment. I certainly agree that it needs to be resolved for Third Reading.

To repeat what I said in Committee, I note that the British Transport Police has separate duties, separate skills, separate powers and separate staff, who are trained and motivated differently. They have different skills and lives. It has a totally different structure. Its IT systems are completely different and plugged into some of the most sensitive IT systems in the United Kingdom—to which the standard Police Scotland constable does not have access. In short, they are an elite. They are after passenger safety and suppressing terrorism, and they get a seven-figure sum every year just for dealing with their part of combating terrorism.

Police Scotland, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, so eloquently said, is a very troubled organisation. I have had just two Police Scotland officers in my home in the past six months—one from Dundee and the other from Perth. The particular matters that they came to talk to me about took 30 seconds, but I spent probably an hour with them listening to the awful difficulties they are dealing with as morale has collapsed and management appears to be on the floor. To be transferring into chaos at this time of terror alert—let us remind ourselves how big the terror alert is—one of the functions that is trying to keep us safe is pretty irresponsible. The Scottish Government might be nationalists, but they are a pretty responsible bunch of people. Neither they nor the UK Government should really be contemplating that. Of course, with all the differences in staff, training and IT duties, it would be very difficult.

I would very much like to hear from the Minister why the no-detriment principle is not the trump card, and why the collection of very well thought through and interesting amendments that make up this group could not be put in place. They would be consistent with the Smith commission agreement; they would certainly be consistent with the no-detriment principle. The core, surely, of both the UK Government and the Scottish Government is the security and safety of the citizen with whom I started this short speech. There is an overwhelming case for the Government introducing something at Third Reading, and I look forward to hearing a little about what that might be.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, paragraph 67 of the Smith commission report states:

“The functions of the British Transport Police in Scotland will be a devolved matter”.

That is a simple and straightforward sentence, but what lies behind it is actually very profound. My concern is that what is being proposed by the Government does not safeguard the functions of the British Transport Police if they are devolved. I respect and generally support the way it is being done in terms of exceptions to the general reservation under Part 2 of Schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998, but what we have heard is that the Scottish Government intend to put the British Transport Police under the ambit of Police Scotland.

I will not go into the woes of Police Scotland with the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, who have both mentioned them, but even at its best one can readily imagine that once the BTP comes under the auspices of Police Scotland, if you are the chief constable and you have problems and challenges with regard to resources, you might well think, “Well, why do we have a specific police presence in Waverley station? Surely it can be covered by the police we have got who would otherwise be monitoring Princes Street?”. It would not be proper for politicians to interfere in the operational decisions of the chief constable. For operational reasons the functions of the British Transport Police under a different guise could be whittled away bit by bit.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

The noble Lord is absolutely right, and we aired these concerns when this was debated in Committee.

It is interesting to note in the submission made by the British Transport Police Federation to the Scottish Parliament Devolution (Further Powers) Committee that:

“In 2001, the government response to the DfT consultation which led to the BTPA’s creation … stated that: ‘The Government therefore considers that the national railway network is best protected by a unified police force providing a dedicated, specialist service and able to give proper priority to the policing of the railways’”.

The memorandum to the committee of the Scottish Parliament goes on to quote the Transport Select Committee of the other place in 2004, which,

“looked at the reforms to the BTP’s governance arrangements … It concluded that: ‘The British Transport Police is not a Home Office Force, and nothing we have heard suggests that it should become one. The railways are a specialised environment, with specialised needs, and need a specialised Force’. They continued: ‘The steady reduction of resources allocated to traffic policing leads us to agree with Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary that unless there is a national force dedicated to policing the rail network, the task will not be given the priority it needs’”.

Our concern is that if, having devolved and lost control of this area and the Scottish Government exercise the devolved powers that they have to bring it under the direction of Police Scotland, the very concerns that were expressed by the BTPF and others will be borne out. The specialist services which the British Transport Police currently deliver could be lost over time, and therefore what the Smith commission argues is that the functions possibly could no longer be exercised.

Noble Lords have referred to a number of those functions, in particular tackling terrorism on our transport network. One I particularly note is that:

“The British Transport Police has created specialist teams with responsibility for the management of multi-agency support for local and national suicide prevention, mental health interventions and vulnerable persons encounters. An ongoing force-wide operation (Operation Avert) has so far achieved a 30% reduction in suicide attempts compared to the same period the year before”.

These are very profound specialist functions that the British Transport Police provide.

[The Earl of Kinnoull]

I think that we would all be very interested to hear the view of the noble and learned Lord on the quote that I read out about the no-detriment principle.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, one of the problems is that the no-detriment principle has so far tended to be looked at primarily in financial terms, but I think that the noble Earl is right that there are other detriments of a qualitative nature which he pointed out to the Minister. We could lose something of value. That would be to the detriment not just of Scotland, but of the whole country.

I share the views of other noble Lords that it is disappointing, despite the many concerns expressed in Committee, that the Government have not come forward with an amendment that would seek to address this. We owe a debt to the noble Lords, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, Lord Empey and Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, and to the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, who have sought to try to meet the Smith commission’s recommendation while ensuring that the specific functions of the British Transport Police are preserved.

I have some reservations about Amendment 41, which would be inserted at the end of Clause 42. Clause 42 fits the Smith commission’s arguments—it does devolve, in as much as it makes an exception—but my concern about Amendment 41 is that, having devolved, it seems to take back and would make it a requirement to have an agreement between the British Transport Police Authority and the Scottish Government. I prefer Amendment 42, which at least says that, if there is to be a police services agreement that applies in Scotland, Scottish Ministers should be involved, and that the oversight arrangements that the noble Lord, Lord Empey, spoke to—he indicated that they were over and above what was proposed—are consistent with the spirit and the letter of the Smith commission proposals, while trying to ensure that this is a practical way to address them.

I hope that when the Minister responds to the debate he will take on board that there are genuine concerns that a simple further exception to the reservations in Schedule 5 will not necessarily guarantee that the functions of the British Transport Police would be safeguarded after the devolution proposals put forward there. I therefore hope that the Minister, even at this late stage, will be prepared to come back and give some further thought as to how the functions can be properly safeguarded.