Police and Crime Commissioners and ACPO

Julian Huppert Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell, and to follow the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who is the Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, and my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), who gave an excellent summary. He and I have often taken up this issue on the Select Committee, because it does matter.

When I talk to experts in policing structures from around the world and they look at how ACPO works, they are often shocked at the amount of power that has accumulated without oversight and without deliberate intention. Nobody would deny that there is a role for operational discussion between chief constables, but far more than that has been accumulated and gone into the new structure, as I have seen in many cases. Several years ago, the Cambridgeshire police authority was told that it had to agree a particular policy on Tasers, because it had been mandated by ACPO. The police authority should have known better than to accept the policy, but that is what it was told, in writing, from the chief constable at the time. That is simply inappropriate. It is not up to ACPO to set that sort of policy.

The Parker review is deeply critical on several points, as was summarised by my hon. Friend. Some things have been annoying many of us for a long time, such as the fact that it is a private limited company and exempt from freedom of information requests. In fairness, the president, who is on the parliamentary estate today, has highlighted those as things that he would like to change, but I have not seen them change yet. We have the opportunity to change things now as a result of the Parker review, the new College of Policing, the bringing of a good evidence-based environment to policing, and the changes around police and crime commissioners.

PCCs now have the right to choose what model they would like. It is obviously their choice to make, but I hope that they consider the sort of model outlined by my hon. Friend. I say yes to a chief constables’ council, yes to a place for chief constables to talk, engage and interact, and yes to it having a part-time chair, who should have support and be able to be involved with operational policing. ACPO should be trimmed down, with far more responsibilities lying with accountable bodies, and far less of the power that it has accumulated. Many people at ACPO have worked hard and with the best of intentions, but it has not been accountable, and it has led to a few people collecting a huge amount of power.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Green]

Absolutely. The right hon. Gentleman is entirely right to make that point. I am conscious that Sir Hugh Orde has thought as much about these matters as anyone else and has, as one would expect, come to thoughtful conclusions.

I support the broad direction of travel of the Parker review, and I was pleased that PCCs had taken collective action to review the role and functions of ACPO. I was also pleased the review recognised the need for efficiencies and for deriving maximum value for money from services that are currently provided under ACPO.

The PCCs have a vital role in ensuring that there is a national forum in which chief constables may come together to co-ordinate what they see as their needs at the national level. We all agree that that is an essential function. As the review recognises, crucially, the majority of ACPO functions have now transferred to the College of Policing. We are using the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill to give the college the power to set standards. It will be for the college to provide leadership for the whole of policing in future.

[Dr Huppert]

The Minister is absolutely right to highlight the role of the College of Policing in providing standards and leadership. It is also important to evidence-informed policing and to developing new approaches that were not seen in the previous policing landscape. Will he talk about that role as well?

[Damian Green]

Indeed. My hon. Friend makes a good point. I am about to come on to the college and its vital, central role in future, but first I will point out the one part of the Parker review with which I disagree: the need for a centralised change management programme for police reform, potentially run from the Home Office. That is exactly what we do not need and is very much against the ethos of the more accountable, locally driven and bottom-up police service that we are introducing. That is one of the reasons why I am so glad that the PCCs have grasped the nettle of reform themselves, because it shows that we do not need a small group in the Home Office driving all change.