Police Federation Reform (Normington Report)

Debate between Keith Vaz and Mark Pritchard

Thursday 13th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. I am a little concerned at the number of cases in which someone criticises a serving police officer and ends up being served with a legal notice or threatened with legal proceedings as a result of raising issues of legitimate concern. The Select Committee inquiry will want to look at such cases.

The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield and his family must have been through a terrible ordeal. It is time to draw a line and move on, and to think about how we can reform the structure, now that the personal issues have been resolved and people have gone to jail or faced misconduct hearings.

[Mark Pritchard]

rose—

[Keith Vaz]

I will give way, but this will be the last time, because I am mindful of what Madam Deputy Speaker has said.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Pritchard]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. He mentioned moving on. Does he agree that the fact that carefully placed stories and leaks have found their way into national newspapers ahead of today’s debate does not help to restore public trust in the police service—particularly the Metropolitan police service? It is time to move on, and it is time for the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to get a grip of his officers. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the commissioner ought to have learned from Leveson, and from his previous mistakes in dealing with some parts of the media?

[Keith Vaz]

Of course I deplore leaks, but we have a free press. And of course it is important that everyone should learn the lessons.

Let me turn to the subject of the debate, the reform of the Police Federation. The Normington report is pretty scathing in its criticism of the federation. It says that it should be changed “from top to bottom”, and talks about the present crisis being the result of strategic failures. Sir David Normington also found that 91% of federation members wanted the organisation to change, so this is not a case of Parliament dictating to the federation and telling it what it should do. I am sure we would all want to step away from doing that. The members themselves are saying that they want change.

We need to ensure that the report’s recommendations are implemented by the current leadership of the federation. I pay tribute to Steve Williams, Steve White and Ian Rennie, the chair, vice-chair and general secretary of the organisation. It was Steve Williams who set up the Normington inquiry; we would not have had an inquiry, had the chairman not decided to do that. I also welcome the fact that they told the Select Committee that they intended to implement every one of Sir David’s recommendations. Our inquiry will commence shortly, and I hope that we will be able to look at the length of time it will take to implement them.

I see that another member of the Committee, the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless) is in his place. There were two things that caused the Committee some concern. One was the lack of knowledge about the No. 2 accounts that are being held across all the regions, which the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden mentioned. No one knows the figures involved. I would have thought that the chairman of an organisation as important as the Police Federation would know how much money it was holding locally. He told the Committee that he had written to every regional chairperson to ask for that information, and I hope that they will provide it. If the leadership of the federation is to succeed in implementing the Normington report, as we want it to, it must have that information.

The second issue that struck me and other members of the Committee was the fact that even Steve Williams did not know how many members the federation had, because the database was not up to date. That is also a matter of concern. Surely an organisation that speaks on behalf of thousands of police officers ought to have the names, addresses and e-mail addresses of every single member. That information is kept on a regional basis by the regional chairs and committees, but it is not passed on to the national headquarters, even though the national leadership has to speak on behalf of the federation. I hope that those two important issues will be resolved.

The leadership issue is an important one. The hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) mentioned the need for effective leadership earlier. I want to pay tribute to Paul McKeever, who sadly died at the end of last year. He was a splendid leader of the Police Federation. However, we can have the best leaders in the world, but if the structures are not right, we will not be able to implement change. The Normington report is about changing the structure of the federation, and I think we all agree that it has to change. The federation must also be open and transparent—not necessarily to Parliament, although I would love that to happen. It must be open and transparent to its members. In the end, we are all parts of organisations whose leaderships need to respond to the members, but the members also need to respond when leadership is shown.

I shall end by outlining some of the issues that I hope the Select Committee will look into. These are not agreed terms of reference—those will be agreed at the next meeting—but they are the elements that I think we need to look at. We need to look at the federation’s spending and its use of public money; the contents and usage of the reserves and the federation’s No. 2 accounts; the use of members’ subscriptions by representatives; and the leadership of the federation at national and regional level, including the elections; the current membership and ensuring that the Police Federation’s communications with all members are robust; and ensuring there is co-operation between regional and national boards. We do need to hear from some of the people who work for the federation and have made statements in the public domain—we would like to hear from them at Home Affairs Committee hearings.

Although the Normington report is damning—no organisation would like to read such a report about the way in which it conducts its business—I have confidence that the leadership is going to implement what Normington has said, because it has told the Committee that that is what it wants to do. The role of the Home Affairs Committee is to monitor that and make sure that those good words are translated into good deeds, for the benefit of the federation’s members and the country as a whole.

Police (Public Trust)

Debate between Keith Vaz and Mark Pritchard

Wednesday 13th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak in my first Westminster Hall debate under your chairmanship, Mr Bayley. It is also a real pleasure to follow the contribution of the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard). I regard him not only as a friend, but as someone who thinks carefully before making his speeches. His was a very thoughtful speech, which raised several issues of concern to Members on both sides of the House. I am sure that the Minister and the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), who was in the Minister’s position until very recently, will have taken on board many of the points made by the hon. Member for The Wrekin.

The debate is well attended, which shows the tremendous interest in the House in policing issues. The hon. Gentleman was right to end his speech by praising the work of so many police officers, but he was also right to mark up a number of issues that really need to be addressed. Our debates in the House deal largely with the great issues—the structures and the new landscape—of policing, and we sometimes forget individual cases. Such cases are often brought to the public’s attention through the media and therefore have a disproportionate influence on how people regard the police. The hon. Gentleman mentioned a number of cases.

We live in exciting times as far as policing is concerned. The Home Affairs Committee is certainly extremely busy scrutinising the Government on a number of policing issues. We have decided to conduct three inquiries into policing this year—they are rather like “The Lord of the Rings” in that they are a trilogy. The first report will deal with police commissioners, and we will rush it out by the end of October because the Bill dealing with the issue is due before the House in November. The second report will deal with the elements of the planned national crime agency, which will result in legislation next summer. The third report will relate to the comprehensive spending review, and I fear that a number of the issues that we raise today will have to be seen in the light of what the Government decide to do about the policing budget.

I want to raise a number of issues that I think will be of use to the House. As constituency MPs, we all have examples of dealings with local people who are concerned about the police, although none of us, except the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart), has actually served in a police force.

One of the easiest things for the police to look at, which actually costs no money at all, is how they deal with the public. Good customer service is essential to ensuring that we have policing by consent and it means that when people send letters to chief officers or local commanders, they get a reply very speedily. One of the points made to the Committee in its short inquiry into the Independent Police Complaints Commission earlier this year—in fact, it was in our recommendations—was that if police at the local level dealt more efficiently and effectively with concerns raised by the public, the need for complaints would diminish.

The first aspect that I want to raise is therefore very much in the hands of the police, and what happens depends very much on the personality and character of the chief constable; if the chief constable wants to make sure that something works, it will work. I had a useful meeting last Friday with the new chief constable in my area, Simon Cole. I raised my concern that when I write to the police on behalf of constituents who come to my surgery on a Friday, I do not get a reply for weeks or even months. All that those constituents want to know is what is happening about their cases. If they know, they will be satisfied. They might not be satisfied with the outcome, but they will at least know what is going on.

Providing good customer service and responding to concerns are therefore important. The Fiona Pilkington case occurred in Leicestershire. As hon. Members know, Ms Pilkington made 33 complaints to the local police force before she drove off and set her car on fire. That is an example of what happens when people do not get a response. I hope that everyone learns the lessons of what happens when the police do not respond; I know that Leicestershire police have. If forces get their house in order and provide the right service, that will be very helpful.

The second issue is visibility. I do not know whether the Minister knows how much his budget will be next year or whether he has just received a text from the Chancellor asking him to go to No. 11 to discuss it, but I am sure that his budget will be cut. If it is cut, to the levels that he and I think possible, that will have a huge impact on some of the issues raised by the hon. Member for The Wrekin. The police cannot perform the functions that the public expect them to unless they have the budgets to enable them to do so.

[Mark Pritchard]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that discipline and leadership in the police do not necessarily have to come with a price tag?