Police and Crime Commissioners

Lord Bach Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, no pressure then. I declare my interests as the elected police and crime commissioner for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland and a national board member of the Independent Custody Visiting Association, known as ICVA. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, on securing the debate and thank him for his elegant and forceful speech.

The subtext of this debate and others like it is a determined and strong campaign by noble Lords and those outside this House to clear Sir Edward Heath’s name from the unfounded allegations made against him. As it happens, I agree. The present limbo is deeply unsatisfactory and grossly unfair to Sir Edward’s memory. Much criticism has been levelled at my colleague, the police and crime commissioner for Wiltshire, and his refusal to set up an inquiry has been widely attacked. However, in my view, he is in danger of being made the scapegoat of this affair. Let me make it absolutely clear: he is not a particular friend of mine and, although it is entirely irrelevant, we are not of the same political persuasion. From my knowledge, which is admittedly limited compared with that of many in this House, I am afraid to say that the real villain of the piece is, not for the first time, the Home Office and the Government behind it. The urgent, and so far powerfully put, argument that the Home Office should establish the inquiry seems both cogent and practical, at least to me. However, in a short letter of response to the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, dated 10 October 2018, the proposition is rejected out of hand. I hope that we may hear something different tonight.

However, if the call for a review of police and crime commissioners and the principles behind them is based on one police and crime commissioner’s refusal to set up an inquiry—I know that of course it is not the only reason, far from it—and they are to be judged on this one issue, even if the police and crime commissioner was in the wrong, although I do not admit that, it would be unfair because it would be like judging a whole Government on the behaviour of one Minister.

Police and crime commissioners have many roles, and while far from a perfect answer to the vital issue raised in particular by the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, many years ago, of making the police accountable to the public they actually serve, perhaps it will not surprise the House to learn that it seems to me that some progress has been made and continues to be made. Police and crime commissioners are, I believe, much closer to those who rely on the police and who largely pay for them than the old police authorities ever were. If that is true, it has to be borne very much in mind if it comes to reform.

It is worth noble Lords bearing in mind that from their very inception, police and crime commissioners have worked under two rather large disadvantages. The first is the point about the democratic deficit. Turnout has been much too low in both of the elections held so far. I am afraid that some of the blame for that, particularly in the first election in 2012, has to be put on the Government. That vote took place, ridiculously if I may say so, in November of that year, which is hardly the best month to introduce a new election of this kind. As I remember it, the Government deliberately refused any expenditure to assist in that first election for a massively unknown role. It is hardly a surprise that the turnout was absurdly low. The turnout was higher in 2016, but again the Government refused to provide for the normal sort of publicity that might be expected for a scheme in its infancy.

Much of our time as police and crime commissioners —I think that whoever was standing in my place would say the same—is spent letting people know that we exist and what we actually try to do. When they learn about it, I have to tell the House that sometimes they are quite impressed. The second burden we face is the very large cuts that have been made to policing over the past nine years or so. It means that too much of our time has to be spent dealing with reductions in the number of police officers and staff at a time of new crimes emerging as well as a growing population. This exists right up to the present time; it has not gone away. Moreover, I would ask the House to be pretty sceptical about Home Office claims that huge sums have been given to police and crime commissioners this year so that the problem somehow no longer exists and never did. By failing to do their duty and increasing the central grant and by leaving it to police and crime commissioners to raise money from council tax, the Government, while I am sure they did not mean to, have ensured a deep unfairness in the system between police forces that will take years to overcome.

In spite of these frankly unnecessary burdens, on the whole, police and crime commissioners have succeeded in changing policing for the better. Let me mention one or two aspects. One is the important strategic role for police and crime commissioners, best evidenced by the statutory police and crime plan that every PCC has to produce. That strategic role for a police force should be and in many cases is now much clearer than it was before. The holding to account role is now more accepted by chief officer teams than it ever used to be, and that too is important. It ensures that the public has a voice—some voice—where before there was little or no voice heard at all. Of course, there is a really interesting but worrying grey area around operational activity; I think it was deliberately intended by the authors of the Act. I would very much like to hear about that from the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, at some stage in future. Most chief constables and PCCs, who are mainly sensible people, work it out in different ways for their own areas.

One real concern—the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, mentioned it a couple of minutes ago—can be put to bed, certainly for the time being: party politics, which would damage the crucial independence of the British police service. There was a worry that it would somehow become a major part and really damage the system; that does not seem to have happened at all. Indeed, it is a foolish police and crime commissioner, of whatever political persuasion or none, who parades their political principles. It would be noticed very quickly and, quite rightly, roundly condemned. It does not happen.

Police and crime commissioners run victims’ services and the independent custody visitor services. As crime commissioners—we sometimes forget that role—they play an important part, with partners, in trying to prevent crime. We all do this in our different ways, and there have been some outstanding successes; we may perhaps hear of some of them later on. Projects are now in place doing great things that would never even have been dreamed of before police and crime commissioners existed.

It is only a few years since there have been police and crime commissioners; it is the very early years. It may not be the final solution to the important problem in a democracy of how the police and public interact, but it is here to stay for a while and we should make the very best of it. I am slightly sceptical whether this is the time for a full review, but in a democracy there can never be harm in looking at projects such as this. I hope that that will happen in a sensible way. I am proud to be a police and crime commissioner and to be working with some outstanding police and crime commissioner colleagues.