Queen’s Speech

Lord Bach Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bach (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I first congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Fullbrook, on an excellent maiden speech and, secondly, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Viscount.

This is the first time in five years I have not had to declare an interest when addressing the House. I stood down as Police and Crime Commissioner for Leicestershire and Rutland only last week, and from now I look forward to once again playing a slightly greater role in the House’s debates, not least on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which I suspect will take up quite a lot of time later this year.

Given the recent publication of the Home Office’s first report into police and crime commissioners, and, of course, in the context of the gracious Speech, I want to speak a little about my experience as a police and crime commissioner—perhaps setting out a few early thoughts on leaving the role.

PCCs, police and crime commissioners, are now an established part of the policing scene: after all, they have existed for eight and a half years and have been through three sets of elections. Their role is probably not what the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, had in mind when he persuaded the then leader of the Opposition, David Cameron, to introduce them. However, they clearly play a significant role in every police force area.

On the whole, PCCs have shown moderation and good sense whatever political party—or none—they belong to. The Home Office and the police have always been concerned that this would not be the case. Thankfully we now have an association that is worthy of the name. It is now well lead and provides an excellent service to all its members. However, I have concerns that now, for the first time, there are no independent PCCs and one party has many more police and crime commissioners than the other. There may be something of an outbreak of party-political grandstanding. I hope noble Lords agree that that would be a grave mistake. It would put the police in obvious difficulties as they are, of course, politically neutral, and members of the public—to put it mildly—would not like it.

While it is obviously the principal role of a police and crime commissioner to hold the chief constable in their force to account and to ensure that the force is efficient, effective and legitimate, there are other major roles that PCCs must treat as seriously. There is the requirement to protect all from harm, to make people feel secure and to care for victims of crime. This exciting and crucial responsibility can be done only in partnership with other public bodies: the police, local authorities, probation and the health services—not least the mental health services. Partnership is great and it is our best hope.

However, what makes this task so much more difficult than it needs to be are the bad decisions taken year by year by the coalition Government to dramatically cut the money the police had and that local authorities have. Of course, the present Government have changed their view as far as the police are concerned, but I have to end by saying that one can see the damage those early decisions did every day.