Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Beecham]

92: Schedule 5, page 115, line 23, at end insert—
“( ) A precept must be issued separately from a local authority’s—
(a) council tax demand, and(b) non-domestic rates demand.”

[Lord Beecham]

I am given to understand by my noble friend Lord Hunt that I am not required to speak for more than half an hour or so to these amendments. Ever willing to oblige, I shall endeavour to be reasonably concise and thereby break the habit of a lifetime.

This grouping is slightly odd because Amendments 92 to 100 relate to the financial aspect of the work of the commissioner and the arrangements for the precepts. The other amendments relate to other aspects that are not quite connected. Perhaps they should have been degrouped, but as they are not I will confine myself to the first group of amendments. They cover a number of issues.

Amendment 92 would require the precepts to be levied by the police commissioner or authority, however constituted, separately from the council tax demand and the non-domestic rates demand. That is in the interests of transparency. As the whole case that the Government advanced for the Bill is one of accountability and transparency, it seems sensible that the people who are paying local taxation towards the cost of the police service should be aware of that separately from the ordinary demands that they will get for the rest of the local authority’s services. Separate precepts should be the order of the day.

In addition, however, there is the question of how the precept is derived in the first place. Amendment 93 raises again the question of local authority involvement in the process. Under Amendment 93, the local authority should have the opportunity to review the proposed precept. Other amendments require the police commissioner to have regard to any representations made by local authorities in respect of the precept, and the panel to have the opportunity to amend, rather than simply veto, the precept.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Browning]

I do indeed and although we have not been able to agree on everything, I have appreciated the constructive way in which the noble Baroness has brought forward her suggestions, both in Committee and on Report. I know that I have disappointed her in many of my responses, but I hope she will accept that in this change to the Bill I have listened carefully across the House, but particularly to her words. She has chosen her words very carefully, she has had a good point to make and I have tried to encapsulate that in this amendment. Therefore, I propose an amendment to the general provisions in relation to police and crime panels at Clause 29 to reflect the need for the PCP to exercise its powers with a view to supporting the PCC in its duties. The police and crime commissioner will be solely responsible for holding the chief constable to account. However, I accept the noble Lord’s premise that the relationship between the commission and the panel would be one of support as well as challenge.

The noble Baroness, Lady Henig, used the word collaborative to describe the proposed relationship between the commissioner and the panel. My concern with this is that it would ultimately create confusion over who holds the police to account. Therefore, the Government propose to place a duty on the panel to exercise its functions in support of the commissioner. This will mitigate the risk of conflict between the commissioner and the panel without diluting the accountability of the commissioner.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, as regards the final point, I can only agree with my noble friend Lord Hunt. Amendment 107 is the absolute embodiment of a platitude. It is wholly unnecessary and almost insulting to prospective members of police and crime panels as it appears to assume that there may be a case where their purpose will not be to support the effective exercise of the functions of the commissioner. In the real world, that cannot be the case.

I am very disappointed with the Minister’s response in relation to how the precept is arrived at, although less so in connection with the question of the separate precept. Perhaps I may say that she has a monocular and wholly unrealistic view of how these processes are likely to work. As she did in the earlier debate, she is viewing it from the perspective that all we are concerned about is the budget of the police authority, however constituted, and its precept, as if that were something discrete, separate and completely detached from what is going on in local government in the area in terms of the service aspect where collaboration is clearly essential, the totality of the expenditure and the cost to the local taxpayer. That simply is not the case. If it were to be the case, it would be very much for the worse in terms of effective policing and local government. That collaboration clearly has to be facilitated and the arrangements in the Bill do not effectively facilitate it.

The noble Baroness says that it will be important to have access to local knowledge through the members of the crime panels. But that local knowledge in the case particularly of district council members in two-tier areas will be confined to relatively small parts of the force area. In those areas, there will be perhaps one or two county members and many more from district councils. That will not give the police commissioner a realistic view of what is necessary to be done for the whole force area. It is also asking too much in the case of metropolitan areas for a single individual or perhaps two to speak for the whole authority, which in Birmingham’s case runs into hundreds of thousands and sometimes to very many more than that. The West Midlands has 2 million to 3 million people. Even the slightly expanded number to be proposed later in a government amendment as regards the constitution of the police power will leave people representing very large areas. They will not have the authority of leaders of councils. Given the pressures on them, leaders of councils or elected mayors—I see that the Government will move an amendment for elected mayors to serve on police authorities—will not have the time to devote to what is effectively a scrutiny exercise for most of the year.

In my experience as leader of Newcastle City Council years ago, the leaders met the police authority to discuss the budget in some detail. We had a proper discussion, and the authority and the back-up to do that, which is what is required under the new dispensation. You will not get that, with the best will in the world, from panel members. They will not have the authority to speak for the whole council. They will probably not get the back-up that will be required particularly in the case, if I may say so, of district councils whose resources can be very stretched. We will simply not have an effective relationship between the local authority in an area and its police force. For the life of me, I cannot see what the Government have to lose by accepting the amendments, at least in respect of this obligation to consult with the authorities, as opposed to a handful of members from those authorities who will not have themselves any authority effectively to speak for the authorities which send them there.

This will be a missed opportunity. It will weaken the effectiveness of the panel and it will therefore weaken the effectiveness of the whole police authority. It is ironic therefore that Amendment 107, that the Minister moved, which talks about supporting the effective exercise of the functions of the police and crime commissioner, in fact, by the attitude that the Government are taking to the amendments, will achieve precisely the opposite. An opportunity is being missed to cement a productive relationship in the interests of the whole area and I urge the Minister to take this back, to talk to her colleagues in the other place and see whether she cannot induce them to see some sense. I beg leave to withdraw.

Amendment 92 withdrawn.