Police and Crime Commissioners

Lord Blair of Boughton Excerpts

Wednesday 29th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I hear what the noble Lord says, but of course 5.49 million people voted to put those people in place. I would argue that they are much more accountable than the police authorities and the local government systems that existed before. As for the comments of the Deputy Prime Minister, of course this was a coalition agreement that was supported through this House, but the Liberal Democrats are entirely entitled to change their mind whenever they choose.

[Lord Blair of Boughton (CB)]

My Lords, it is said that Churchill described democracy as the worst system of government except for everything else that had been tried. Does the Minister agree that the coalition has achieved the converse by the introduction of police and crime commissioners, which is the best system of police governance in England and Wales that could have been invented, except for anything else that you could have thought of?

[Lord Bates]

I respect the noble Lord’s great experience in this area, but we need to remember what the system was before. The previous Government commissioned an HMIC report—entitled, appropriately for the time, Police Governance in Austerity—which found that only four of the 22 police authorities inspected were judged to have performed well in two of their primary functions: setting a strategic direction and ensuring value for money. There has been a change there, and that is to be welcomed.