Policing and Crime Bill

Lord Blair of Boughton Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blair of Boughton (CB)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests. This is a long, complex and, as rather too often with the Home Office, an oddly disjointed Bill. It has much to commend it, although “finishing police reform” is probably an overly bold claim, as reform will always be necessary. I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, to her new brief and look forward to discussing this and other Bills with her. Of course, I shall be sorry to see the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, leave his position and wish him well in his new role. I note that, as well as opening this debate, he will be responding to it, which is helpful, but I think that he will recognise the two matters in the Bill about which I shall speak this afternoon. They are entirely unconnected but rather important.

I shall start with Clause 37 which concerns itself with the police workforce, then move back to the implications of Clause 6, which is concerned with the amalgamation of police and fire commands under police and crime commissioners. I welcome both ideas.

Clause 37 sets out proposals for the powers of special constables and paid police support staff, including police community support officers, or PCSOs. I was very much involved in the creation of PCSOs, just after 9/11. Although now considered a successful part of the police family, they were regarded then as quite a departure. However, in the decade which followed, ACPO, as it then was, was in talks with the Home Office to go much further and make substantial changes to the police workforce, following a health service model. The idea was to retain a significant number of fully trained and fully sworn police officers—general practitioners, as it were—but to replace some of the existing workforce with paid individuals—not volunteers—who would undertake a restricted part of police duties. That would require a different kind of training, some much simpler, some more complex—the equivalent of physiotherapists, district nurses and anaesthetists.

On one hand, the idea was to bring in people with relevant prior experience—for example, in accountancy and bookkeeping, or with digital skills to work in countering fraud and internet crime. Other ideas included bringing in individuals with significant equestrian or driving skills to work only in the mounted branch or traffic police. The idea even went as far as hiring ex-military personnel to be firearms officers. All these individuals would be hired on short but renewable contracts. These ideas were accompanied by an extension of auxiliary, paid roles to assist detectives and patrolling officers. On the other hand, another part of the package was designed to increase specialist skills in the service by creating the equivalent of advanced practitioner classroom teachers so as to retain and reward key operational staff in the front line, without requiring them to seek promotion. The idea was basically cost-neutral—reduce the cost of policing in some aspects, and increase rewards for handling the most complex and risk-filled of tasks. Despite being discussions with a Labour Administration, these actually seemed rather Tory concepts.

I left the police service before the coalition Government came to power but I am aware that the negotiations between ACPO and the Home Office were discontinued after the 2010 election. However, with one exception, this Bill appears to enable the idea to be re-explored. Having read it, I therefore took the opportunity to discuss this with the then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Bates, and the Minister for Policing, Mike Penning MP. The idea seemed to be received with considerable warmth. I think most modern PCCs and chief constables would welcome it.

Of course, both Ministers have now left the Government or the Home Office. I was therefore grateful to be able to discuss this again recently with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen. I hope it is fair to say politely to the noble and learned Lord that I concluded that his early briefings had not necessarily included these possibilities. My purpose in speaking today is to ask whether the Government are still interested in taking these ideas forward. I would be grateful if the noble and learned Lord could clarify that when he sums up, or perhaps the noble Baroness will write to me if more time is needed.

If these thoughts do find favour, I draw attention to new subsection (9A) in Clause 37(6), which places restrictions on who can be designated to carry firearms in the police service. As far as I can tell, this restriction seems to be about volunteers, in which case I agree: a special constable is not the person to carry a firearm. If, however, it refers to policing support officers—that is, paid employees—to rule such staff out is, I think, a misplaced idea and I will seek to amend the clause during the passage of the Bill, in order to facilitate the kind of alteration of the police workforce to which I have referred. Again, I would be grateful for clarification of that point tonight or in writing before Committee or Report.

I turn now to Clause 6 and, indeed, to various parts of Chapter 2 of the Bill. As I have said, I completely endorse the amalgamation of the command of police and fire services. The chapter contains several references to a chief constable controlling both services, accountable to the PCC. The Home Office guidance notes to the Bill make it clear that these posts would be open to application from both senior police and senior fire officers. Indeed, the Minister informed me that that was the Government’s intention.

I have no quarrel with that—almost. However, I want to draw attention to the fact that not all senior police posts are the same. In doing so, I want to return to a debate in this House in Committee on the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill on 4 December 2013. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, was then the Minister. The noble Lord, who is not in his place, might remember that this was the debate during which, noting that all four Members of the House who had been Commissioners of the Metropolitan Police were in the Chamber and clearly intent on speaking, the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, enjoined the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, to, “be afraid, very afraid”.

The matter under discussion was the Government’s proposal to open up competition for senior police posts in the United Kingdom to senior police officers from elsewhere. All four former commissioners stated that they did not object to that idea in principle but it should not apply to those posts that held direct responsibility for national security. The analogy with these current proposals is striking. The four former commissioners—and, indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick—were supporting an amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Condon, and I had tabled, with the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, that would have made a very brief list of police posts unavailable to foreign nationals, on the grounds of national security, precisely because a foreign national could normally not pass security vetting. I refer noble Lords to Hansard for the detailed arguments.

The amendment was not moved but suffice it to say it referred to four posts: the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis; the Deputy Commissioner; the assistant commissioner responsible for national counterterrorism policing—currently termed the Assistant Commissioner for Specialist Operations; and the director-general of the National Crime Agency. I said that the analogy was striking, but it is not exact. In the earlier debate the issue of concern related to vetting. However, it was assumed that any foreign police officer being appointed would have had extensive experience of counterterrorism work. Now the concern is that a fire officer without policing experience would be eligible for this small number of the totality of senior police posts.

I will make two proposals to the Minister. The first is that the Home Office should draw up a list of those relatively few posts in the police which have a specific role in the national security apparatus—mainly in the Metropolitan Police but also in the provinces—and put in the Bill the exemption of those posts from being open to application from anyone without lengthy police experience in a number of ranks. That could include a former fire officer, but only if he or she had had extensive police experience.

The second proposal returns directly to the debate in December 2013 and a lacuna in the regulations around senior police posts which that debate revealed. As I said, one of the points that the four previous commissioners made was that foreign applicants should have relevant police experience. This elicited the surprising response, and I hope the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, will forgive me for paraphrasing, that, with the exception of the commissioner, in the case of any other senior post in the Metropolitan Police Service—the deputy commissioner, assistant commissioners, deputy assistant commissioners and commanders—there was no longer any legal requirement for postholders of these offices ever to have been a police officer. There certainly had been in the past, and this appears to have been just a matter of different legislative changes over recent years having created a lacuna. These Metropolitan Police ranks, for instance, are all listed in another section of the Bill, alongside the equivalent ranks in provincial forces—chief, deputy and assistant chief constables—for which there remains a requirement to have held police ranks beforehand. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, faced by blank incredulity from the former commissioners and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, stated at the end of that debate that he would check on the matter and return to us as necessary. I am not aware of any correspondence.

I ask the Minister to re-examine this matter and write to me as to whether the Government believe that this simply ridiculous lacuna is an appropriate position for us to find ourselves in. If not, the Bill provides—for a second time, and two and a half years later—an appropriate vehicle for an amendment, and I hope the Government will amend it. If, on the other hand, the Government believe that this situation is acceptable, I will put forward an amendment to challenge that view.

In closing, I stress once again that I am supportive of most of the Bill. However, as events in Nice underline, the need for experienced and brave police officers is a paramount necessity for a liberal democracy. Three weeks after this House goes into recess, 12 August will mark the 50th anniversary of the murder of three police officers in Shepherds Bush. I take this opportunity of reminding the House of that terrible event. The officers were Geoffrey Fox, Christopher Head and David Wombwell, and they were murdered by Harry Roberts and his associates. The police officers, of course, were unarmed. On first receiving information that shots had been fired in the area, the Scotland Yard control room repeatedly asked a car codenamed Foxtrot One One to respond and attend. It did not—because all the occupants of that police car were dead. The controller then asked other cars to volunteer to attend, beginning his broadcast with the unconsciously ironic words, “No answer Foxtrot One One”.

The task of the police does not grow easier or less dangerous. The police need the best support and leadership we can give them. I look forward to the Minister’s response to the various points I have raised in due course. I add that I will not be in the House during September, and I hope that the House will allow me to come back to these issues when we resume in October, should there have been further debate on the Bill during the two weeks the House is in session in September.