Police: Reduction in Numbers

Debate between Lord Blair of Boughton and Lord Bates

Thursday 26th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blair of Boughton (CB)]

My Lords, just before the Christmas Recess I asked the Minister what the Government’s strategy was on policing. I was not very satisfied with his answer, so I will ask him again. Has he seen the comments of Chris Sims, the well respected chief constable of the West Midlands, about what he expects his force to be doing in the next five years? It is to withdraw largely from neighbourhood policing and patrol for reassurance and to introduce a new form of public contact like internet banking. Is that a counsel of despair or is it a strategy? If it is a strategy, is it the strategy of the Government?

[Lord Bates]

If I recall, the answer I gave the noble Lord was that the strategy was to cut crime, and that that was behind everything we did. When we came to power people had myriad targets and quotas. Now we simply have one, which is to cut crime—and crime is falling.

Water Cannon

Debate between Lord Blair of Boughton and Lord Bates

Tuesday 17th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

Yes, that is absolutely right. What we are talking about here is not peaceful protests that may take place on the streets but serious disorder where life could actually be at risk. It would be in very exceptional circumstances but, even so, it is something that needs to be considered very carefully and that is what the Home Secretary is doing.

[Lord Blair of Boughton (CB)]

My Lords, the operational deployment of water cannon is a rather arcane subject, but I can inform the House that it has only two purposes. The first is to keep a distance between protesters and a site that needs to be protected, and the second is to keep apart protesters who are going to fight. The Metropolitan Police has dealt with that for 150 years without the use of water cannon. Does the Minister agree that any question to which the answer is, “We should deploy water cannon in London”, is by definition the wrong question, and would he mind explaining that to the Mayor of London—the prospective candidate for Uxbridge and goodness knows what?

[Lord Bates]

As the noble Lord well knows, this was discussed very seriously after the 2011 riots in the capital and elsewhere in the country. It came forward from the chief constables, not the mayor. It was a policing-led proposal but it is something that there ought be political oversight of, and that is the reason why the Home Secretary is putting through these requests for additional information and scrutiny of the decision.

Police: Funding

Debate between Lord Blair of Boughton and Lord Bates

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

There have been no proposals to do that. The Independent Police Complains Commission, to which police and crime commissioners are also accountable, is covered by the present regime. Police and crime commissioners can play a leading role in helping to produce more effective policing locally, as is the case in Northamptonshire, where they have instituted co-operation between the police, fire and ambulance service in order to reduce costs and protect front-line policing.

[Lord Blair of Boughton (CB)]

My Lords, I also declare my interest in policing. I want to go back to the Minister’s Answer to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. After five years in office, is it not rather surprising that the Government do not have a strategy for what to do next?

[Lord Bates]

Obviously I defer to the noble Lord and his expertise, but the Government do have a strategy. We want the police to focus on cutting crime. We give the responsibility to police and crime commissioners and to chief constables to try to determine what the allocation of those resources should be in their local communities. That is what our strategy is. It is then down to the police and crime commissioners and chief constables to implement that. They are doing a terrific job, which is the reason why recorded crime is down to its lowest level.

Police and Crime Commissioners

Debate between Lord Blair of Boughton and Lord Bates

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.

European Arrest Warrant

Debate between Lord Blair of Boughton and Lord Bates

Wednesday 29th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

We will certainly have that debate and vote. That was one of the important safeguards we negotiated that have been introduced: to say that a crime must be a crime in this country as well as in the country to which the extradition has been sought for a warrant to be agreed to.

[Lord Blair of Boughton (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that European arrest warrants are a two-way process, and that should the Government fail to renegotiate an entry back into the European arrest warrant system for Britain, then the criminals of Europe would know that and what used to be called the “costa del crime” would arrive on the shores of Britain?

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, I am sure that the representatives of the Spanish Government, with whom we are negotiating bilaterally, will of course have noted the noble Lord’s comments carefully.