Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, is using this group of amendments to seek to achieve, at a late hour and in Committee, the merger of the City of London Police with the Metropolitan Police, a matter that has been around not just since 1829 but goes back to 1785. The matter is frankly for the Minister to respond to, as the Minister in charge of the Bill, but I must put a small gloss on it, having been the Member of Parliament for the City of London for the third longest length of time since 1283. It goes back to 1785 because there was a genuine essay to secure a London police force that went wider than the City in the 1780s. William Pitt the Younger embarked on it because of the Gordon Riots, when he felt a police force was needed. The City of London Police—this is the one thing I concede to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey—did actually scupper that idea by saying that they would not themselves have anything to do with it. Pitt himself confessed to the House of Commons that this was a subject of which he was himself insufficiently the master and therefore he would not press the point. Thereafter, it was decided to create a police force in the city of Dublin and it was the existence of that force that prompted Peel, who served as Chief Secretary for Ireland between 1812 and 1818, to pursue the idea when he became Home Secretary on his return to London in the 1820s. Of course, from 1829 onwards, everything is history.

I will fast forward from 1829 to 1977, when I entered the House of Commons at a by-election as the Member of Parliament for the City. I recall that before I had made my maiden speech, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, had moved a 10 minute rule Bill in the House of Commons to abolish the City of London Police, to which I was not allowed to reply because it was a controversial subject and you should not make your maiden speech on a controversial subject. The late, lamented Lord Finsberg opposed it himself. I have to remark on the coincidence that these Bills always came forward in the spring of a GLC election, because they were quite clearly intended to provide further grist to the political mill.

Your Lordships’ House will be glad to hear that I am not going to make a prolonged defence at this hour but I will say that I did think that the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, was a little selective in the observations that he made. There is no question at all that the City of London Police response to the terrorist outrages that occurred within the square mile was both prompt and efficient. I can recall long, long ago reporting to the House of Commons on the technology that the Corporation of London had developed so that any car approaching the ring of steel was photographed and, at the moment that it reached the ring of steel, the policeman on duty knew perfectly well who the driver was and who it was registered to et cetera. The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, made no reference to the expertise developed by the City of London Police in the context of fraud or to the international implications of the City of London and its police force nor did he allude in general to the terrorist issue to which the ring of steel contributed as a defence, but he did refer to the City of London’s population, on which his figures were broadly right. The 8,000 residents do not all have votes, but I agree that that is approximately the right figure. He was certainly right about the number of commuters. The number of commuters is the reason why the European Commission says, erroneously, that the City of London, the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea are the richest areas in the whole of the European Union. The reason why the European Commission’s statement is ill founded is that, in the context of the City, it is the 300,000 commuters who contribute to the area’s wealth rather than the 8,000 people who live there. However, in working out its calculations, the European Commission takes the GDP produced in those three local authority areas and divides the figure by the resident population rather than by the number who come in to work there, who make such an enormous contribution to the economy of this country.

My noble friend Lord Eccles was present during our Committee stage debates on the Bill last week; I just want to allude briefly to his late father, who was the 1st Viscount Eccles, or David Eccles as was. In 1944, David Eccles moved an amendment to the Education Bill—no doubt it was also moved late at night—at a time when David Eccles had been in the House of Commons for a year. His amendment said that, once the war was over, all women teachers in the United Kingdom should receive equal salaries with all male teachers. The Division was the only one in the House of Commons throughout the war on which the Government were defeated. Rab Butler, who was the Minister in charge of the Bill, was not the fastest of movers and was actually not in the Chamber when the vote was taken, although he was proceeding towards it. The amendment was carried by 117 votes to 116. The next morning, Churchill sent for the Chief Whip and said that Herr Goebbels would make such an enormous profit out of this defeat for the Government that it had to be reversed on Report as a matter of confidence. The amendment was reversed by 417 votes to 25 and, thus, the Bill was restored to its original form. I tell that story in the context of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, because, once all that had been done, the then Prime Minister sent for David Eccles and—I shall not put on a Churchillian accent at this late hour—said words to the effect, “Young man, I have a great deal of personal sympathy with the underlying proposition and principle that you were advancing in your amendment, but to do so late at night on the Education Bill, in the midst of the greatest conflict the world has ever seen, is frankly the equivalent of putting an elephant in a perambulator”. If I may say so to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, in my view that is what he is seeking to do tonight. I hope that he will be wholly convinced by the arguments advanced by my noble friend.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way—or perhaps he had resumed his seat anyway—but he has referred three times to the lateness of the hour. There is no desire on my part for us to be debating at this hour; we are doing so as an assistance to the Government, who have decided that the House should sit beyond 10 pm tonight despite the normal convention that we do not sit late on occasions when the House will sit early the following morning. I would have been much happier to have debated this at an earlier hour, when no doubt we could have devoted much more time to the particular arrangements in the City of London.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, I am deeply sorry if I have in any way offended the noble Lord, Lord Harris, but the fact remains that it is a late hour.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, it is a late hour, but that is not anyone’s doing, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has sustained greater insults than that in his career.

I am not sure, either, what Amendment 155 is doing in this group. It was in another group. I observed that it should be in a group on London and this is where it ended up. It is one of a number of amendments that say that the London Assembly should be able to decide its own procedures and how it works as a policing and crime panel. However, we will debate that point in another group.

I have considerable sympathy with these amendments on the City of London. I am asking myself why there is a separate force and why the issue has not been brought within what seems entirely the right vehicle for addressing the matter. I can only assume that it is in the filing tray that has “too hard” written on it and that the Government are unwilling to take on the City. But it is an important issue. If we are being asked, as we are, to look at inserting democracy into the governance of our policing arrangements, the City should not be exempt from that. They have a lot of experience of elections in the City—there is no problem in carrying that out.

There are so many anomalies, with the separate precepting arrangements and what has always seemed to me unnecessary bureaucracy and complication because of the division. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, referred to expertise, and I accept that there is enormous expertise, but it is transferable and needs to be so, because whether or not the City likes it London’s financial centre is not only where it used to be. It has moved eastwards, and the expertise in fraud and other matters specific to business are no longer, in the 21st century, relevant only to the Square Mile.

This Bill is the right context for this debate. There is a considerable distinction between this issue and that of teachers’ salaries in 1944, and I am sorry that the Government have not felt able to extend the new governance arrangements to the whole of England.

--- Later in debate ---

I simply conclude that one looks forward with interest to hearing what the response is going to be. Finally, will the Minister say whether the Government seriously considered doing away with a separate police force in the City of London, through merger or takeover—or whatever word they want to use—into or by the Metropolitan Police? Or, as I think the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, was this considered to be so awkward and difficult that it was never even considered at all?

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

Would the noble Lord care to answer one thing? Will he comment on why the previous Labour Government, against what I would have thought were all their natural instincts, chose to confer on the City of London Corporation the right to have elections for democratic representation in the City, in which all businesses in the City were allowed to have a vote that was calculated in a particular way? Indeed, they pressed the Corporation to go down that route. Was it really not because there was a recognition that the City at large worked extraordinarily well and that fiddling around with it was not a very profitable use of time, not least in the context of the City of London's success?

[Lord Rosser]

I do not know specifically what the reasons were. They may well have been those that the noble Lord has said. However, I am not sure that that necessarily applies to an argument about the City of London Police, which is what we are discussing, particularly in the context of the expertise which the Metropolitan Police has—and in the context that the City of London is no longer the only financial centre in London. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, the financial centre has moved further east to an extent and nobody has said that those responsible should set up or extend the powers of the City of London Police to cover those new centres, which presumably come under the Metropolitan Police.

It is not irrelevant for this question to be asked when we are talking about a major reorganisation of our police forces, with a major change in how they are run and in governance. Maybe there is a good answer, and I am waiting to hear what the Minister has to say, but the question should be asked: did the Government look at the issue of the retention of the City of London Police and was it justified? If so, what were the reasons for coming to the decision that they did, bearing in mind that they think that all other police forces should be covered by the changes that they are putting forward in this Bill?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

I think that that is a consequence of extending discussion in your Lordships' House past our normal finishing time of 10 pm, when we tend to range more widely on subjects.

My noble friend raises an important point. Neither I in my amendment nor the Government in their original proposal were doing anything as bizarre as seems to be suggested under the Localism Bill. Had they followed the same principle, no doubt we would have had chairs of police authorities all over the country suddenly becoming shadow commissioners of police and crime for their areas. Although many chairs of police authorities would no doubt have relished that transformation and enjoyed their brief period in that role, we are not in the Bill being offered the same arrangements that are being offered under the Localism Bill for the creation of mayors in major cities. The Localism Bill also envisages that there would then be a referendum of the local community. Some of us had hoped that we would have an interesting debate on that, but my noble friend chose to deny us that opportunity and is perhaps, by the back door, trying to give us the opportunity to have such a debate now. I shall not be lured down that path.

The purpose of my amendment is that, if the principle is clarity—that the person who holds the police to account should be directly elected and visible in that role—that individual in London should also be directly elected. In the Bill, we have a system where the Mayor of London is elected but, effectively, will automatically delegate an individual who need not be directly elected—and certainly will not be directly elected to fulfil that function—to carry out the role of the police and crime commissioner. That is wrong. It is a mistake. It runs against the entire premise of the Government's proposals, which is that there should be a directly elected individual who holds the police to account. I beg to move.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

I intervene very briefly. When I am attending your Lordships' House, I stay in a club in my former constituency. In the 1930s, a Duke was slumbering in that club after lunch one day when he became conscious that a man and a woman had entered the room. He waited until they had left and then pressed a bell. The club servant arrived and said, “You rang, your Grace?”. The Duke said, “What was that?”. The club servant said, “That, your Grace, was the club secretary and Her Majesty the Queen”. “Thin end of the wedge”, said the Duke, shut his eyes and went to sleep again.

I will not expand on the point at this hour of the night, but I wanted the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, to know that I have noticed, as the thin end of the wedge, that the City of London again creeps into his Amendment 50.

[Lord Rosser]

One reads with interest the amendment, which, as my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey said, provides for the deputy mayor for policing and crime to be elected, on the basis that it ought to be done on the same terms as the Government proposed for everywhere else in the country under the Bill, namely, for the police commissioner to be directly elected. Clearly, as long as the Bill remains as it is, where there is no elected police commissioner, we will not press for the deputy mayor for policing and crime to be elected. We will be consistent and say that we will stick with the same arrangement in London as the Bill currently has, having been amended by your Lordships' House.

If the Government are to make an effort in future to restore elected police and crime commissioners to the Bill, it would appear rather odd if they did not also say that, if that is what is to happen outside London, Londoners should also be able directly to elect the person who in reality will be responsible for policing. The arrangement that we appear to have at present is for an elected mayor to appoint a deputy mayor, who takes over the role that, if the Government get their way, an elected police commissioner will have elsewhere. I suppose the only parallel—although it is hardly a parallel—is that, if we had elected police commissioners and one were suspended or otherwise unable to operate, that elected police commissioner would, as the Bill stands, appoint someone from their own staff to act in their stead. The arrangement that we appear to be moving towards in London is not that of the mayor waiting to be suspended or otherwise unable to act before appointing someone, but that the mayor, immediately he or she comes into office, appoints someone else to act as the deputy mayor responsible for policing and crime.

We look forward to the Minister’s response on this. As I said, as long as the Bill remains as it is without elected police commissioners, we do not wish to be inconsistent by saying that the deputy mayor for policing and crime in London should be elected. However, if the Government intend to try to restore elected police commissioners to the Bill, we look forward to their explanation of why they think Londoners should not be able to elect the person responsible for policing as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Soley]

This is an important group of amendments dealing mainly with crime prevention, which is an important matter. It deals also with the way to vary the crime plan and the various people who could be involved in that. To synopsise, it could be people like those in Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, the Home Secretary and others, to change or vary the plan or their powers to submit information on it.

This is an important group of amendments, and it is a pity that we are taking it at this time of night. The Minister might be worried to know that I can wax lyrical for many a long hour on the importance and complexity of crime prevention, and if I chose to do so we could all end up by having breakfast on the Terrace, which would be a wonderful way to start Wednesday. So maybe I will do that.

This is the crime prevention part of this Bill, and to me it is very important. In an act of great modesty, I say that Amendment 68ZA in my name is the most important. Some of the other amendments are probing, but they are all important because they deal with how the plan is structured, and so on.

I have a couple of key questions, which I shall put in context for the Minister. First, are we to assume that the crime plan really does mean crime prevention? I would prefer if we actually gave a duty in Clause 5 to draw up a crime prevention plan. A crime plan could mean almost anything.

The second issue that this covers is that if the assumption is that the crime plan includes crime prevention, it raises the funding of crime prevention. A number of references to funding are in this Bill. In Clause 9, a body can fund measures to combat crime and disorder. But if it is to be assumed that crime prevention is included in the plan—this is the other question to the Minister—are we really going to assume that all the other agencies that deal with crime prevention are also going to lose those functions into this? If they are, that is going to have profound financial consequences. If, for example, the Home Office gave up many of its crime prevention projects and plans, are they to go over to these localised—although they are not really that localised—police areas? Are the various organisations that operate under either funding from, or the direct organisation by, other government departments to be transferred, too? This is why I say that if the Government put in the Bill that there is to be a crime prevention plan, they can at least define what is in the plan, which powers are to be transferred and what funding is available to it.

I want to put this in the context of the battle to reduce crime, if I can. I suppose that is always an ongoing battle, but over the past 10 years or so we have been remarkably successful in reducing crime. One factor is policing; the police are obviously important as a deterrent and in detecting crime. If you can increase the conviction rate, crime tends to reduce because one of the greatest deterrents is the certainty of being caught. However, the police alone cannot deliver and that has long been the history of this crime prevention strategy. Crime prevention is more than better locks on windows and doors. It is everything from parenting through to some of the special projects that go on.

I notice that in some parts of the Bill—I paraphrase slightly because of the lateness of the hour—the Government refer to certain things that the panel can do. For example, it can fund measures to reduce disorder. That is fine but if you are to do that, how do you define what it takes on and fund that? There is an assumption in the Bill that the crime plan, as it is referred to, really means crime prevention, but without mentioning it. Yet it does not then deal with the funding issue. If the Government go down this road and are not clear about crime prevention, crime will go up again. It already is; burglary, the one that worries people an awful lot, is going up. Street crime will begin to go up again for other unrelated reasons, which I will not go into at this late hour, but the old crime of mugging—as it was called, although it is strictly robbery—will go up because as unemployment and other issues go up, it rises, too.

One way we have been successful in reducing crime is by having all forms of intervention earlier. That of course involves some social aspects, such as children's centres and things of that nature. Yet the Government have produced a Bill which, leaving aside my other concerns about it, does not properly address crime prevention. We really will have a situation where crime goes up again unless we are clear about whose duty it is. There are two ways of doing this. One is to keep things much as they are now and be clear about what we devolve to these police commissioners. The other way is to say, “Right—we will shift as much as possible down”. From what the Government say, they want to devolve but if they want to devolve much crime prevention, they really have to come clean on the funding. That is not being identified here through a proper crime plan.

If in an area you get, for example, a number of hostels which are for people who are recovering from a mental illness, or who have been discharged from prison, or who have been through the court system, you will have a different type of problem there than in other areas. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, and one or two other Members pointed out that one danger of this structure is that because you have quite large police areas, the loudest voices will be heard most. Those will be from the leafy suburbs—the richer areas—while the voices of those in the poorer areas, where the crime rate tends to be much higher, will not be heard, although those areas are in most need of a crime plan, or crime prevention plan as I prefer to call it.

I want to be clear about this. If we are to have these large police areas and an elected commissioner for each area, that person will have to relate to the high crime hotspots which will not necessarily have the loudest voices in the election. That point has been made several times in a number of debates on this over time. That is why my Amendment 68ZA would include in the Bill a duty to issue a crime prevention plan. That would then relate over the whole area, people would not have to speak up about it and it could be checked. There could be a situation, for example, where the individual MPs or councillors throughout the area say, “What is the plan for reducing crime on this estate or in that street?”. At the moment there seems to be no thinking about that at all. It is just a police and crime issue without any definition of whether crime means a crime plan. I cannot overstate the importance of this. This is where the Bill is not well thought through. We have to be clear about crime prevention.

Think of the blood, sweat, tears and toil that were spent by the police, various government agencies, the previous Government, and politicians at all levels and of all parties to get crime prevention right up front. It really was a struggle and we are in danger of losing it. That is why I want the requirement to produce a crime prevention plan included in the Bill. I would then want to see individual MPs, councillors and others saying, “What’s the crime prevention plan for this area?”. At the moment that is not there. All we are doing is saying that someone can vary the plan, that there are restrictions on who can vary it, or that HMIC or the Home Secretary can have an input. We have to be clear about this. At the moment we still have a pretty good crime prevention policy in this country. It has been working well but I am not at all sure that that will continue under this structure. I strongly urge the Minister to see if she can work out the dividing line between these bodies and the existing groups that organise crime prevention programmes. If she does that and does it well, I might be able to let her have breakfast at home. I beg to move.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

I was hoping to intervene before the noble Lord sat down, but I will now put my question after the amendment has been moved. Although I am a bear of very little brain, there is the faintest possible ambiguity in the noble Lord’s amendment. I think I know what he will say but, to put it beyond peradventure, does his amendment mean that the crime prevention plan should be moved before or after the ordinary election to which it refers?

[Lord Soley]

I am not too worried about that but my view would be that it ought to be before the election.