Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Condon Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Condon]

My Lords, I declare my registered interests. As a former police commissioner I am a life member of ACPO, and more recently I am the deputy chairman of a security solutions plc that provides outsourced services to the criminal justice system.

The election of over 40 new and inexperienced police and crime commissioners would be a challenging experiment in the best of times. But these are not the best of times. They are the most difficult times for policing for perhaps over 50 years. Police force budgets have been cut by over 20 per cent for the next four years. These understandable but nevertheless draconian reductions are leading to significant reductions in the number of police officers and civilian support staff. Police officers’ pay and conditions are being managed down, again for understandable reasons but with severe collateral damage to police morale. These events are being played out against a background of potential civil unrest and strikes over government spending cuts, while in the international arena we see increasing uncertainty, which could lead to more acts of terrorism in the United Kingdom.

I believe the Government have a very strong duty to set out a compelling case for how their proposals for elected police and crime commissioners will maintain, or hopefully enhance, the accountability and performance of the police service locally, nationally and when necessary internationally. Like other noble Lords, I believe that certain principles should be enshrined in the new arrangements. First, as others have said, nothing should be done to jeopardise the operational independence of the police service or to damage the historic office of constable, both of which have been enshrined in our policing arrangements since the formation of the Metropolitan Police in 1829. This operational independence is the cornerstone of the legacy of British policing, which has been, and continues to be, admired throughout the free world. I look forward to the promised protocol on how the operational independence will be preserved. It has been promised on several occasions. It is long overdue and I find it bizarre that at this stage of a Bill we are being asked, almost as an act of faith, to believe that a protocol will at some stage resolve this issue.

The second principle I would encourage is that police and crime commissioners are part of a joined-up, integrated policing network and not a patchwork of disjointed local forces. In the modern world a small incident in, say, Bristol, Birmingham or Bradford can quickly lead to issues that have national or international dimensions. We have yet to hear from the Government a persuasive, detailed account of how regional, national and international policing matters will be dealt with. The proposals for a national crime agency are still not sufficiently fleshed out to give complete reassurance that organised crime, terrorism and other major issues will be dealt with properly against the background of over 40 new, inexperienced, elected police and crime commissioners seeking to ensure their re-election on very localised policing issues. Again, I find it bizarre that, as an act of faith, we must believe that at some stage we will be told how these national arrangements will pan out.

The third principle I would argue for is that, against the background of the most difficult set of police budgets in living memory, the new arrangements must not add significant costs and levels of bureaucracy to a system that is already overburdened with form filling, red tape and endless meetings. Take Kent, for example—a county I know well. I had the honour of being chief constable there, and it has always had a good reputation for local government and policing. At the moment there is a county council with a great interest in police and public safety partnerships, the police authority and the chief constable. Under the proposed new arrangements, the county council will still have a real interest and role in the safety of its citizens, the police authority will undergo a form of metamorphosis and will emerge in a different shape as the police and crime panel, and the chief constable will remain in place.

From May 2012, the newly elected police and crime commissioner for Kent will be added to the process. He, or she, will need administrative support to do the job properly. He will need professional financial and personnel support if he is going to discharge his responsibilities for the budget and the policing plan, to hire and if necessary fire the chief constable, and all the other responsibilities that go with the post. Either he will have to be superhuman and omnicompetent or he will need significant support. The boundary management issues as all these key stakeholders learn the new rules of engagement of policing a county like Kent will, I believe, lead to several new senior posts to make it work. Otherwise, the police and crime commissioner will be a superficial role that adds little to the policing landscape. The Government have costed the elections of the PCCs, but I am not aware of costings for accommodation, staffing requirements and all the other infrastructures to make this proposal work. I just do not believe that these proposals can be cost-neutral. Even three to four new senior posts per county outside London will add significant costs to policing.

The fourth principle is that, against the background of the most dramatic reductions in police budgets that any serving police officer has experienced, the new arrangements for very localised policing must not prevent the savings from economies of scale that sensible procurement demands. Savings in the procurement of equipment, technology and services are best achieved through national, or at the very least regional, arrangements. The private sector, in which I have already declared an interest, will more readily offer up savings to larger-sized buyers of their products and services than deal with over 40 individual police forces. The new arrangements must encourage, if not compel, collaborative endeavours to procure goods and services and provide real value for money.

I am not, in principle, against the proposal for police and crime commissioners. The Government have the right and indeed the duty to test and improve the current arrangements for police governance and accountability. I believe I earned my credentials to say this when I was commissioner of police. I came into office when the Home Secretary of the day was the police authority for the Metropolitan Police. I believe there was a democratic deficit in the policing arrangements for London, and I argued strongly for a police authority for the Met with stronger links to London and Londoners and supported and embraced the creation of the Metropolitan Police Committee, which evolved into the Metropolitan Police Authority. I believe that the Metropolitan Police Authority has added great value to the people of London and the policing of the capital.

If and when we have elected police and crime commissioners, let them respect and build on the legacy of the historic office of constable and the operational independence of the police service. Let them be part of a clearly understood, integrated network of policing locally, nationally and internationally so that local uniformed patrolling complements and does not compete with the needs to deal with organised crime and terrorism, which will always transcend local force boundaries. And let us not allow the new police and crime commissioners to add layers of cost and bureaucracy to a system that already groans under the cumulative red tape and form filling that have blighted policing in recent years.

I hope the Minister and the Government will, during the passage of this Bill_, reassure your Lordships that the proposals for the new police and crime commissioners will enhance rather than undermine the performance of the current policing arrangements.