Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Dear Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, I warmly endorse the congratulations that have been extended to the noble Baronesses, Lady Berridge and Lady Newlove, on their maiden speeches. I also associate myself with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, identifying the two essential elements of their very different but equally powerful speeches.

It is my pleasure and honour, by tradition, to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. What an appropriate title David Maclean chose when he was ennobled. Those like me who have tramped over the high fells and mountains of the Lake District will already know Blencathra. It is a massive, whaleback fell that stands alongside Skiddaw—or “Skidda”, as he prefers to pronounce it—overlooking Keswick and guarding the northern edge of the lakes, close to the Scottish border at which it glowers. He knows the scene well, for it is in the heart of his old parliamentary constituency.

If mountains have characters, and they probably do, Blencathra exudes many of the qualities that the noble Lord brought to high office in the other place: certainty, dependability, a steadfast adherence to high principles—the pun there is deliberate—and a rock-solid determination to do the right thing at all times. I admired him for all that and for other qualities as well. As most noble Lords know, he comes widely experienced in the business of the other place and in the workings of government. He was an assistant government Whip, and later opposition Chief Whip. He was a Parliamentary Secretary in the old Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and Minister of State at the Department of the Environment.

I saw much of the noble Lord in the role that he talked of earlier, when he was a Minister in the Home Office, where his sensitivity to human issues, frank integrity, clarity of thought and determination to cut through the dross to reach the kernel of the problem were refreshing and welcome. I am sure that we shall see more of that in your Lordships’ House. If there was a complex issue that David Maclean had in hand, you knew that it would be very well handled. His elevation to the peerage was met with universal acclaim. We all knew that he would contribute at a very high level and we have not been disappointed tonight. Far from it—his maiden speech was a model of its kind. It was succinct, apposite, humorous, forward-looking and wise. In short, it was brilliant. It is a great privilege and pleasure to follow him in this Second Reading debate, to congratulate him on behalf of the House on his speech today, to welcome him formally to his place in your Lordships’ House and to wish him well in the future.

I declare an interest: I, too, was a police officer, for around 40 years. A moment of light humour occurs to me in a rather serious debate. There is an old adage that you can never find a police officer when you want one—but here you have seven under one roof. All of them are retired and unable to cause any more damage to society than they did before. I intend to be brief because most of what I wanted to say necessarily has been said already. I intend to take a close interest in the progress of this Bill in your Lordships’ House. I am, for example, very interested in the licensing proposals and in tents on Parliament Square, but today I, too—and I do not apologise for this—want to address the proposals in Part 1 concerning commissioners.

When I read the proposals concerning police and crime commissioners in the policy review document Policing for the People, which was published two or three years ago, I was unimpressed and underwhelmed. I believed that it was all too much like the east coast of America, too prescriptive and frankly politically too dangerous. Since then, there has been a good deal of discussion with interested and concerned parties and I am now very much more relaxed about the Bill that has emerged and, quite against the seeming trend in your Lordships’ House this afternoon, I am confident enough to give it support—qualified support, but support nevertheless—at this juncture.

It is true that some existing police authorities operate very well, and their members and supporters will understandably feel aggrieved at the proposed changes. I sympathise with their position, but the fact remains that many others do not perform up to scratch or nearly well enough. Perhaps it is time to revise our current arrangements, which, as we have already heard, have been largely in their present form for almost 50 years, while society has changed immensely in the past half-century. In any case, I have to say that it is difficult to fault a proposal that seeks to create a direct channel between the man in the street on one hand and the chief police officer on the other—something that clearly does not exist at present.

I am much reassured that operational responsibility will continue to vest in the chief officer but, as Liberty has emphasised to me and others in your Lordships’ House, the overriding requirement will be to defend a non-partisan, consent-based policing tradition. We should be aware of the overriding tension that will exist in the proposed new system, which is that while chief police officers will always be answerable, as they are now, to the courts, the new commissioners will ultimately be answerable to the ballot box. It is that tension that we should keep in mind throughout the various stages of this Bill. Therein lies the potential for the law of unintended consequences to apply and it is at the root of much of the disquiet that has been evidenced today in your Lordships’ House.

Like others, I want considerable reassurance that the Bill will be constructed in such a way that single-issue politics do not encroach into this field. I go no further than that, as the point has been well made already. Like others, I want reassurance that a proper balance will be maintained between local issues and national requirements, and most important, as most speakers have identified, that the police function does not become a political football. The eagerly awaited protocols that the Government have promised will do much to assuage doubts on those scores; I, too, look for their early publication.

What about hire and fire? It is an area for the closest attention. I applaud the move to allow a chief officer to select his own deputy and assistants. That has been necessary for a long time, but when appointing a new chief officer, what advice and supervision will a commissioner receive, and from whom? Even more important, when a commissioner considers the dismissal of a chief officer, what checks will be instituted to prevent a dismissal that is ill judged, unjustified or, at worst, a malicious dismissal sought for political reasons? In July last year I sought reassurance from the Minister that the Home Secretary would retain some residual oversight of the function of dismissing a chief officer, but no such oversight is contained in the Bill at present.

Relationships between the commissioner and the local authorities in the area will be crucial. Some Members have talked about that this afternoon. How will the financial arrangements work in practice and what realistically will be the role of the police advisory panel? Can it be truly effective or will it prove to be merely an appendage? There is much more, but I do not intend to go into it. Time is pressing and we have heard much already.

I approach the subsequent stages of this Bill in your Lordships’ House optimistically. I hope that what I see is a bold attempt to begin to modernise the police service in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, mentioned. I hope that it will re-establish public confidence and the respect that, sadly, has waned over recent years and that it will put in place a cornerstone on which other initiatives can be based. Those initiatives could and should include, as has been said, the structure of the service, a crucial new approach to establishing high-quality leadership and increased economical collaboration between forces. All those and more cry out for attention. I believe that, if properly handled, this Bill could be that crucial first step towards a thoroughly modernised police service.