Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Dear Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Howard, and the noble Lord who has just spoken both infer that the purpose of the amendment is to put a memorandum of understanding into the Bill. My interpretation of it is not that but that this amendment, if adopted, would require there to be a memorandum of understanding and commissioners would have to exercise their functions under it. However, the memorandum itself would be drawn up and issued separately and would be capable of being amended from time to time in the light of changing circumstances. The actual memorandum would not be in the Bill, merely the effect of one. It would obviously be helpful to discuss the first of such memoranda, but it would not actually be incorporated into the Bill when finally enacted.

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, I do not speak in favour of this amendment. We are probably dancing on the head of a pin. It seems we all agree that a protocol or a memorandum of understanding is vital. It is the form that it will take that is a matter of debate for us today and, perhaps, in further stages of this procedure. It seems that one can hardly discuss the detail of this while it is still in draft. We are promised the draft before the full stage is passed in your Lordships’ House, but I find that a difficulty in itself.

My main concern is that by putting it into the Bill or having it standing part and parcel alongside the Bill with statutory force, it would become too prescriptive. This Bill is already in grave danger of being too prescriptive on a number of issues. One has to leave things such as this to the good nature, good judgment and experience of those who will be handling those issues, and while I support the protocol we should not necessarily go so far as to give it statutory authority.

I would say in passing that although ACPO has quite wisely kept well away from making political statements about this Bill—its fingers were burned two or three years ago by getting too closely involved in politics, and it is wise to keep out of this at the moment—I would be surprised if chief constables and chief officers of police would want to see a protocol bound into such an Act. I would think that they would want to operate against a background of advice that can be amended in the light of experience. That is my view, not theirs; I am not in a position to speak for them but that is how I would expect them to react.

On a small point of detail in Amendment 4B, I noticed that the Central Motorway Police Group is included in a group of police authorities. I ask those who tabled the amendment, if they take it to a vote, to check whether the Central Motorway Police Group now has the same statutory basis as a police force. When it was set up it was subject to a collaboration agreement. To the best of my understanding it is still subject to such an agreement, which is very different from the statutory basis that other forces enjoy. It is a small point of which I ask noble Lords to take note. I do not support the amendment.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I shall make two comments on quite a fundamental matter. First, I am clear that there needs to be a memorandum of understanding. I am less clear about whether it needs to have statutory force. However, the public will expect to understand what the powers of a chief constable and a commissioner are when they are being asked to vote for a police and crime commissioner. That seems a basic point; the public must have a clear understanding of the two roles. Unless this is written down in the form of a memorandum of understanding, it will be difficult for them to do so.

Secondly, there is also an operational aspect to this. Amendment 4A asks in particular,

“how the operational independence of chief constables and police forces will be protected”.

This relates to the joining point between the operational independence of the chief constable and the power of the police and crime commissioner over both the budget and the annual plan. In other words, the chief constable is to be required to undertake, with operational independence, the work in a plan that was agreed by the police and crime commissioner. The budget for that plan will be agreed by the commissioner and supplied to the chief constable. There is a clear joining point that must be bridged here. There is a grave danger that there will be operational interference by the police and crime commissioner when that commissioner feels that the budget and plan that he or she created is not being implemented. Unless this is clearly written down in the form of a memorandum of understanding, that operational independence will not be clear to anyone and trouble will ensue.