Protection of Freedoms Bill

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Wednesday 15th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, I greatly applaud and welcome this amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and its other signatories. I also appreciate very much the humanity and sensitivity shown by the Minister. The noble Lord, Lord Henley, if I may say so, has added to the very great respect and admiration that the House already has for him. The problem is one which is a stain upon the honour of this community. These trafficked children are the most vulnerable imaginable, while their state is the most pitiable imaginable—and yet our system fails them. Morally, our responsibility is immense and could not be greater. Legally, the responsibility has already been spelt out. As many of us know, in Part III of the Children Act 1989 there is Section 17, which requires a local authority to be responsible for a child in need, and Section 20, which requires it to accommodate a child who needs accommodation.

If I may turn to the Welsh language for a moment, there is a saying: “Dyw mater pawb yn gyfrifoldeb neb”—the business of everybody is nobody’s special responsibility—and that is the whole issue here. Somehow or other local authorities, which I know have responded well within the realities of the difficulties which they have, find it difficult to do exactly what they should in relation to these children, with the result that a very substantial proportion escape the protection which they so gravely need. In those circumstances, I believe that the amendment is excellent. It concentrates the mind, as Dr Johnson might have said. It places a focus of responsibility which is not already there in Part III of that Children Act.

It may be that the amendment is not perfect. That does not really matter, as its thrust is obvious and honourable. I had the very great privilege 43 years ago, if your Lordships can believe it, of taking the Children and Young Persons Bill through another place. I remember being thrilled then by one of the expressions in that legislation, about the responsibility of a local authority towards a child who was in its care to befriend. We have heard that expression already, but I do not think that it appears in fact in the amendment. However, I am sure that it could be incorporated in legislation in this context. I therefore feel that we are doing something which is essentially moral and good. We are supplementing a lacuna which exists not so much in the law as in the way in which local authorities have reacted to their duties in this case. It is very much to the credit of this community that it shows that sensitivity in relation to what is a very worthy cause.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

My Lords, I am very aware that those who push against an open door are liable to fall on their face. I suppose the trouble here is that we do not know how open the door is, given the assurance that the Minister made. However, having regard to the way he responded so humanely to the Second Reading of the Bill brought by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, on 25 November and the amendments that the Government have subsequently made, we can be confident that he will be doing his very best concerning this evil practice and to ensure that the real needs of this vulnerable section will be adequately met. We give two cheers at the moment—we hope that there will be three cheers—but I suppose that there is a problem in how the report of the Children's Commissioner will be put into legislation, given that it will presumably be received well after this Parliament has ended. Perhaps the Minister could comment on that point.

I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord McColl, who, as has already been said by my noble friend Lord Judd, has shown his own compassion in West Africa by his presidency of Mercy Ships. He has indeed shown himself to be committed and flexible; for example, he has listened to concerns about the former subsection (1)(c), which in my judgment could certainly have been misused for illegal immigration. The key point in subsection (1) is that the main consideration is the welfare of the child. There is no doubt about the nature of the problem. They are bewildered, vulnerable children. The Children's Commissioner's report of last month, Landing in Dover, shows some of the failings of the current system. I am sure the Minister concedes that that system is far from adequate. We need to confront it. The noble Lord, Lord McColl, has put forward a proposal that might help the Minister in terms of public funds. It may be that local social services departments can provide adequate help but, if not, the voluntary spirit will be available, as the noble Lord, Lord Wei, said.

Clearly, there are concerns about the potential volunteers. Is the problem manageable? I submit that it is, given the relatively small number of children who are trafficked. Equally, there must be some concerns about the adequacy of the training. I do not wholly accept the precedent of magistrates. Yes, magistrates are amateur, but they have training and the legal clerk is always there to advise them on the law. The volunteers, it is said, are available and there is a great spirit on the part of non-governmental organisations to be ready to help. I hope that the training will indeed be adequate. Of course many social workers do not in any event have specialist training in this field.

That said, we travel in hope. I believe that the Government and indeed the noble Lord, Lord McColl, whom I congratulate again, have set out proper criteria based on the UNICEF guidance. I believe also that Greco —the Council of Europe organisation which is going to mark the Government in terms of their adherence to the obligations under the Council of Europe convention—is more likely to give a very positive report when it comes to comment on the Government's conduct in May or June of this year.

Phone Hacking

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I think some of the concentration of press ownership happened during the Government of whom the noble Lord was such a distinguished member in former years. I do not think it would be appropriate, as I said, to comment in advance of the inquiry that will be concluded in due course, in his time, by Lord Justice Leveson.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, can the Minister tell the House, in general terms, whether systems of state security dedicated to the surveillance of communications worldwide can cast any light at all on the question of phone hacking? If that is the case, subject to proper safeguards, can such information can be relayed to the Leveson inquiry?

Public Disorder: Uninsured Claimants

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, I give the fullest support to the Minister’s indication that the Government regard the Act as having passed its sell-by date. Taking the point of the noble Lord, Lord Imbert, may I ask the Government to look very carefully into the whole philosophy of whether it is right, in the 21st century, that claims should be made against police authorities, as opposed to a more general claim, perhaps against the Government? I also make the point that the definition of “persons” in the Act is deeply flawed, as are the definitions of “property”. The Act should also be brought up to date to allow claims in respect of motor vehicles.

[Lord Henley]

The noble Lord is right to quote me as saying that the Act is beyond its sell-by date and needs to be reviewed. That is why it is being reviewed. I do not believe that the police forces will lose out. That is why we have made it clear that the Home Office is ready to support them. We will make sure that that is the case where appropriate. However, the important thing is that we look at the result of those reviews of the Act and then make the appropriate decisions.

Riots Communities and Victims Panel

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am not, fortunately, responsible for the remarks of Mr Jeremy Clarkson and do not have to answer for him, but I think the noble Baroness can imagine what I think about his remarks.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, will the Minister assure the House that in looking at the operation of the 1886 Act, consideration will be given not only to extending the time limit for a claim, which I think is a few weeks, but to the whole ethos of the Act: that is, the question of claiming against police authorities and the fact that the Act goes back a century and a quarter to a period when policing was much more formative in its development than it is nowadays?

[Lord Henley]

The noble Lord is right to draw attention, as I did earlier, to the age of the Act. It is possibly coming up to its sell-by or use-by date, which is one of the reasons why we want to review it. The recommendation in the report was that the submission of claims should be extended to 90 days. The Government had already extended it from 14 to 28 days. Extending it to 90 days is a very interesting suggestion and will be looked at as part of a wider review of the whole Act.

Violence against Women and Girls

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, while appreciating the seriousness with which the Government regard this issue, does the Minister agree that the best service that the Government could give to battered women is to amend the provisions in the legal aid legislation now before this House, which creates massive obstacles before legal aid can be granted in domestic violence cases? Does she agree that there is an irony that, in fact, the standard of proof required to get legal aid in the first place is often higher than that required to succeed in a civil court?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the noble Lord of course knows that when the legal aid Bill comes before us, we will have some in-depth responses. I will leave it to that debate before answering.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

118: After Clause 29, insert the following new Clause—
“Police and crime panels in Wales
Each police area in Wales may have a police and crime panel established and maintained in accordance with the arrangements specified by the National Assembly for Wales and with the functions specified by the National Assembly for Wales.”

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, this amendment is the parent amendment for the group, the other amendments being consequential thereto, as was Amendment 105, which I did not move.

The amendments highlight the impact on Wales of Part 1. The technical effect of Amendment 118—I certainly shall not divide the House on it—would be that the authority in relation to the functions and membership of police and crime panels would pass from the body of the Bill and the schedules thereto to the Welsh Assembly, which would decide what the panels would be involved with and what their membership should be.

I have been a sufficient time in the courts and in Parliament to know that to say that this is not the first choice that one would adopt in relation to this matter, nor indeed the second, is not the most impactful or safest way to open a case, but that is the proper and honest way of putting it. This amendment can be fully understood only if one appreciates from where it is coming and the direction in which it is leading.

If I was asked what in my view was the ideal situation—I am pompous enough to assume for a moment that somebody would ask that question—my answer would be, most certainly, that there should be a complete devolution of police services from this Parliament to the Assembly in Cardiff. Secondly, I would say that, in addition to that, there is a fallback position which was taken up by the Welsh Assembly and which I regard as being utterly practical and meritorious.

I shall deal with those matters in some little detail. On the question of devolution of authority, I would respectfully argue that it is not for Wales to show that there is some magical path that allows it to be an exception to the general provisions of the Bill. Wales is a land and nation; Scotland is a land and nation. Scotland, with a population of 5 million, has its own police services. Northern Ireland, with its population of 1.75 million, has its own police services. Your Lordships may very well say that there are very distinct historical reasons in each case, but there are distinct and historical reasons in relation to Wales. Therefore, I would say that there is a national case for the transfer and devolution—some day in the not-too-distant future, I hope—of those jurisdictions to Wales.

The second point is what I would call the contiguity or borderline point. Police services do not exist in a vacuum. They link up at each stage with various other functions of a local nature. All those other relative functions in relation to Wales have already been devolved. I could name a good dozen of them, but the ones upon which I would mainly rely are community safety, youth services, youth justice, health, transport, and substance misuse. All those have boundaries where their jurisdictions are intertwined and interlocked with the police service. It is almost impossible to separate one from the other. There is a demand and a need for a total participation—and indeed, co-operation—between police authorities on the one hand and local authorities and local agencies on the other.

The next reason I would rely on in relation to this matter is the attitude of the Welsh Assembly itself in this connection. As we well know, there has never been devolution of police services to Wales. In fact, when this legislation was being considered, in the late 1990s, all manner of undertakings were given with regard to concordats, as to exactly how this meshing or merger of different jurisdictions should take place. Unfortunately, it appears that none of that has ever been carried out.

In the early part of January this year the Welsh Assembly asked the Communities and Culture Committee to report on the impact of this Bill on Wales. The report reflected a general tidal feeling in Wales of total disapprobation of the Bill. Practically all the evidence was in one direction, and I have no doubt that if a referendum were held in Wales it would be carried by a massive majority, very probably in favour of total devolution, but most certainly against Part 1 of the Bill.

I do not in any way castigate the Minister or indeed her colleague who sits by her. I have some sympathy for them. I think that in many respects they, themselves, would probably have put together an infinitely better Bill. But I will not embarrass them on that account. I think of them as very much the same as General Sir Redvers Buller and General Sir George White, who were the two generals given the task of relieving Mafeking. It was not they who had sent the troops there. It was not they who had created the siege. But they were given the unenviable task of fighting battle after battle, ultimately to bring about the raising of that siege. That, it seems to me, is the situation in which the Minister and her colleague find themselves at the moment.

The Welsh Assembly committee came to the conclusion that the Bill was utterly disastrous and irredeemable, both with regard to the idea of centring public scrutiny on a commissioner, and indeed on a police and crime panel to overlook his or her functions. It went on to make a main recommendation:

“We recommend that the Welsh Government has dialogue with the UK Government to persuade it to defer introducing those aspects of the Bill related to the abolition of police authorities, and establishment of police commissioners and police crime panels in Wales, at least until the effectiveness of their impact in England has been assessed.”

That was not a petulant reaction on the part of the Assembly Government. It was a considered, deeply analysed and well thought out reaction, bearing in mind the constitutional realities and the relationships between the two bodies. In March of this year a very substantial metamorphosis took place in the Welsh Assembly. We had a referendum to decide whether Part 4 of the Government of Wales Act 2006 should be adopted. The people of Wales espoused that proposition—as the Minister will know—by a two-to-one majority. It was as clear a verdict as one could have wished for, and its effect is twofold. It inevitably increases the dynamic of devolution in Wales. Secondly, it elevates the status of the Welsh legislature, now that it has been given wide fields—20 in all—of primary legislative responsibility, from being that of an Assembly to that of a Parliament. On that basis, I present the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Randerson]

That was a statement made to the Assembly, but it was not the legislative consent Motion that the Assembly was asked to vote on. The Minister will, I am sure, correct me if I am wrong, but my recollection is that that the Assembly was asked to vote on the issue of the appointment of representatives appointed by Welsh Ministers to serve on the new bodies.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

The noble Baroness is quite right. The matter that was put before the Welsh Assembly under the original provisions of the Bill was a very narrow one: whether the Welsh Assembly—in one way or another; I am not sure whether it was a ministerial or a plenary appointment, but it does not really matter—should select one person from a list, if I remember rightly, of seven different groups which are set out in the Bill. The Welsh Assembly said, “We so fundamentally disapprove of the Bill that we will not do that”. So it was a very narrow issue.

[Baroness Randerson]

That is my recollection of the procedure: the Minister may have made a statement, but this was not a formal offer made for the Assembly to accept or not. The point that the noble Lord makes is very relevant in that there are a number of different solutions to this. My point in speaking this evening is to urge the Minister to continue to make efforts to reach an agreement with the Welsh Assembly so that we can go forward, maybe not with perfection, but with a practical, workmanlike approach that will seek some kind of centre ground. I regret that it appears that the Minister concerned in Wales does not like the amendments put forward today, because they put the power in the hands of the Welsh Assembly. That is an aspect of the amendments that I heartily approve of, but Ministers, of course, do not approve of that kind of thing, do they? They like power to rest in their own hands, but the fact remains that I believe there is scope for further discussion and for agreement.

--- Later in debate ---

The Bill seeks to secure effective and efficient policing in the whole of England and Wales. The fact that policing is a reserved matter is something that we all have to respect. In the context of this part of the Bill, I cannot, as I am sure noble Lords will appreciate, move on to what may happen in the future. In taking this Bill through Report stage, I have to deal with reality as it is. However, I say to all noble Lords who have spoken on this that I accept that it is a sensitive matter. Discussions are still going on. We shall not just look at it as an impasse, shrug our shoulders and move on. We will continue those negotiations to try to reach an agreement on this part of the Bill. Although I am obliged to reject these amendments and move the Bill on because we are now on Report, I remain open to continuing discussions with any noble Lords who wish to see me at any time. On that basis, I ask noble Lords to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, I most warmly and sincerely thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this little cameo of a debate in relation to Welsh policing. I am deeply grateful to the Minister for the most courteous and charming way in which she has dealt with the matters, albeit in a somewhat technical way. However, Wales has not triumphed tonight, but there is an old adage in the Welsh language—“Dyfal donc a dyr y garreg”, which means: it takes many a patient knock to break the rock. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 118 withdrawn.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Lords Chamber

Tabled by

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

105: Clause 29, page 20, line 29, after “area” insert “in England”

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, I do not wish to move the amendment. It is wholly consequential to the parent Amendment 118, which I apprehend will be dealt with immediately after Amendment 117. I have been told that by the Table Office. I hope that I am not misconceived.

Amendment 105 not moved.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I am sure that we are all indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for allowing us to have an almost Second Reading debate on the principles of the Bill. I must say that I feel that his unduly modest fees are almost always worth it. As I say, this takes us back to principles. I remain deeply puzzled about the merits of the legislation and am yet to be convinced that there are so many problems in policing as to warrant such a dramatic and potentially very damaging shake-up in the way that our police service will be run.

I was very interested to receive an email this morning from Liberty in which it says that it believes that the Bill’s premise is fundamentally wrong and that the Bill, if implemented as proposed, will cause irreversible damage to the relationship between the police and their communities. Indeed that is so. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, did not really address that point. I understand his point about democratic accountability, but surely he will recognise that there are huge risks in the politicisation of our police force. There are very few guarantees that the elected police and crime commissioners will not seek unduly to influence the operational behaviour of chief constables.

I remain concerned that the construct of the Bill still provides too few safeguards against that undue exercise of authority by the elected police commissioner. Although I disagree with the noble Lord’s amendment, it is interesting that he has raised issues of good corporate governance. This is the problem of the concept of corporate soles: individuals—the elected police and crime commissioner on the one hand, and the chief constable on the other—who have enormous powers without being subject to effective corporate governance. I am with the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, to the extent that it would be much better if a group of people were collectively responsible, rather than leaving it to an individual. We will come on to issues of corporate sole later today but I welcome the noble Lord’s attention to the issue now. He is right to do so.

Ultimately the question is whether adding on an elected police authority to an elected police and crime commissioner would risk far too much politicisation of our police force. As the noble Lord will be aware, when we were in government we looked at this issue and originally made proposals for partly elected police authorities. However, we stepped back from that partly because of a lack of support out in the community and partly because of the risk of politicisation. We remain of the view that this is not the right way to go. However, the noble Lord has done us a service by raising some of the issues surrounding the lack of corporate governance in the Government’s approach.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, I have nothing but respect for the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and for the certain merit that is involved in this amendment. However, I respectfully disagree with him in so far as it can be regarded as a full and complete solution. For many years England and Wales have been blessed with a system in which there is a generally accepted tripartite balance between the Home Office, on the one hand, and the chief constable and the police authority on the other. So far as I am aware, I do not believe that that tripartite balance, or indeed the system, has ever been spelt out in statute, and in many respects it may well be that that is its strength.

One might find that, over the decades, certain segments of that balance have grown more substantial and influential than others, but the balance remains. That balance imposes a duty to consider something that is central to the role of the chief constable, which is that it is the chief constable who is responsible for direction and control. Direction and control is already a well established statutory principle and will not in any way be materially affected by the Bill. It will remain exactly as it is at this moment, and a former Home Secretary in his place to my left is nodding in agreement. But what does direction and control mean? Too often over the past few weeks we in this House have equated direction and control with operational control, but it means much more than that. It means that a chief constable is entitled, in a professional way, to the independence to run the strategy of a particular police force unaffected by and untrammelled by any unprofessional interference, political or otherwise.

As I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, will remember, the rules are set out clearly in Lord Denning’s judgment in 1968 in R v Blackburn. Those principles have stood the test of time. Therefore, although the amendment proposed by the noble Lord is probably an improvement on what was originally set out in the Bill, I still believe that both are misconceived. I am prepared to accept that the misconception in both cases, by the Government and by the noble Lord, comes from the best of motives, which is to try to strengthen the segment of public control that relates to the tripartite balance. However, I still think that this is the wrong way.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

If the Minister wishes to read other documentation prior to the next stage of this legislation I could do little better than to commend some of the policies that were developed by the noble Lord, Lord Howard—who is in his place—during the changes that he made to the legislation, not least, I think he would agree, the changes that he made to cope with too much party political dominance over what was happening to the police service. He finely judged how to ensure independence within the tripartite system. Were the noble Baroness to read the whole proceedings and the issues that the noble Lord took through, she would agree that he made some very fine judgments.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, I particularly support the submissions and remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. Although I have immense regard and sympathy for the amendments, the answer does not really lie in pilot schemes at all. I look upon it as the Government embarking on a very revolutionary experiment. Whether one agrees with it or not, one cannot deny that it breaks new ground in a massive way. Here is a machinery that has the potential to be successful but also to be extremely dangerous. How do you test that to destruction, before you bring the whole scheme into being? In other words, what is the legislative equivalent of the wave tank or wind tunnel that will give you an answer to that problem?

I listened of course with total respect and regard to the remarks of the noble Lords, Lord Dear and Lord Condon, with their immense and distinctive experience in this field. Uncertainty is also a very great enemy of the morale of the police service in this matter but, nevertheless, these are massive questions. You may have a situation where perhaps 30 of the forces involved find themselves well and successfully served by a commissioner. What if you had 10, 11 or 12 situations where it did not work? The damage and the disastrous consequences would be so immense. That is the danger that we face.

The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, spoke of national issues, and I will speak about a Welsh national issue. The Welsh Assembly Government were conscious of the very particular situation that we have in Wales with the four police forces and the possibility of amalgamation, which raises immense constitutional questions. In Wales you now have the outline of statehood and the question of whether you should have one single police force for a country and nation—not a situation that, at the moment, we are facing in the United Kingdom. The Welsh Assembly set up a high-powered body, which reported, I think, in February this year and recommended very strongly that there should be full discussions between the Welsh Assembly and Her Majesty’s Government on this most sensitive of matters.

Here we have been told by the Government—and I have no doubt that the Government are sincere in this —that this is a matter on which local views, attitudes and conditions have immense pertinence. That can be put to the test by respecting that attitude in relation to Wales.

Lastly, speaking as a former family judge, I accept completely what has been said about the secrecy involved in dealing with the protection of children. These are not matters that can be laid down as huge lines of policy. They are sensitive matters where a great deal has to be done by way of trust and, if I may say so, covertly in so far as the general public are concerned. I do not for a moment believe that the role of protecting children is mainly that of the police; agencies in local government, and indeed in the health service, have that as their main concern. If I may say as an aside, I believe that the best protection that any child in danger can ever have is to have one person responsible for collecting and collating information—that, above all, is the best service that can be given to children. The police certainly have a massive and impactive role to play, but I do not think that their role can be improved in any way by the sort of structures contemplated in the proposals for police commissioners, with every respect to Her Majesty’s Government. The matter needs to be approached with great imagination and great sensitivity.

[Lord Bradshaw]

My Lords, those of my colleagues who read the Daily Telegraph will have noticed from yesterday’s edition that the stated main purpose of the coalition is to save us from economic disaster. The paper berated some of my noble colleagues for being left-wing trouble-makers. I have never regarded myself either as a trouble-maker or as particularly left-wing, but I believe the Bill to be essentially a flawed piece of legislation.

I will speak very briefly to the amendments in my name, and I do so as a gardener. One of the things that you learn as a gardener, when you move about the country as I have done, is that you leave the place virtually alone until you know about what is growing there; you do not just go in and hack everything down. I am afraid that Ministers have a tendency to the hacking approach rather than the gardening approach. I must say to the noble Baroness the Minister that, so far, we have had no message in this House that would cause us to believe that Ministers in another place will actually listen to and discuss the concerns that we are raising. We have had many meetings, but those have not been productive meetings as we have been told, “This is what is going to happen”. Indeed, I believe that instructions have been issued to police authorities that they are to prepare for Armageddon.

Why would my amendments provide for three-year trials? I believe that it is essential that you go through two complete budget rounds before you know whether the arrangements work and what they will cost—I am very concerned about how much they will cost. I also believe that the experience in London, which the Policing Minister cited as the pilot study, is anything but a pilot study. I would ask the same Policing Minister whether, if he thoroughly approves of the way in which things are done now, he would still do so if Mr Livingstone is successful in 18 months’ time. One of the rules in politics is that the pendulum does swing, and sometimes it swings pretty violently with great reaction against the party that it is leaving. Many organisations are then left to pick up the bits and to start reconstructing again.

Turning back to the economy, I cannot see one iota of evidence that says that the proposed move is necessary or that it will save money. I believe that the Government have masses of things to do and, with due respect, I believe that this could be kicked into touch and nobody would notice.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, I share the view expressed by many noble Lords that the noble Baroness should not proceed to a Division with this amendment. It should be regarded merely as a probing exercise, giving all of us the opportunity to discuss a situation which is, to say the very least, extremely complicated. The Leader of the House referred to the discussions last week as being philosophical. However, I would say that, if anything, they were more metaphysical than philosophical.

There is a great deal to be said in favour of the amendment in very general terms but I doubt very much whether it can cure the situation either in part or in whole. I shall not repeat this on other amendments, although it governs the whole situation, but I believe that the idea of a police commissioner or a police commissar, to use a term which illustrates the problem more classically, is alien to the whole concept of a disciplined force and a disciplined hierarchy—as alien as it would be in relation to the armed services. I say that as someone who 43 years ago had the very great privilege of being a Minister for the police in the other House. I do not believe that you can treat the police in that way.

Having said that, I do not in any way doubt the genuineness of the approach to this problem taken by any of the main political parties. There is obviously room for improvement in the relations between the police and the public, and there is room for better scrutiny and greater efficiency, but I believe, with all the sincerity that I can muster, that all these considerations have been borne in mind by the parties that have allowed themselves to be led down that path in the belief that there is a massive problem that has to be dealt with in some revolutionary way. I do not believe that there is a massive problem.

With very great respect to the noble Baroness who has proposed the amendment, I do not believe that the amendment can ameliorate the problem, because I do not believe that you can ameliorate the unameliorable, redeem the unredeemable or repair the irreparable while the concept of a police commissar is central to the whole of Part 1 of the Bill.

I would not pretend in my most egotistical flights of fancy to have a complete answer to this situation. However, I believe that the answer lies somewhere in the direction of strengthening the position of the chairman of the police authority. Police authorities have served this community well over the years. I believe that their record is honourable and impressive, and that one can go in that direction without damaging the whole concept of a disciplined hierarchy. I believe that one of the most important questions in relation to this whole matter was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw: who controls the controller—or, to use the words of Cardinal Richelieu, quis custodiet custodes ipsos? It is a massively important question.

There is a fallacy that has been expressed by the noble Lords, Lord Howard of Lympne and Lord Carlile, two gentlemen for whom I have immense personal regard. But the very fact that a person has been elected by way of a democratic process does not of necessity lead to a good, democratic result. If I remember rightly, Adolf Hitler was elected Chancellor by a democratic process. It is not the process that matters; it is the purpose that is served by that particular person. If tomorrow you have a proposal by the most direct process of democracy—I shall not animadvert as to whether that would be some form of PR or first past the post—and if there were the most direct and fair system of election of a person to a dictatorial post, that would still be wrong. It would still be antidemocratic.

As regards relations between the police and the public, 100 years ago the ordinary, decent citizen regarded police officers as sentinels who stood on the ramparts of civilisation, defending people’s rights against all the evils that existed in this world. Then one thing above all happened to change everything: that was the internal combustion engine. It led to the possibility of millions of ordinary, decent, law-abiding citizens suddenly finding themselves crossing the line into criminality. If anything over the past 100 years has changed the benign relationship between police and public, it is the internal combustion engine, but I am not suggesting that it should be abolished.