Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Freeman Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freeman]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the moving maiden speech of my noble friend Lady Newlove. She has already won many friends in the House as well as great respect for her courage and, I am sure, for her speech today.

I strongly support my noble friends Lord Howard of Lympne and Lord Patten. I, too, strongly support the Bill and I want to spend a couple of minutes in defence of the political process and party politics. The assumption of many noble Lords today has been that this may turn out to be a corrupt and corrosive process. I think that the opposite will be the case. I have great respect for the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath—he is an effective debater and an astute politician—but I was slightly depressed by his assertion that somehow we will have a corrupt regime in place if and when the Bill becomes an Act, as I am certain it will.

My argument is this. With the protocols, which the Minister has explained will be tabled shortly before Committee, I hope that we can concentrate on the clear distinction between the chief constable, who has operational responsibilities, and the police and crime commissioner—he or she is not a commissar—who is an individual elected both to ensure that there is a clear division of responsibility and to build a sense of confidence and co-operation.

I take a positive view of these changes because, as my noble friend Lord Howard rightly said, there is a democratic deficit. My experience as a constituency MP was that very few constituents knew who the members were—people will certainly know who the police and crime commissioner is—and the activities of the police authority seemed not to be as central as I believe they should have been. Under the Bill there will be an opportunity for the commissioner to raise issues of responsibility, not the operational discharge of functions, reflecting the concerns of their constituency.

I very much agree with the remarks that were made earlier from the Liberal Democrat Benches. Larger constituencies—mergers of counties, if you like—are certainly in the best interests of making sure that we have a high quality of candidates coming forward, not only to stand as commissioners but to be nominated by the district councils to serve on the panel.

I believe that the protocols are going to be extremely important. I agree that, as several noble Lords who have served with great distinction in the police force have said, it is very important that the distinction of the two roles is made clear and I believe that that will happen.

I support the Bill. I hope that we will have a rational discussion and that the noble tradition of being a party politician, like 50 per cent of noble Lords in this House, will be preserved.