Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, in answering I speak to Government Amendments 103 and 192 and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, who in his characteristic way spoke with enthusiasm to Amendment 103. We note the views of the Local Government Association, which stated that achieving a reduction from three-quarters to two-thirds was one of its top five priorities at Report; the Government have met that condition.

I recall that when a directly elected mayor for London was introduced many argued that the London Assembly would be toothless, and not provided with sufficient bodies to check the mayor. I think the noble Lords would recognise that because of process and its relationship with the mayor, and in spite of not having enormous powers to check the mayor, the London Assembly has involved itself in a process in which the necessary dialogue between the two has continued remarkably well. Schedule 5 to the Bill sets out—

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, I hesitate to intervene but the noble Lord goads me into it. The point is that the London Assembly has never been able to exercise its power in respect of the budget, which requires a two-thirds majority. That is not because London Assembly members feel they have been previously involved enough in the budget process, it is simply the arithmetic. A threshold of two-thirds is already very high.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, with the leave of the House, perhaps I may say that from my experience the power of the London Assembly is best exercised in conjunction with the press, and today of all days I am not sure that I would want to be saying that any sphere of Government should depend too much on the press.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Harris of Richmond]

My Lords, I am pleased to support Amendments 106 and 116, and I want to add my voice briefly to that of the noble Baroness, Lady Henig. I am concerned that we really do not have the proposals about the composition of panels right at the moment.

In the first place, I feel very uncomfortable about all the powers of mandation for the Secretary of State in this section, and I am rather inclined to agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, that mandation is perhaps the wrong response to the problems that have arisen in relation to panels. It does not sit well with the direction we have all agreed is necessary about strengthening the role of panels to have this juxtaposed with greater central powers to determine how those panels are to be made up.

I am also very concerned about getting the political balance right, and I agree that in being unclear which objective is most important in reaching the balanced appointment objective in relation to panel membership these issues will be fudged, and we will end up with little balance at all. In my time as chair of a police authority and a member of the Association of Police Authorities, we spent many hours working precisely on getting this particular problem sorted out, and indeed we now have a much better system within police authorities than is proposed in this Bill.

I have other questions on this point. How will we know what considerations have been included locally—I stress locally—in reaching the balanced appointment objective? Who is going to check this? What powers exist to do anything about it if it is not balanced? I am very concerned about diversity among panel members. It is important that panels should try to reflect the populations they serve, otherwise the public, and particularly those sections of the public that are usually excluded, will question whether their representatives understand the issues that matter to them. This is especially important in the policing context if we take into account all the experiences, from Brixton onwards, that have taught us that it is vital to give people a voice in how they are policed.

In this regard, the Government’s proposal that there should be more co-opted members is helpful, but I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, that it is unlikely to improve diversity if these additional co-optees are local authority members, as seems to be proposed. We certainly found that in our own police authorities. There is a danger that this will simply be perceived as jobs for the boys—or, for that matter, for the girls—so the government amendment, although welcome, should go further and provide for more independent co-opted members.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, I am slightly puzzled by the Government’s stance on the question of political balance as far as these panels are concerned. When I was first elected to a local council in the 1970s, it was the customary practice that authorities with a majority for one party or another made sure that they packed the committees. That was the norm whether the authority was Conservative controlled or Labour controlled and, for all I know, it was the same in Liberal-controlled authorities. The Conservative Administration under Margaret Thatcher took the view—on this instance, they were right—that it was better that committees of local authorities, and subsidiary and external bodies to which local authorities appointed, should reflect the appropriate political balance, to reflect the wishes of the electorate.

In constructing these panels, the Government seem to be setting that aside. Why, in the Bill, are they repudiating the legacy of the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher? Why are they so opposed to having proper political balance to reflect the different strengths of the political parties in particular areas as far as policing and crime panels are concerned? This is precisely an area in which the Government should want to ensure that there is political balance rather than perhaps leading to one-party domination of the way the panels operate.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I follow my noble friend on that particular point about political balance. As currently constituted, police authorities are constituted in a way that reflects the political balance in the area that is affected, whether they are metropolitan areas or single-area county police authorities. I do not understand how the Government propose that political balance should be achieved, if at all, on the basis of the Bill.

I moved an amendment in Committee about using the LGA model, which is well accepted across political groups—including the independent group—in the Local Government Association for achieving a balance within the LGA’s internal bodies and its appointments to external bodies that reflects the strength of the different political groups across the whole country. It should be perfectly possible to import that principle into appointments to these panels, at the level of the new structures which are to be created. If it is not done in that way, how is the objective to be achieved—assuming that the Government share that objective? If the Minister is not in a position to explain that at the moment, perhaps it is something that can be further discussed before Third Reading. I am sure that her noble friend Lady Eaton, who is not in her place, will be happy to enlighten her about the consensual approach that we have achieved in the Local Government Association since it was formed around this particular issue.

I welcome the slight movement that the Government have made on potentially increasing the size of the panels, although I noticed that the Secretary of State will be required to approve the numbers. That seems yet another unnecessary intervention. It should perhaps be subject to a minimum requirement but it should be left to the panel to determine. I am glad that it looks, on the face of it, as though we will be doing a little better than the homeopathic dosage of independent or co-opted members that the Bill in its present form provides for. Again, some assurance about how this might work would be very welcome, because the issue of balance is not confined, as other noble Lords have made clear today and on previous occasions, to issues of politics; there is also the geographical issue.

My noble friend Lord Hunt from the great city of Birmingham would not, I think, be content if Birmingham, with its 1 million population, was to have but one member on the West Midlands Police Authority, which might very well be all it would be entitled to, given the number of authorities that would be involved in that organisation. Birmingham would have a population three or four times the size of some of the other metropolitan districts and there are also county areas involved, as well as all the districts in those county areas to be represented. For Birmingham to be represented by one individual, particularly if it ends up with the misfortune of an elected mayor who would be required to serve in that capacity, would be extremely unsatisfactory.

Of course, when it comes to party-political balance, it is quite conceivable that, as already happens in a number of places, the elected mayor does not reflect the politics of the council involved. So, again, you could have an anomalous position, particularly in a large authority, of an elected mayor of a different party, or no party at all, being the sole political voice in that authority, whereas control of the authority may be in different hands, or, certainly, the balance may very well be different.

In addition to those issues of party-political and geographical balance, issues of ethnicity and gender need to be reflected and are difficult to derive, and the provision for co-opted members ought to be a way of proceeding with that. While it may not be possible in the Bill to prescribe how that should be done, it would be very welcome to hear the Minister say for the record that it would be expected that efforts would be made to reflect those considerations about diversity of ethnicity and gender in particular—there may be others—which are sensitive and important. We have a range of issues, of course, affecting minority communities in some parts of the country and, in general, issues such as domestic violence are clearly ones in which a gender balance is required.

It would be very helpful to have a clear steer on that from the Minister on the record, if not in the Bill, so I hope that she will be amenable to answering some of the points that noble Lords have raised and are about to raise—I see the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, straining at the leash to join the debate.