Police and Crime Panels (Modification of Functions) Regulations 2012

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, a number of questions have been put to me. First, I shall deal with those asked by my noble friend Lord Shipley. I can assure him that, yes, the Secretary of State will take note of views from other local authorities and will want to take account of political and geographical differences. That is the point behind what we are trying to set up in these authorities. The noble Lord will know as well as I do how police areas vary very much from authority to authority.

My part of the world, Cumbria, has a county council and six regional councils. Thames Valley Police has something rather complicated with, I think, 18 authorities, which are all single tier. I cannot remember whether I am right on that. However, it is very different from the traditional county district. In areas such as the noble Lord’s in the north-east, there are other set-ups. Obviously, we will want to take account of political and geographical differences. My noble friend’s second question was about what was meant by the words “must agree”. As regards the second part, obviously it is only with the agreement of all the local authorities, as he said.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked whether the LGA had any concerns. I can assure him that, as always, it has been closely involved in the development of the policy and regulations, and is working with us very much on the transition programme. As regards any monitoring of the effectiveness of the panels, I do not believe that that is a role for central government. I believe that local authorities will be key to ensuring the success of panels. If those panels turn out to be toothless, or whatever, it will be for local authorities to challenge that. I think that the noble Lord and others will be the first to raise their concerns should that be the case.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, perhaps the Minister can clarify his answer to the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, about political balance. Is he talking about the political balance of the entire police force area or of the defaulting authority? As I understand the construction of the police and crime panels, there is one representative from each authority and the purpose of this order is to deal with a situation in which one local authority has failed to put forward a suitable nomination. Is the intention under those circumstances that the Secretary of State will appoint someone to achieve some form of political balance across the whole area or simply to reflect whatever is regarded as the political majority within that particular local authority area? They are very different things.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, we are trying to achieve some sort of balance across the whole area of panels covering a police force. I can think of some areas where every local authority is Labour or every local authority is Conservative. That does not mean that one would want every member of the panel to be Labour or Conservative—to take those two extremes—as obviously a vast number of voters would not be represented. We hope that there will be negotiations between local authorities, even if—dare I say?—some Tory authorities want to push forward a Labour candidate for the panel to make sure that overall, throughout the entire area, there is a proper balance that represents the views of the electors of that area. That might be despite the authorities being red in one case or blue in another. Does the noble Lord follow what I am getting at? We are trying to achieve genuine cross-party representation with a balance that represents the constabulary in a proper manner.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that clarification. I am not sure it completely helps me. In a two-tier area, with which he is familiar, you will have a county council that will be elected on a specific date. You will then have district councils either elected in thirds or possibly on specific dates but not the same date as the county council. Are we talking about a political balance that relates to the county or to the districts? They will not necessarily be the same thing—they might be by chance, but not necessarily.

The Local Government Association spent many happy years devising a system that is supposed to balance elections held at different times and the different status of counties, districts, unitary authorities and so on. That sort of formula might be the approach that is taken. But I had understood that this legislation did not necessarily prescribe for political balance but simply for area balance.

[Lord Henley]

I do not want to be overprescriptive on these matters, particularly as every authority varies quite dramatically. I will use my own county, Cumbria, as an example because I happen to know it well. Cumbria County Council coincides with the police authority and so it is quite an easy one to do. There is a county council that has elections every four years. There are six district councils, one or possibly two of which have an election every four years while the other four have elections in the three years when there are not county elections. So everyone is electing at different times in different ways. All we are trying to do is ensure that local authorities act together to try to produce something that is reasonably practical. Possibly the model that the noble Lord is suggesting is not a bad one. He was taking it from the Local Government Association. We are not demanding anything absolutely precise; we are just trying to make sure that, as far as is reasonably practical, all views can be taken into account.