Police: Independent Police Commission Report

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

That this House takes note of the role and responsibilities of the police service in the light of the report of the Independent Police Commission chaired by Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Policing and as adviser to a number of technology companies with an interest or potential interest in the policing sector.

I would also like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, who I understand is not in his place today because of business elsewhere, and his other commissioners, some of whom are speaking in this debate, on their report Policing for a Better Britain. As I understand it, the commission had six days of witness hearings, seven regional meetings, conducted eight surveys and drew on advice of over 40 experts and 30 academic institutions, along with receiving over 250,000 words in evidence and submissions. It was a royal commission in all but name. As the Independent newspaper said:

“it provides the most detailed appraisal of policing for over fifty years”,

and certainly since the royal commission of 1962.

Like that royal commission, it provides an opportunity to reshape the police service to meet the challenges that it faces today. What are those challenges? According to the report, nothing less than a police service grappling with “deep social transformations”. In particular, it highlights “a global economic downturn”—we have just heard the rosy viewpoint that has been expressed by the Government today—as well as,

“quickening flows of migration, widening inequalities, constitutional uncertainty, and the impact of new social media”.

While overall crime levels have fallen, though there are some indications that burglary and acquisitive and violent crime are rising, there are new types and modes of crime to contend with, including e-crime and cyber-enabled crime, widespread trafficking of people and goods and terrorism, both international and domestic. All this is happening when trust in the police is under threat. Indeed, the integrity of the police service has been seriously shaken by high-profile scandals and organisational failures. Some of those are historic but others are not. Perhaps it is a good time to go back to the principles that should underpin British policing. I understand that it is a matter of debate whether Sir Robert Peel ever uttered Peel’s maxim:

“The police are the public and the public are the police”.

That outlines the concept that the police are a civilian service and operate with the consent of the public they serve. The principle also articulated that police effectiveness is measured not by the number of arrests but by the absence of crime. The underlying theme of all of it is that the police are accountable for their actions.

That is why the central recommendations of this commission are so important. The noble Lord, Lord Stevens, articulates its vision as follows:

“Our vision is of a police service with a social purpose that combines catching offenders with work to prevent crime and promote and maintain order in our communities … listens closely to the demands of everyone while meeting the needs of the most vulnerable in our society and protecting victims of crime … is rooted in local communities while also possessing the capacity to tackle effectively threats of organised and cross-border crime”.

The report says that the golden thread running through its proposals,

“is that the local policing area is the core unit, and building block, of fair and effective policing”.

The commission warns, and it is a serious warning, that:

“Faced with budgetary constraints and the Government's insistence that the police are ‘crime-fighters’”,

there is a danger of the police being forced to retreat,

“to a discredited model of reactive policing”.

That means that the Home Secretary’s credo that all that matters for the police are the crime statistics misses the point. The police have to be about crime prevention as well as crime detection. The police have to be proactively engaged with the community rather than simply providing an emergency response. They have a social purpose in contributing to community cohesion while maintaining order.

That is why the steady dismantling of neighbourhood policing under this Government is so wrong. The sight of neighbourhood police, whom the local community know, fosters reassurance. It promotes feelings of well-being and security and builds trust. It builds the sort of relationships where the public will feel confident enough in their local police to confide, to pass on concerns, to provide the raw material of the intelligence on which the police must rely to do their work.

When I was chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, when the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, was the commissioner and the noble Lord, Lord Blair, was the deputy commissioner, we developed the “3-2-1” concept of neighbourhood policing: one sergeant, two police officers and three police community support officers. Indeed, we pioneered the introduction of PCSOs as a visible presence in local communities, building confidence. That neighbourhood policing is now disappearing: 300 neighbourhood sergeants have been removed in the past two years alone. Safer neighbourhood teams are being replaced by a more reactive, fast-response approach. No doubt that is a more efficient use of reduced police resources if the sole criterion of success is a speedy presence at a crime scene. However, what is being done to prevent the crimes being committed in the first place?

The very point of neighbourhood policing was to build local trust and confidence. It was to make communities feel safe. It was to offer reassurance. That, in turn, led to public approval and reinforced police legitimacy. That is very different from the police as an occupying force, swooping in reactively and creating resentment through failure to understand the communities involved. Reassurance stemming from proactive neighbourhood policing produces an orderly community, where people can voluntarily comply with the law. It reinforces that that compliance is the right thing to do. Prioritising a reactive response, as this Government do, is not sufficient. It misses out on that essential community engagement. If that reactive response has been the objective of government policy, it has failed. Her Majesty’s inspectorate has reported that within the past two years the proportion of emergency calls responded to within the target time has fallen in 20 of the forces surveyed. The Stevens commission’s survey found that 30% of the population thought that their local policing had got worse in the past few years, with only 5% thinking that it had improved.

This all matters. Police need to demonstrate that they are worthy of the public’s trust. This confers on the police moral authority to exercise their powers for the public good. The police gain their legitimacy through that public approval. If that approval is declining, as the surveys show, that legitimacy is damaged as the performance declines. Moreover, satisfaction surveys show that young people, and those from black and minority-ethnic communities and from the lower socioeconomic classes, were least happy after contact with the police. The commission’s conclusions are telling:

“We think that the ‘singular focus on cutting crime’ that has been placed at the core of the police reform programme, and the diluting of the role of neighbourhood policing, will exacerbate rather than stem these trends”.

Government policy is making it worse, not better.

The commission proposes that the broader social purposes of policing should be enshrined in statute and commends the national statement of purpose for Police Scotland that states explicitly that the main purpose of policing is to,

“improve the safety and well-being of persons, localities and communities”.

It says that policing should be,

“accessible to, and engaged with, local communities”,

and that it should promote measures to prevent crime, harm and disorder.

This needs to be coupled with changes in the policing mindset and greater professionalism from the police; and I agree that this should be enshrined in statute. The Stevens report recommends creating “a chartered police officer” as the basis of the police profession. They would be accountable to a new professional body building on the College of Policing, which should register and accredit police officers, with the implication that some officers might be struck off from the register if they fail to meet the standards expected.

The commission’s recommendations envisage that there would also be a new and enhanced body, combining features of Her Majesty’s inspectorate and the Independent Police Complaints Commission to monitor and impose standards on forces, and to conduct independent investigations into serious complaints. The report addresses the style and purpose of policing, and professionalism and standards. But what of the final pillar of those Peelian principles, governance and accountability?

At local level the report proposes that there should be an explicit local policing commitment so that communities would get a guaranteed minimum level of neighbourhood policing, with priorities, possibly even budgets, set and allocated by the local elected councillors for that area. This makes sense to me as a former local authority leader: local councillors, rooted in the communities that elect them, setting the direction for how neighbourhood policing resources should be used and deployed.

That leads inexorably to force-wide governance. The report is scathing about the present Government’s flagship reform of policing, the introduction of police and crime commissioners. The birth of these was badly botched. The noble Baroness, Lady Browning, who is staring at me over the top of her glasses, will recall in detail that a last-minute coalition deal to hold the elections in darkest November delivered an average turnout of just 15%. This was not helped by the Home Office decision to penny-pinch on publicising the purpose of the elections and insist on confining the details of the candidates standing to an obscure website.

The results themselves are also instructive. Of the 41 police and crime commissioners elected, only six are women. I make no comment on that other than to note that it is surprising that there is such a bias. None is from a visible minority-ethnic community, and eight are former police officers. The latter is hardly a recipe for giving the public confidence in the independence of the accountability being offered. Of the 41, four have been or are being investigated by the IPCC for electoral fraud, expenses fiddles and other serious misdemeanours. That is a rather high hit rate of 10% of the total. Other elected PCCs have been criticised by the Home Affairs Committee for the way in which they have used their office. Several of them have tried peremptorily to fire senior officers without going through the due processes laid down in statute. The list of problems goes on and on.

There is no question that despite the good work that many of the new PCCs have done since their election, the system is flawed and needs to change. I have doubts that those changes can be implemented as the report recommends by the time the current terms of office come to an end. However, it is clear that some changes are needed. What is missing from the present arrangements is visible answerability at force level by the police for the actions that they have taken. While chief constables should answer to PCCs, they are not seen by the public to be doing so.

All that comes back to the building of trust. One of the pillars of that must be accountability and answerability to the public. Another pillar must be the improved professionalism and proper accountability of individual officers. The final pillar must be the close relationship between the police and the communities they serve—a partnership at neighbourhood level that underpins all that is done. The analysis, the diagnosis and the potential solutions are all contained in the Stevens report. That report more than vindicates the decision of my right honourable friend Yvette Cooper to commission the report when the present Government declined to have a full royal commission look at policing. It is now for a future Government to take it forward. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this interesting and important debate. We should congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and welcome him to the world of policing. I am sure that we will hear many more contributions from him on this subject. I am sure that the whole House would want to add its voice to the condolences he expressed for not only the police officers killed in the Glasgow helicopter crash but all the others who died as a consequence and, of course, we express our sympathy for the officer who was shot in a separate incident.

Perhaps I may make one or two comments in response to the debate. From time to time, there was an implication that the commission was not genuinely independent. Having spent four years as chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority trying to keep under control or to restrain the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, I have to say that anyone who thinks that he will not be independent, and would not have been independent under all these circumstances, is living under some misapprehension. I also note with interest that although members of the Conservative Party were invited to participate in the commission, none were prepared to do so.

I also note that the commission went out of its way to consult the public about some of the issues that it raised. My noble friend Lady Henig and the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, were responsible for taking a sort of roadshow around the country, listening to voices. In that context, I think that the Labour Party is planning a roadshow of at least 50 meetings around the country to look at some of these recommendations, which demonstrates the commitment that there needs to be to consulting the public about making major changes in their police service.

I was interested that there was such a preoccupation about structures, and government structures in particular, in the debate. Perhaps it was my fault for even mentioning the subject in my speech, although most of it was about other matters. I was also interested in the suggestion made by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, that it was a bad idea to merge public bodies such as Her Majesty’s inspectorate and the Independent Police Complaints Commission. I remember many happy hours in your Lordships’ Chamber debating what is now the Public Bodies Act, which seemed to consist largely of merging various public bodies. That argument by the Government needs to be looked at again, although the wider issues of whether this merger should go ahead would be part of the consultation.

A number of your Lordships suggested that it was premature to abolish police and crime commissioners because the jury is still out. I hope that the jury will return fairly soon. I understand that the Government are contemplating bringing forward legislation in the next Session of Parliament to extend the powers of police and crime commissioners. If that is the case, perhaps the same argument should apply and we should wait a little longer to see whether this experiment should be extended.

However, the key issue in the report and in this debate for me is what the police do, the style of policing and the need for a focus on the neighbourhood. That is the message which comes across throughout this full, extensive and, in my view, independent report, and which we all need to take forward from today’s debate.

Motion agreed.