Policing and Crime Bill

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 30th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, the government amendments in this group respond to some very well-made points in Committee about the provisions in the Bill establishing the office of the London fire commissioner.

Amendments 37, 156, 195 and 205 will ensure that no locally elected councillor will have to resign their council position if they are appointed as deputy mayor for fire or deputy mayor for policing and crime in London. In Committee the noble Lord, Lord Harris, made a compelling case for this change with reference to two London borough councillors who had had to resign their council positions when appointed to the position of deputy mayor for police and crime because, when appointed, they were treated as an employee of the Greater London Authority and therefore became politically restricted. I have listened to the case made by the noble Lord and agree that no locally elected councillor should be placed in a situation where they would have to give up their seat to become the deputy mayor for fire or the deputy mayor for policing and crime.

Amendments 38 to 40 are drafting amendments which correct erroneous references to the assembly’s fire and emergency “panel” rather than “committee”. I am again grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for spotting them. Finally, Amendments 41 and 42 respond to one tabled in Committee by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, relating to the functions of the fire and emergency committee. These amendments will ensure that there is appropriate scrutiny of the actions and decisions of the deputy mayor for fire, and allow the committee to investigate and prepare reports about any other matters the assembly considers to be of importance to fire and rescue services in London. I beg to move.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for responding to the points I made in Committee and introducing these amendments. I suspect that this is a refinement and clarification of the law which is of interest to a tiny handful of citizens of the United Kingdom. None the less, the anomaly created was slightly strange.

However, at the risk of prolonging this only a moment, I seek a little clarification. The amendments, as I understand them, would enable a deputy mayor in these circumstances to be an elected councillor. Does that also remove the restriction on those individuals placed by the Local Government Officers (Political Restrictions) Regulations 1990, which among other things do not allow such a person to hold office in a political party or to canvass for one? It might be a boon to anyone in this position if they were allowed to be elected and stand for election but not to canvass on their own behalf.

It is difficult to disentangle what are three interlocking Acts of Parliament, not all of which seem in the public references to have been updated by subsequent legislation. It seems to me that the Local Government Officers (Political Restrictions) Regulations 1990 might still apply to these individuals, even though the specific issue of election to a local authority has been removed. Having said that, I am sure that the Minister will be able to clarify it entirely to my satisfaction and I am very grateful to her and her officials for responding to this allegedly minor issue.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I hope it is not going to be another letter because, from my dim and distant memory of local government officers’ political restrictions, I recall that up to a certain level of officer, you are free to canvass and engage in political activity. You are also free to stand for elected office in an authority other than your own. I think I may have to write, now that the noble Lord is heading for the door, on the matter of elected office for local authority officials because that will be looked at in the regulations.

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I end by repeating that I support absolutely the amendment that the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, moved so well. I cannot speak for the College of Policing or for other forces, but I can speak for the force for which I have the privilege of being police and crime commissioner and which I work alongside. Its view is exactly as has been described: although reform is necessary, the way it will be put into practice if it stays as it is in the Bill is unfortunate and will cause a lot of extra and unnecessary work. I therefore support the amendment.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, we can all understand what the Government are trying to achieve with this set of clauses. There have been a number of instances where police bail has been erroneously applied, extended far too long, and the results have been unfortunate for the individuals concerned. The question is whether the solution that the Government have come forward with will work. Every other speech so far has highlighted some of the problems that would arise. The Government are also in danger of contradicting their own objectives in other areas. We heard a lot from the previous Home Secretary, who is now in a more exalted position, about the work that had been done to reduce the bureaucracy within the police force. However, we can say now with certainty that this measure will deliver more bureaucracy and waste more time.

I understand that at any one time there are about 80,000 cases where people are on police bail. Because of problems within the forensic services and problems with the CPS, most of those will probably take longer than 28 days to resolve. The Government are saying, “We know there are these problems over here”—I will not suggest that the problems in the forensic service are anything to do with the decisions of the Government in the last Parliament, but they may well have had an impact. The issues around the Crown Prosecution Service and its ability to review and make decisions on cases are also well known. Therefore a significant proportion of those 80,000 cases will have to go for review.

The Government have two choices at this point. They can say, “Ah, yes. Those cases which come up for review will not be time-consuming”. If that is the case and it is a box-ticking exercise—“Superintendent, please sign this form” and that is it—it is of no value whatever. The reality has to be that if you put a break in the system at a certain point, it has to be a real break that takes a proper amount of time. A submission has to be prepared for the superintendent; the superintendent must have time to consider it; and, of course, if one is brought in to answer police bail and have it renewed, that also involves time for the witnesses concerned.

Either this provision is a complete red herring and will not do anything—in which case one has to ask why we are doing it, because it will not solve the problem—or it will impose a significant burden. I would have thought that a possible sensible solution would be for the Government to bring forward an amendment not necessarily to change the system but so that after two years there will be a review of how well it is working, and for the intervening two years to be spent trying to resolve the problem of the length of time it takes to get forensic evidence and the length of time it takes for the Crown Prosecution Service to do its job.

I have some examples of cases that have necessarily taken a significant amount of time. I know I am sometimes criticised for being too London-centric, so these are from Cumbria. One example concerns an individual who was arrested for stalking—a serious offence of harassment. This person was arrested on 15 August and bailed until 24 October but then had to be rebailed to 18 November, which, as noble Lords will notice, is a period substantially longer than the 28 days required in the Bill. That was because the individual’s mobile phone and computer had to be examined by the high-tech crime unit. The phone was analysed in that period but the computer sat in a queue because there were even more egregious and serious cases to be dealt with.

That is not uncommon. Indeed, I have three or four more examples from Cumbria Constabulary alone and I am sure that, if I sought them, I could obtain plenty of others. The number of such delays will increase the more there is a reliance on evidence that requires the analysis of a mobile phone or a computer because there are simply not enough resources available to the police to deal with the analysis. There is another example where the bail lasted for 55 days while awaiting the forensic analysis of a breath test. There may be some internal procedural issues relating to when the laboratories deal with samples but, again, it is a practical issue not in the control of the police. Surely, if we are to resolve the general difficulty, we have to address why these delays are occurring—and occurring outside the hands of the police.

I hope the Government will take this issue away and look at it again. I think we all accept that the worst cases need to be resolved and that things need to improve to make sure that people do not hang around on police bail unnecessarily for lengthy periods. At the same time, imposing an arbitrary limit or process which will either be a complete mirage or fiction, or where a substantial input of resources will be required for something that cannot be achieved because the resources are not available in the forensic services or the CPS, is simply ridiculous.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan (CB)]

My Lords, I whole- heartedly support the amendment. It seems to me that the arguments that have been adduced are utterly overwhelming. The current situation is restrictive, and unnecessarily so. I was greatly impressed by what one might call the testimony of my noble friend Lord Blair, who speaks with an abundance of authority and experience on this matter. It is a nonsense to cling to the present restrictions, which are wholly unjustified. Everything that I saw in the 25 or so years that I served as a judge and a recorder supports that.

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Perhaps I worded it clumsily, but what I was trying to say is that it would be a sunset provision and reviewed after two years.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

Before the Minister sits down, will she address the question of whether or not, as part of their response to this, the Government will take some action to support the improvement of forensic services and the speed at which forensic cases are dealt with? What steps are the Government going to take to improve the resources available to the CPS so that it might deal with cases more quickly? That is a major reason why the 28-day period would be under pressure.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord makes a very good point, and there are in fact other reasons outside the police’s control why 28 days might prove difficult. It is for that reason that we will not only keep it under review but look at any blockages to the 28 days being fulfilled that are outside the police’s control.