Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, I shall speak also to the other amendments in the group. As we have heard, these amendments seek to ensure that Wales has an appropriate framework for a real partnership working, taking into account the reality that many of the public services important to good policing are devolved to the National Assembly for Wales.

First, it is essential that good operational links exist between the police and local government. Local government in Wales is fully devolved for both the legislative and financial overview under the Assembly. The Assembly is also responsible for highways, housing, community safety and social services in Wales, all of which are greatly important to the work of the police force. In particular, the road safety partnership is an essential feature of such co-operation. Furthermore, education comes entirely under the National Assembly, and that is relevant to the work of the police and schools liaison officers. The Assembly is responsible for youth services, youth justice and substance misuse—all vital to police work.

As the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, said, the National Assembly’s Communities Committee has considered the impact of the Bill, if it becomes an Act, on community safety in Wales. Its report, which I have here, was published in February of this year. It has the headline recommendation which calls for any establishment of police commissioners and police crime panels to be deferred until their impact had been assessed in England. This was a constructive comment to ensure that, if they do come in, they come in with lessons learnt and fit in with the structures that we have in Wales. The committee also recommended that, if the Government go ahead, there should be an equal balance of power and a consensual approach between the commissioners and the police and crime panels.

The evidence garnered by the committee overwhelmingly praised police forces in Wales for developing over the past decade much stronger engagement with communities. As the former chair of the north Wales Crimebeat organisation, I can certainly vouchsafe that that is true in our area. This is reinforced by evidence from a diverse phalanx of organisations that was given to that committee of the Assembly, ranging from Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Constabulary to Welsh Women’s Aid, from the Welsh Local Government Association to the Welsh Audit Office, and from ACPO to the Campaign Against Political Policing.

The community dimensions are an essential ingredient of Welsh life and Welsh culture. After a period of working at arm’s length from the community, the police have learnt that they were ignoring a vital tool in their fight against crime. Having a community actively on your side makes a huge difference in the work of the police. This is true everywhere, of course, but particularly in Wales where communities are so close knit. The National Assembly, with the support of all parties, has led the way towards getting this approach accepted. There is now a happy and successful working relationship which is making real inroads into reducing crime. So, if it ain’t broke, why mend it?

The amendments do not do either of two things: they do not transfer responsibility for policing from the Home Office to the Assembly, although chief constables in Wales have pressed for that to happen; and they do not provide for Wales to be totally and permanently excluded from the provisions of the Bill with regard to the establishment of police and crime panels. The amendments facilitate this to be developed organically in Wales, building on what has been achieved by the National Assembly in partnership with the police forces, and to harness the huge community resource we have in Wales in a partnership between not only the National Assembly and the police forces but with local government.

I urge the Government to think again on this matter; to accept that authoritarian centralism is not always the best approach; and to harness rather than throttle the diversity that we have in these islands.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, we are indebted to the noble Lords, Lord Elystan-Morgan and Lord Wigley, for bringing this back to our attention. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, asked the Government for some sensitivity. The problem is that the Government have not shown sensitivity when it comes to the way they have dealt with the Welsh perspective.

As noble Lords will know, the Welsh Government made it clear that they did not agree with a proposal for directly elected commissioners. However, they were quite prepared to discuss with the Government a compromise which would have consisted of police authorities remaining—and the noble Lords, Lord Elystan-Morgan and Lord Wigley, gave very convincing arguments as to why they should remain in Wales—but the elected commissioner in Wales would act as chair of those police authorities. For the life of me, I do not understand why the Government were not prepared to accept that very decent offer from the Welsh Assembly. Instead, we have to look at Part 3 of Schedule 6 which gives the Secretary of State the ability to ensure that police and crime panels are established in each police area in Wales, despite the fact that the Welsh Assembly Government do not want those panels established. The only argument that I could recall from our discussion in Committee stage was that this might have a big impact on cross-border crime.

With the greatest respect, I really do not understand the need for Wales and England to have police and crime panels in order to deal with either cross-border crime or cross-border co-operation. One is not aware of the traumas of the relationship between England and Scotland where there are not the police and crime panels north of the border. Indeed, one can look at other aspects of the devolution settlement, like the health service, where one sees different policies developed in different parts of the UK but none the less we still have one National Health Service.

I am delighted that the noble Lords have brought this to our attention. Even now, at this late hour, one hopes that the Minister will show some sensitivity. If not, I hope that the noble Lords will consider other opportunities to bring this to our attention.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I urge the Minister to take account of the issues that have been raised by other noble Lords. The Minister will recall that I raised these issues at Second Reading and that my noble friend Lady Hamwee put forward amendments in Committee that sought to deal with this issue. I am concerned that there is still a problem, but the amendments put forward by noble Lords this evening have the possibility of providing some sort of solution. They could, in principle, offer a practical way out of a currently considerable and undesirable impasse.

The UK Government have recognised that they needed the consent of the Welsh Assembly to legislate for police and crime panels. That is why a legislative consent Motion was put to the Welsh Assembly. It is obviously the case that the issues are intermixed and intertwined, and noble Lords have explained how that occurs. But it is worth dwelling on this issue because it is the devolved policy areas which are so closely interlinked that make it impossible for the police in Wales to operate entirely separately from, for example, the highways department, youth services, or the substance misuse strategy, all of which are under the control of the Assembly—there are very many more I could cite.

Something that has not been mentioned is the fact that only 40 per cent of the money that goes to the police comes from the Home Office. Policing may not be devolved but only 40 per cent of its funding comes from the Home Office. Some 25 per cent comes via the Assembly and a third from the police precept from local taxpayers. The Government have recognised the need for there to be a solution to this. I am sorry that there has been no way out of the impasse so far. The Assembly of course refused legislative consent and the Government have sought to circumvent the problem therefore created by making the Home Secretary responsible for bringing together locally elected representatives. The fact is that the Home Office does not have the infrastructure in Wales to support that. There are considerable practicable problems about how that will actually work in practice.

I make it absolutely clear that I am also critical in particular of the Welsh Assembly Government. There is something rather foolish in the Minister concerned negotiating a solution, putting it to the Welsh Assembly and then abstaining on his own solution—which he had agreed with Ministers in Westminster. There are obviously considerable problems there.

I am also disappointed in the Welsh Assembly Government for their lack of vigour in trying to overcome these problems. I am grateful to the Minister for the information that she has supplied to me and I know that there have been meetings between her officials and those of the Welsh Assembly Government. There have not been meetings at a ministerial level. If I were the Minister in Wales, I would seek to solve this problem with a little bit more vigour. My purpose in speaking tonight is to make clear that we still have a constitutional stand-off. It is a very unfortunate situation. It is clear that negotiations have failed to resolve the issue but it is disappointing that the Welsh Assembly Government have not entered into more positive and effective negotiation. Unfortunately, as the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan said, the amendments as put forward do not really solve the problem.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I am interested in that last comment but it strikes me that retaining police authorities with an elected commissioner as chairman was a pretty good offer to start discussions. I would be interested in the comments of the noble Baroness on that.

[Baroness Randerson]

The original plan—the legislative consent Motion—that was put to the Assembly was on the basis of the Assembly Government appointing representatives to that panel. That was the offer that the Assembly rejected. The other proposal that the noble Lord mentioned earlier was not put formally. For the purposes of our discussion here this evening, that cannot be regarded as a formal offer. It is a great pity that that offer has not gone further but it was never put to the Assembly.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

It is just that I have a briefing here, which the noble Baroness probably has herself, which says,

“in a statement to the Assembly on 12th October, the Welsh Minister for Social Justice and Local Government … offered a compromise: ‘I have told the Home Secretary that we believe a compromise whereby, in Wales, police authorities remain, but with the elected commissioner as chair, would offer the democratic accountability that the Home Office is seeking, while maintaining the important strengths of the current system’”.

[Baroness Randerson]

That was a statement made to the Assembly, but it was not the legislative consent Motion that the Assembly was asked to vote on. The Minister will, I am sure, correct me if I am wrong, but my recollection is that that the Assembly was asked to vote on the issue of the appointment of representatives appointed by Welsh Ministers to serve on the new bodies.

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[Lord De Mauley]

I wonder if I could consult with the usual channels—

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

With the greatest respect, there is no agreement except to go to 11 pm so I would have thought the noble Lord could go home.

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[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, my recollection of the transition/shadow period for the Greater London Authority was that it was very short and clearly not long enough, but that is not the point I will make tonight.

I sometimes think that, faced with a difficult decision, it is wise to ask oneself, “How will I feel, looking back in six months or a year, if I did or did not do something?”. In this situation, if the Government postpone the changes in London, they will be able to look back a year and a half from now and say, “Phew, that went okay. What damage did we do by not making the changes? Well, none really. What damage have we suffered? Maybe a little to our egos, but does that matter?”. How much better to be in that situation if there has been a problem, which may or may not be related to the changes in governance, than to be told by the noble Lord opposite or my noble friend behind me, “Well, we did warn you”, and for the world to say, “You were warned”.

I do not see a problem if the Government make what is hardly even a concession but more a slight shift in thinking. The balance is between very little on the one hand, and possibly nothing but possibly something catastrophic on the other.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness and my noble friend for raising this matter. The Government’s approach to the Bill is on a par with their approach to other pieces of legislation. We have already seen the debacle of the Public Bodies Bill, and the Government are replicating the approach with the Health Bill. I declare an interest as chair of a foundation trust and as a trainer consultant in the NHS. The NHS is facing the biggest challenge that it has ever faced in reducing its spending and in its efficiency programme. At the same time, the Government are drawing up all the structural bodies that are in place and forcing the health service to devote a huge amount of time to structural issues when it should be focusing on how on earth it will cope with the largest reductions in real-terms funding that it has ever faced.

It seems that the same thing is happening to our police forces. The Government have drawn all the wrong conclusions from the first Blair Administration. They feel that they need to speed on, but destruction is inevitable because of the speed with which they are moving. I can only conclude that it is because no senior Minister in the Government has any experience whatever of running anything. If they had, they would not rush in the way the Government are rushing, with no understanding of the impact on essential public services.

When one considers the challenges facing the Metropolitan Police—I shall not go through the list again but they include: the Olympics; the continuing threat of terrorism; the mayoral elections; the budget reductions; staff issues, to which my noble friend referred, including pensions; and the phone hacking issue—it is obvious that over the next months and years there will be intense scrutiny on the force and its senior officers. There are to be two inquiries into the phone hacking issue, one of which is bound to look in close detail at the actions of the Metropolitan Police. The last thing the force needs during the next two to three years is to cope with a structural change in governance. The noble Baroness’s amendment is eminently sensible, and I hope that even at this late stage the Government will give it sympathetic consideration.

[Baroness Browning]

My Lords, I reiterate what I have said in previous discussions on this subject to my noble friend Lady Doocey: the commissioner has personally asked the Home Secretary to go as early as possible with London. That is a fact. The commissioner, deputy commissioner, the mayor and deputy mayor are very keen for the London provisions to be commenced as soon as possible.

My noble friend mentioned a letter. That letter outlines issues that the commissioner has flagged up for the Government to look at so that London can go early. The issues in the letter are being looked at and many of them have already been agreed in earlier amendments in the House. We debated earlier today the government amendments to the transitional provisions in the Bill to ensure that the PCCs and the MOPC can operate effectively from the outset and that there is no need for a period of shadow operation. The changes to policing governance do not affect operational control and so will not impact on operational issues.

We are going round this circuit for about the third time. My noble friend may totally disagree with me but I have checked and double checked—as has my right honourable friend the Minister of State in another place—to make sure that our understanding of both the commissioner’s and the mayor’s view on this subject are as we have described them in this House. I can but repeat what I have already said to my noble friend in the House: they are keen to commence as soon as possible and they have in no way sought to delay London.

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[Baroness Henig]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 231 and Amendment 234 in this group. I hope your Lordships will have noted the balanced symmetry of my amendments, one with the Minister for the Government and the other with my noble friend Lord Hunt, leading for the loyal Opposition, so I have one with each person in this group.

Amendment 231, which I have tabled with the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, and my noble friend Lord Hunt, suggests that no serving police officer or a person who has served as a police officer in the past 10 years may stand as a commissioner. Amendment 234, tabled, I am delighted to say, with the support of the Government, will ensure that noble Members of this House may be elected as commissioners and continue to fulfil their duties within the House. It removes Clause 74 which would have barred your Lordships from being both a commissioner and an active Peer, a proposal which, as I recall, caused considerable disquiet in Committee. I am very happy that this amendment provides the Government with a way out of what I am absolutely certain would have been a defeat on this proposal and spares the Benches opposite from any further blushes on this Bill. I look forward to the possibility of noble colleagues—not myself, I hasten to add—who may consider putting themselves forward to be commissioners. If they do that I will look forward to hearing about their experiences on their probably infrequent visits back to this House. That option should be open. Under this amendment it will be open. I am grateful to the Minister for agreeing to that amendment.

On serving police officers—or people who have served as a police officer in the last 10 years—then serving as a commissioner, that proposal is not intended as a slight on the noble profession of police officers in England and Wales. There may well be individual police officers whose skill sets would enable them to be very effective commissioners. The valued contributions in your Lordships’ House of noble Lords who have previously served as chief commissioners are testament to that. Yet here, we are 827 noble Lords. The expert contributions of the noble Lords, Lord Blair, Lord Condon, Lord Dear and Lord Stevens, and others are a valuable addition to debates on policing, alongside the views of a whole host of others—civil libertarians, local government experts and those with other viewpoints from outside the policing profession. Peers with a policing background bring a valuable perspective but they are not the sole arbiter of policing policy. I dare say that they would not wish to be.

The fact is that these commissioners will be a novelty introduction to British politics—a sole, directly elected arbiter of policy in one particular area, effectively unconstrained by his or her peers, or by Cabinet or other collegiate responsibility and elections every four years. It is incumbent on us to ensure that such a single individual can carry as much public trust and confidence as possible. He or she must be seen to be impartial in holding the police to account. Perhaps controversially, I am not convinced that under this system, reliant on a single individual, one person who is associated exclusively with the police service could carry the perception of impartiality from the police force that is necessary if every section of the community is to trust that their police force is being held rigorously to account.

We have an established principle in our public life whereby there are safeguards against what the public could reasonably perceive as potential conflicts of interest, or undue or improper influence, as individuals with relevant experience move between related fields. For instance, the Ministerial Code of May 2010 makes it clear that no former Minister may take up an appointment with a lobbying company for at least two years after leaving office. I am not suggesting that the parallels with policing are exact but the public has an expectation that, if an individual has been on one side of the fence and decides to swap over, there should be an appropriate break between the two to mitigate against the perception of conflicts of interest.

The noble Baroness, my noble friend and I are not wedded to 10 years but believe that there should be some separation between people serving as police officers and then standing as commissioners. Maybe 10 years is not considered appropriate but there should certainly be some period of time. That period would also enable any police officers who would be commissioner candidates to broaden their experience of fields beyond policing, perhaps trying business or community-based endeavours, not to mention developing the contacts and support that they would undoubtedly need in order to be elected.

One or two other matters are worth mentioning briefly. One that bothers me is that, without the safeguards offered by the amendment, it is possible that a disaffected police officer could choose to stand as a commissioner so that he or she might laud it over his or her chief constable or force. I hate to mention that but I have come across individuals who have had those motives. One cannot rule that out completely. It may sound fanciful but it is a real risk and one that we should take the opportunity to remove now.

Given the hour, I am trying to be as brief as possible. I encourage the House to look at this carefully. The amendment in relation to police officers would be a step towards preserving and not diminishing the recent substantial gains that the police and authorities have together made in raising public trust and confidence in the police and the impartiality of those who hold them to account.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I welcome the two government amendments, which we are glad to support. On Amendment 218, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has done a great service by bringing this issue to your Lordships’ attention.

I am assuming that the noble Baroness will be able to say that the order-making power in the Bill is sufficient, but if not, it would be helpful if she acknowledged that. She will be equally helpful in relation to my own Amendment 231; alas, perhaps I am wildly optimistic on that.

I agree with the worries expressed by my noble friend Lady Henig about whether it is right and appropriate for former police officers to stand for election as police and crime commissioners. There are two areas we might discuss. First is the question raised by my noble friend about disaffected police officers. There are known to be disaffected police officers; they do surface from time to time. I worry about such a person being elected as a police and crime commissioner and the approach that they would then take to the chief constable and the force over which they had such influence. I also worry about any police officer elected as a police and crime commissioner.

Noble Lords will know that one of my major concerns about the legislation is that, in effect, the police and crime commissioner will act as the chief constable. We have still to hear about the Memorandum of Understanding—I assume we will come back to that on Third Reading—but even with a statutory Memorandum of Understanding, in the end all the levers are with the police and crime commissioner. I believe that it is almost inevitable that that person will seek to unduly influence the way in which the chief constable operates. It would be even worse if the police and crime commissioner is a former police officer. The temptation, the itch, to intervene in the details of that force would, I believe, be overwhelming. I know that it is unusual, when it comes to elections, for us to say there is a category of people who ought not to be able to stand, but in the case of police and crime commissioners, who are corporations sole, we have a huge responsibility. I wonder whether it would be appropriate for a former police officer to stand.

[Baroness Browning]

My Lords, the House will be aware that, as originally drafted, the Bill provided that a PCC could only serve two terms and would not be able to stand in a third election. I know that many noble Lords were concerned that for a PCC in his or her second term, being unable to stand again would effectively mean not being accountable to the public. The Government listened carefully to these concerns and looked at other elected posts in the UK, none of which has term limits. We have concluded that there is no need for PCCs to have term limits. It should be a decision for the public as to whether they want their PCC to serve a third term, rather than for the Government to dictate centrally that they cannot.

Noble Lords will also be aware that, as originally drafted, the Bill provided that Members would not be able to sit or vote in this House during the period they served as a PCC. Our thinking was that being a PCC was a full-time job and therefore was incompatible with active membership of this House. In Committee many noble Lords expressed concern about this and, indeed, set out to the House the many important and time-consuming roles they fulfil while being active in this House. I was extremely influenced by that and on reflection the Government agree. Membership of this House—like being a councillor, for example—very often goes hand in hand with full-time employment elsewhere and there is no reason why someone could not fulfil both roles. It is for that reason that we have tabled amendments to put that on the statute book and I am grateful for the support of the House.

On Amendment 231, which would prevent police officers from standing as a PCC within 10 years of leaving their force, noble Lords will probably know that the Home Affairs Select Committee suggested a cooling-off period for senior officers of four years and the Government committed to considering that.

As I set out in Committee, the Government feel that senior officers can bring much to the role of a PCC. Their experience of policing and the relationships necessary to make the role of PCC work would be invaluable. The Government are generally of the view that, apart from in extreme circumstances, it should be the public who decide whether or not a person should be a PCC. I cannot agree with the noble Lord’s case or his amendment. We believe that the public should be able to see the potential tensions of a former chief officer taking on this role if it was very shortly after they had left their post, and it is for the public to decide whether or not they want that person to represent them.

My noble friend Lady Hamwee spoke to Amendment 218 to Clause 59, which would allow the Secretary of State by order to make provisions about the regulation of spending by campaigners who were not themselves standing in an election to be a police and crime commissioner but who intended to influence the outcome of the election. I am grateful to her for tabling the amendment; this is an important principle, and the Government must ensure that it is given proper consideration. I will commit to coming back to the House at Third Reading to set out how we will deal with this important issue. For now, I ask my noble friend to withdraw her amendment.

I will move the government amendments standing in my name and invite noble Lords to withdraw theirs.