Police Commissioners

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, the Government certainly accept their responsibilities. The right honourable Member in the other place, Nick Hurd, visited every police force in England in the run-up to this. The NPCC and the APCC called for £440 million of extra funding in 2018-19, with additional CT funding on top. They called for an extra 5,000 front-line officers for proactive policing by 2020. If all forces delivered the level of productivity benefits of mobile working of the best forces, the average officer could spend an hour a day extra on the front line. That has a potential to create the equivalent of 11,000 extra officers across England and Wales. In addition, the police have reserves of £1.6 billion to invest.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that it would be wholly inappropriate for the discredited former chief constable of Wiltshire Police to be given another highly paid job within the police force?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I think that my noble friend answered his own question. What I will say is that, under the Policing and Crime Act of last year, retiring or moving on to another force—I am not referring specifically to the chief constable—does not absolve a police officer from being answerable.