Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

I endorse the opening remarks of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) in as much as I pay tribute to the police for the way they handled the recent riots and the like. Where I differ from him is that I would argue that recent circumstances have strengthened the argument in favour of elected police commissioners.

Two of the most widely used words in Government and public administration are “transparency” and “accountability”, and rightly so, yet the idea of proper meaningful oversight by a democratically accountable individual is being rejected or, it is argued, should be watered down in such a way that it would do little more than maintain the status quo. The question has been asked, “Where is the demand for this from the general public?” Of course, that demand is inevitably somewhat limited. Those such as ourselves, local councillors and the like, who take a day-to-day interest in these matters, will argue the case one way or the other. The general public—most of them, anyway—come into contact with the police only on relatively infrequent occasions, and it is then, if something goes wrong, that they want to know who to turn to for assistance.

Police authorities are anonymous and deliver no real accountability. To give an example from my constituency of Cleethorpes, which is part of the Humberside force area, the two councils on my side of the Humber—North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire—have three representatives on the police authority, which has 17 members. On alternate years, they have only two representatives; it is a bizarre situation. People do not know who to turn to because the authority is completely and utterly anonymous.

In the same way that the profit motive energises the private sector, the democratic process and the electoral mandate that it generates energises and gives vitality to public bodies and authorities. Without it, they face a real danger of becoming inward-looking and, very likely, of not delivering the service expected of them by the public. I reject the argument that having elected commissioners brings politics into policing and destroys Sir Robert Peel’s vision, which has served us so well for many generations. As the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) said, there will need to be clear ground rules that establish the working relationship between the commissioner and the chief constable. I was pleased that the Minister addressed that and recognised that we must get exactly the right protocols in place.

Once these ground rules are in place, it is imperative that neither the commissioner nor the chief constable move away from them. Inevitably, the commissioner will have to articulate the concerns of those whom he or she represents and ensure that the policies put forward at the time of their election are implemented. He or she must not publicly undermine the authority of the police chief; nor must the chief constable or his officers undermine or publicly criticise the commissioner.

I said that recent events—the riots and the like—have strengthened the argument for commissioners. The exchange of arguments between highly placed officers who made some very unacceptable and unwarranted remarks was unseemly and undermined the authority of Ministers—or the police, depending on which side of the argument one was on. These attempts to undermine political authority go further than the outspoken comments during the recent riots: such political interventions by the police can trickle down even to parish level. I am sure that many Members will have experienced in their past days as councillors, and so on, the arguments that are constantly put forward to councils—parish councils and the like—that the problem is all due to budget cuts made here or there. In effect, that undermines the elected authority that oversees the police, despite the fact that it is, as I said, somewhat anonymous.

There are alternatives. We could muddle along with the existing system of anonymous authorities manned by sincere, hard-working individuals. However, that system does not meet the needs of a modern democracy, which, if it means anything, must give our constituents a choice between competing candidates and their views on how we should be policed. There have been arguments in favour of elected police authority chairs. Many years ago, I was an advocate of that, but the more one looks at it, the more difficult one can see that it would be. What if the unelected appointed individuals on the police authority disagreed with the elected chairman? Who would win out in that situation? There is a parallel with planning inspectors overruling planning committees; we all know the arguments that that can give rise to. Because of the artificial geography of police force areas such as mine—Humberside—we are not quite moving towards localism, but getting there.

This is not the end of British policing as we know it but a major step towards introducing a system that can deliver the transparency and accountability that I am sure the whole House would approve of.

[Paul Murphy (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I am grateful to be able to speak to the amendment in my name and the names of my hon. Friends. The amendment is specifically about how the Bill affects Wales. In particular, it is about the relationship between the National Assembly for Wales, the Welsh Government and the British Government, and about the decision to hold the election for police commissioners in November.

When we last debated this, we talked about the so-called respect agenda, which respects the views, positions, functions and responsibilities of the devolved Administrations, Assemblies and Parliaments in the United Kingdom. The Minister touched on this in his speech when he rightly pointed out that the business of policing is not devolved—that it is still a reserved matter. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), who is sitting in front of me, agreed, when he was Home Secretary, that there should not be devolution of policing as we know it to the Welsh Assembly. However, 10 years of devolution have passed, and we now have a shared responsibility for matters that touch on police, crime and justice. Although the National Assembly for Wales does not have a specific responsibility for policing, the Minister knows that half the money that goes to police forces in Wales comes from the National Assembly, because local government in Wales is devolved. In addition, the Assembly and the Welsh Assembly Government have functions and duties that are central to the operation of policing. The relationship between the Home Office, the Welsh Assembly Government and the National Assembly is therefore crucial. I fear that by continuing to push the Bill through both Houses, the Government will damage the relationship between Cardiff and London.

The Minister and the House will recall that, uniquely, the Welsh Assembly refused to give legislative consent to part 1 of the Bill. That is unprecedented. Similarly, because of the special relationship that the Welsh Assembly has to policing, the Culture and Communities Committee of the Assembly asked the Government to delay the implementation of police commissioners in Wales until it saw how the measure worked in England and could understand how it would affect Wales. That request was ignored.

Worse, the Government are now insisting on a November election in Wales without consulting the Welsh Assembly Government or the National Assembly. We have more elections in Wales, as we have had over the past year. We have had the referendum on extra powers, we have elections for the National Assembly and there are local government elections next year.

The Minister knows that the cost of the election for the whole of the United Kingdom, which was a matter of debate some hours ago, will be at least £25 million more than was expected. He says that that money would not necessarily have been spent on policing, but it could have been. He dismisses the additional £25 million on top of the £50 million that was already to be spent. One should compare that with what was said by the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), who told the House not so very long ago—this is rather pertinent because of today’s and tomorrow’s news—that reducing the number of Members of this House of Commons by 50 will save £12 million. By changing the day of one election, that amount has been doubled overnight—so much for those predictions about money being saved.

Who on earth wants elections in November? All of us who have been involved in elections for too long to remember know that elections in November have disastrous turnouts. Add together the dark evenings and an electoral register still under discussion, and I would place a bet here in the House of Commons that the turnout for the elections for police commissioners will be rock bottom. Heaven only knows who might be elected on a low turnout.

The Minister and others talk about operational accountability. Of course Prime Ministers, Secretaries of State and Ministers do not tell the police what to do. When I was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and held responsibility for policing, I never told the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland what to do, although we would discuss it. However, can it be imagined that those who want to be elected on a very local level as police commissioner will not campaign on what are effectively operational issues? Add to that that the nuttiest people are likely to be elected if the turnout is low. That is a dangerous development that we face.

Our constituents simply will not understand how we can spend £25 million on changing the day of the election for police commissioners, £50 million on the elections themselves, and millions of pounds on administering the position of police commissioners, when over the next two years in Wales at least 800 police officers will get the sack.

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will help me by spelling out the effect of his amendment. Would the Welsh Assembly not need to hold elections for police commissioners or would it still have a duty to select a date for the elections?

[Paul Murphy]

The effect of the amendment would be to ask the Government to talk to the Assembly and the Welsh Assembly Government, so that between them they could work out an appropriate date for an election.

The hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) said that he had been converted to the Bill over the past couple of weeks. He is almost on his own in Wales, because the majority of Welsh Members of Parliament, the majority of Assembly Members, the majority of the non-Labour members of the Welsh Local Government Association, every single police authority in Wales and virtually every police officer I have talked to thinks that this is a bad idea.

In a devolved system in which the Government share responsibility for policing, the Government should immediately hold discussions with the Welsh Assembly Government and the National Assembly for Wales to talk about the principle of the election and the efficacy of the policy. To put it through in the way they are doing is the complete reverse of a respect agenda. Simply saying, “It is our responsibility in the British Parliament and only the British Government can do this,” completely goes against the spirit of proper negotiation and discussion that was a part of our United Kingdom. That goes to the heart of what this Government are often about: they say one thing and do another.

On this Bill, I join all my right hon. and hon. Friends in asking the Government to think again. In particular, on behalf of those of us from Wales who are concerned about this matter—many of my right hon. and hon. Friends have signed the amendment—I ask the Government to have an immediate discussion so that at least the people of Wales are heard and this preposterous and daft measure can be deferred.

[Mr Burley]

You will be pleased to note, Madam Deputy Speaker, that this time I remembered to stand up to be called—16 months in and we are still learning how this place works.

I rise to support the Government motions. I start by adding my congratulations to those of the Home Secretary and the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee to Mr Bernard Hogan-Howe on being named the new Metropolitan Police Commissioner. It is the toughest job in British policing. Following the riots, I am sure that everyone in this House would wish him well in his new job.

I will briefly restate the case for the reform of police authorities and explain why it is important, before addressing some of the challenges that have been posed by Opposition Members. The first thing to remember is the simple fact that the police are a monopoly service. The public cannot choose their force. Therefore, officers must be accountable for their actions and their performance. As this Government release the grip of Whitehall by scrapping centrally imposed targets and performance measures such as the policing pledge, the stop-and-account form and some of the uses of stop and search, we need to put in place other means to ensure that police forces deliver. What we are doing with police and crime commissioners is swapping bureaucratic control of the police for democratic accountability. In my view, we are putting in place far greater, far harsher and more publicly visible accountability—the accountability of the ballot box. Anybody who does not believe me should ask any sitting MP.

The second thing we must remember is that most crime is local. It is therefore far better that forces answer to local communities than to box-ticking officials in Whitehall. If local accountability is to substitute for the centralised performance regime of the past, it needs to be strong and democratic local accountability.

The problem, therefore, is extremely simple: police authorities are not strong enough to exercise that alternative governance, and they are not sufficiently connected to the public whom they are supposed to serve. Consider this: only four of 22 inspected police authorities have been assessed as performing well in their most critical functions by HMIC and the Audit Commission; only 8% of wards in England and Wales are represented on a police authority; and according to a Cabinet Office survey conducted just a couple of years ago, only 7% of the public understand that they can approach their police authority if they are dissatisfied with policing in their area.

Virtually no one in that survey knew who their police authority chairman was. In fact, I would be interested to know how many hon. Members can intervene and tell me who their police authority chairman is.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Burley]

Only two Members of the House could intervene and tell me who chairs their police authority, which tells us everything we need to know about their visibility. That is from MPs, not the public—we are supposed to know.

These invisible police authorities are supposed to serve the public. That is the same public who have no idea who they are, no idea what they do, no idea how to contact them, and certainly no idea that they cost them £50 million a year.

[Paul Murphy]

The Government prayed in aid an opinion poll that said that 7% of the people of England did not know anything about their police authorities or what they did. The hon. Gentleman might not be aware, however, that a recent survey in Wales showed that 82% of people did know about their police authority and believed that it did a good job.

[Mr Burley]

I understand that the survey to which the right hon. Gentleman refers was commissioned by the police authority. It might be that it posed the question to get the answer it wished to get.

A more recent survey has found that a typical police authority receives just two letters per week from the public. Let us compare that with what the de facto police and crime commissioner for London, Kit Malthouse, told the Home Affairs Committee in December last year. He said that when he was first given the title of deputy mayor with responsibility for policing,

“the postbag at City Hall on community safety went from 20 or 30 letters a week up to 200 or 300…We had a problem coping with it. That indicated to me there was a thirst for some sense of responsibility and accountability in the political firmament for the police”.

He said that having one person

“allows there to be a kind of funnel for public concern”.

However, the absence of a direct line of public influence is problematic not only for the public, but for police forces. Back in the 19th century, the founder of modern policing, Sir Robert Peel, said:

“The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon the public approval of police actions.”

After a decade in which public approval of the police fell, it has now started to rise again. That is a welcome trend, but still only 56% of the public say that the police do a good or excellent job, and a survey by Consumer Research last year found that nearly a third of those who come into contact with the police—I do not mean criminals —were dissatisfied. Of the minority who complained, nearly two thirds were unhappy with the way the police dealt with their complaint. The police were among the worst performers of the public services.