Policing and Crime Bill

Debate between Lord Paddick and Lord Condon

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard - part one): House of Lords
Wednesday 26th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Condon]

Before the Minister finally sits down, I ask her to acknowledge and perhaps clarify this point. We are considering this very important crossover point from special constables being given these powers to volunteers having them in the context of what the Bill is also doing. It is enhancing the role of police and crime commissioners by giving them the ability to consider taking on the responsibility for fire and rescue services, and giving them the power to appoint the fire chief as the overall chief officer for policing and for fire. The Bill will create a model whereby, for example, a relatively young 32 year-old police and crime commissioner in an area can choose to appoint the fire chief as the overall chief officer of policing and fire in that area—admittedly, with the approval of the Secretary of State—and in that context a young, relatively inexperienced PCC with a chief officer who may not have a police background could take decisions on what volunteers could and could not do. The notion of them being given potentially lethal force is quite a big issue. I look forward to the Minister, as I am sure she will, giving us some reassurance about the notion of volunteers being able to have pepper sprays that in theory can kill people.

[Lord Paddick]

I do not want to prolong the agony, but another aspect of this is that members of the public should be reasonably sure about what level of force they are going to encounter from whom. As I say, special constables now are virtually indistinguishable from regular police officers; if a special constable decides to use a defensive spray, that will not come as a shock to the member of the public. In terms of the way that the member of the public interacts with a police officer or special constable, they may or may not use force against that individual on the basis of what they anticipate the reaction of that person to be, or the ability of the person to respond to it. When it comes to a volunteer police community support officer, who does all the wonderful things that the Minister said earlier, I think it is going to be a bit of a shock, and an unreasonable one, to expect such a volunteer to respond with an incapacitant spray.