Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, we have had a long and very useful debate on the Bill. It has identified a large number of issues which we will need to consider further in Committee. In view of the time, I am going to restrict my comments to the role of the proposed elected police commissioner and to Part 1. Despite the several hours that we have spent in this debate, it still is not clear to me what exactly the problem is that the Government are trying to solve.

The polls show that the public have little interest in changes to police governance and for them, scrutiny and accountability take place at their neighbourhood level. To them, that is local, and in the main it works very well now because of all of the initiatives that have taken place in recent years. As that structure, particularly around partnership working, will continue as now, it would help the Government’s case if they produced evidence of the measurable benefits they seek to deliver. Elections can enhance democracy and accountability and, in theory, commissioners backed by the power of a ballot would enhance the accountability of the police. But it is not as simple as that. Today, we have heard a great deal of the dangers in some of the proposals within the Bill. First, policing could become politicised because many candidates would be nominated by political parties, but only one of them can win. There would therefore be a direct party-political connection with the post of commissioner, which does not occur in the same direct way with the role of the chair of a police authority, who operates much more by consensus.

Secondly, there is a danger that one person cannot represent a population averaging perhaps a million people, which will often be very diverse. That will lead in practice, because of the abolition of the police authority, to a democratic deficit, not to an improvement in democratic accountability.

The issue about commissioners seeking to direct resources to gain votes has been raised in the Chamber today. There is a real risk that commissioners might seek to do that. There is also a risk that commissioners might champion visible issues to gain votes at the expense of those that are less visible but nevertheless very important to the general public. It has rightly been identified in today's debate that the cost of the new arrangements will be much greater than for the existing police authorities because commissioners will inevitably create their own support staffing structures. The Bill itself says that they must have a chief executive and a chief finance officer, but the staff will inevitably have their own substructures and before we know it costs will rocket.

The Bill says that the costs of commissioners must be contained within existing budgets, but there will be a minimum of 82 further new posts under commissioners. That is low because there would have to be an office, support staff, policy staff and press staff. There may even be a number of finance staff and, for example, a statistician. Every commissioner will have a number of staff and I see no evidence that to date the Government have identified the numbers of those and how much it will all cost.

Then there are the problems associated with the powers of the panels proposed. It seems strange that a single commissioner will be responsible for holding the police to account on behalf of perhaps a million people, but a panel of 10 or more people will be set up to hold to account one commissioner. It seems even stranger that the panels, unlike our current police authorities, will not be able to scrutinise the police. That is a major democratic deficit. The panels, if we have them, must be bigger—at least 15 members to cover the diverse needs of their areas. They will need additional powers to enable them to veto the police and crime plan. A two-thirds majority will be needed here to secure a veto, as with the precept. In addition, the panels must have some greater power over the detailed budget as opposed to just the precept because it is in the detail of the budget that the actual plan—for the distribution of police, for example—will occur.

Then there is the issue that we have heard a little about this afternoon of the dismissal of a chief constable. It seems clear from the Bill that the powers of the commissioner are simply too great and the panel will have to have much greater authority. Looking also at the temporary cover that is proposed where a commissioner is absent, surely a panel must be able to elect one of its members to provide temporary cover for the commissioner. It is odd that the Bill proposes that a member of staff of the commissioner's office—presumably appointed by the commissioner, who could be a junior member of staff—is able to take over the commissioner's role for several months not having been elected. That is not right. The proposal for a deputy commissioner who would be a member of the panel and elected by the panel would give greater legitimacy.

I have two brief points about elections. For a number of reasons, I am in favour of a pilot. First, we would see whether it works. However, elections in 2012, as proposed in this Bill, should not apply to those 12 cities having mayoral referendums. That is because we are going to have not just two democratic organisations in local authorities—councillors and commissioners—but, in 12 English cities, we will perhaps have elected mayors. Who would be in charge in that situation—the elected mayor or the elected police commissioner? The elected mayor will be on the panel. I do not think that will work terribly well or that there should be an elected commissioner in any police area where there is going to be possibly an elected mayor. In London, of course, the political boundaries for the London Assembly and those for the Metropolitan Police are coterminous; but in other cities that is not the case. That seems to be a major problem.

Secondly, I have a real concern about an election using the supplementary vote system, because it does not require the support of 50 per cent of the electorate. You could well end up with somebody with significantly under 50 per cent actually securing the post and then being seen to represent just one part of their geographical area.

In conclusion, I hope that in Committee we have some very detailed discussions on much of what we have debated today and also on what we have not. In the event, I believe that it is right that we should now be seeking to pilot this Bill and not simply to impose it from 2012, lock, stock and barrel.