Police and Crime Commissioner Elections (Welsh Forms) Order 2021

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD) [V]]

My Lords, first, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hannan of Kingsclere, on his maiden speech. We very much look forward to his future contributions to the work of this House. I want to pick out one thing from his speech. He said that we need to give more meaning to the importance of casting a vote; I agree entirely with him on that.

I remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I have nothing to add to the points made by earlier speakers this afternoon on the Police and Crime Commissioner Elections (Welsh Forms) Order. However, I do wish to address the order being debated alongside it—the Mayoral and Police and Crime Commissioner Elections (Coronavirus, Nomination of Candidates) (Amendment) Order—which is clearly sensible given the coronavirus pandemic and given similar decisions already made for other elections in May.

I want to put this order in context. When we discussed the West Yorkshire Combined Authority order in January, I referred to two matters, both of which remain highly relevant. One was the importance of scrutiny and the need to review how the new mayoral combined authorities have worked—that is, an assessment of how each is performing and what we can learn from their achievements or failures. When mayoral combined authorities were first introduced, their bespoke nature was understandable because it meant that different areas could take on powers and responsibilities that suited their local circumstances. From the perspective of the Government, it meant that further approaches to spreading power in England could be tested. That approach has proved valuable, but we need to review how more power and responsibility might be devolved from Whitehall and Westminster, and not just to those existing combined authorities. That could take place in the context of the promise by the Government of a White Paper on English devolution, which was due last year.

The Minister may also recall that, at the last election, the Conservative Party manifesto contained a commitment to a constitution, democracy and rights commission. I understand the reasons why these have not happened yet, given the pandemic, but perhaps the Minister might tell us what the Government’s plans are now.

The elections for police and crime commissioners, to which this order also applies, are the third set of elections since the introduction of the role and, as the Minister knows, there has been a consultation on police and crime commissioner powers recently. No doubt a number of proposals will arise from that in due course, but assessing the role of police and crime commissioners should not be done in isolation.

There are several issues of principle to consider. Should elected mayors have responsibility for policing or is that model too centralised? How should elected mayors and police and crime commissioners be held to account? London has an elected Assembly, but other parts of England do not. Is the police and crime commissioner model sufficiently resilient, and do police and crime panels succeed in holding police and crime commissioners to account? Do funding streams, divided between local government, mayors and police and crime commissioners, work as smoothly as they should? To what extent should governance of fire and rescue lie with police and crime commissioners?

There are many similar questions. In the past decade, we have seen a patchwork of new structures created. We have learned a lot from the many common approaches and the piloting of different approaches, but the time has come to try to review what has been achieved and what more should be done. This takes me back to the government plans for devolution in England and a constitutional commission. There would now be a benefit from the Government moving ahead with their White Paper on English devolution and saying more about their proposed commission.