Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 6th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I am grateful for that set of questions. I spent much of Friday with the local police team in Leeds talking about crime reduction and the very effective role of the crime reduction partnership in the region. I very much have in my mind the value of working together with different agencies in these areas. Incidentally, that answered, to my satisfaction, one of the questions that was raised in earlier Committee sessions, which is whether directly elected PCCs would want to push active policing into only the middle class, wealthy areas. The clear answer is that on the whole that is not where the burglars, who burgle the middle class areas, come from, so anyone who was that short-sighted would not be very effective as regards crime reduction. As one policeman put it to me, “After all, they have motorcars and it is quite easy to travel around the region”.

I very much appreciate the concerns about ensuring that scrutiny mechanisms are in place and that people in different agencies and those who work at different levels work together to control local and regional crime. This model is about accountability but not always about consultation. The role of police and crime panels is to review and to scrutinise decisions made or actions taken by the relevant police and crime commissioner or police and crime commission in relation to the exercise of that person’s functions. That duty certainly applies to the award of grants by the PCC. The Bill gives the panel the power to obtain information from the PCC and to summon the PCC and her staff to appear before it so that it can discharge its duties effectively. It then goes on to talk about the role of the chief financial officer and the statutory duties which the chief financial officer has to carry out, such as the right to insist that the local authority makes sufficient financial provision for the cost of internal audit.

We accept that there are large questions about how much detail should be on the face of the Bill and about whether particular actions should be required under statute or should be recommended in practice. Amendment 83ZZA, for example, requires the local policing body to appoint a member of the police and crime panel to sit on each crime reduction partnership or community safety partnership in their police area. The police and crime panel will represent every local authority in the police force area. There will be representation in one direction or another. We think that the amendment ties up the links further than is needed. I remind noble Lords that in the largest police force for these purposes, Thames Valley, there are 18 community safety partnerships. Working together will be something that the police and crime panel, as well as the police and crime commission, will have to do. However, we do not necessarily need to make sure that there is two-way traffic in terms of appointments: there will be representation between the different levels.

The Bill introduces provisions in Clause 89 and Schedule 11—I trust that all noble Lords have read Schedule 11—to ensure that local police bodies work effectively with their community safety partners. Schedule 11 sets out a framework in which commissioners will be enabled to develop strong relationships with their local community safety partners. It will be important for commissioners to establish such relationships to get the best out of their force-wide role.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, I am sorry that the Minister has slightly confused me—or rather, I have become confused, because I am sure that the Minister was clear. I did not understand his point about the necessity for two-way communication and representation, but not necessarily the involvement of people from both bodies. I cannot see how information could flow both ways if there were not people at both ends to ensure that.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I may be misinformed, but I cannot imagine a community safety partnership that does not have representatives from the local authority. Since each local authority will be represented on the police and crime panel, there will be representation. I will check and make sure that I am correctly informed.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, will it not be the same person?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

There is representation. The idea that local authorities should appoint people to the police and crime panel which would then appoint representatives back to the community safety partnerships on which local authorities are represented makes life more complicated than it needs to be. The important thing is, first, that there should be some form of representation, and, secondly, that the two should work together.

[Lord Beecham]

Is it not the case that what is sought in the amendment is that the police and crime panel should be represented on the community safety partnerships? That is the point of the amendment.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I recognise that police authorities traditionally have had this role. We are proposing a new model. Local authorities will be represented both on police and crime panels and, as they are now, on community safety partnerships, the importance of which we entirely recognise.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

I suspect that the Minister has been mesmerised by trying to work through how the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, would work in practice. I treat this as an entirely positive development from the government Front Bench. However, the core of Amendment 83ZZA is that an arrangement should be facilitated whereby the local policing body, whatever it ends up looking like, will be represented on crime and disorder reduction partnerships. With this legislation, the Government are removing from each local crime reduction partnership the presence of a representative of the body that holds the police service as a whole to account. That is the gap that has been created. The amendment is trying to fill it. If the Government think that it is a good idea to remove from the crime and disorder reduction partnership the body to which the police service as a whole is held accountable, perhaps they could explain succinctly why.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there is a question about whether police and crime panels, which are constituted from and representative of local authorities, should then appoint people back to local authorities. It is argued that the appointment of local authority representatives to the police and crime panels is part of what we need. I recognise that many amendments that we will discuss during the rest of the day are very much about the form of accountability that will be provided for both chief constables and police and crime commissioners between the four-year elections of police and crime commissioners, and therefore about the precise role of police and crime panels. The Government are very anxious to make sure that this is well thought through. Perhaps we all need to discuss between Committee and Report how much needs to be in the Bill.

The intention of Schedule 11 is to provide a framework—

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

I am sorry to interrupt the Minister in full flow. However, he has responded in terms of the position of the police and crime panel, whereas the amendment specifically says that a “local policing body” is to appoint, in this case, a member of the police and crime panel, because that is the model of governance that the Committee is currently working on. If the Government were to revert to something else, we would have a system whereby the local policing body would not have a status in individual local crime and disorder reduction partnerships. Is the Minister telling us that it is government policy that these magic new police and crime commissioners, if that is what we are to have, at the end of the day will not be represented on local crime and disorder reduction partnerships; and if so, why?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

It is very much the Government's proposal that police and crime commissioners should work in partnership with community safety partnerships. However, in places where—as, for example, in Thames Valley—there are 18 community safety partnerships, the idea of requiring the police and crime commissioner to be a member of each of those CSPs and to attend each meeting seems to us to be writing too much into the Bill.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, my recollection from when I was chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority is that we built relationships and appointed representatives to 32 crime and disorder reduction partnerships in Greater London—we did not have the pleasure of having representation on the City of London Police crime and disorder reduction partnerships, if such a thing there be. However, the point must be that if you want those relationships to exist and if you have settled on a process whereby there is a single police and crime commissioner, that person must be enabled to have someone—presumably a member of his or her staff if it is not going to be a member of the police and crime panel because the Government do not fancy having police and crime commissioners—and a mechanism to enable them to be directly represented. Those crime and disorder reduction partnerships are where local decisions are taken by the police, the local authority, the health service and the other responsible bodies on what has to be done in the local area. That is precisely the area where you would expect there to be collaboration and the police and crime commissioner, the local policing body, to be represented.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

We are well aware of the very central role of CSPs in managing the problems of crime reduction at local level, and naturally we expect and anticipate that PCCs will regard co-operation with CSPs as a central part of their role. However, we resist the proposal that they should—by statute, on the face of the Bill—be a member of each CSP. We will look at this again but it does not seem to us that, in asking and requiring them to work together, we need to put it on the face of the Bill.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

I hope that the Minister will take away and consider very carefully the points that have been raised. I consider this question from my experience as a Lancashire county councillor, serving on the council at the same time as not only my noble friend Lady Henig but as the Minister's noble friend Lord Greaves. Were there to be a perceived inequality of treatment and representation between his noble friend’s Pendle, my noble friend Lady Henig’s Lancaster or my own part of Preston, it would undermine exactly what the Government are trying to achieve. Perhaps the Minister will forgive me, but I think that the Government have looked at models around the world, not least at one in America. This problem would not arise in America because, in most parts of the country, with the exception of large conurbations—London, for example, would be a comparator—local communities have a local police commissioner who is elected. The Government, in trying to look at the appropriate model, must have regard to the fact that this structure is different—it is on a bigger scale. I hope that the Minister will think about what I have said and, if he does not believe me and the strength of my feelings, I suggest that he talks to his noble friend Lord Greaves.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government will certainly take this matter away and look at it in detail. I go to my neighbourhood police forum from time to time, on which the police are also represented, and I hope and assume that in areas of particular concern PCCs will find it very useful to attend by invitation neighbourhood police forums as well as community safety partnerships. These are the ways in which we hold the different levels of policing together. As the noble Baroness will know very well from her extensive experience, when we talk about crime reduction we are very often talking about a number of different levels which we all have to operate, and operate together.

When I was a graduate student in the United States, I experienced all the benefits and disadvantages of elected local—very local—police commissioners changing from time to time. The Bill does not propose a model of a local police commissioner for a local, very small borough, which would not suit our organisation of policing. We are attempting to provide a different model to work with the different levels at which local crime reduction and local community safety partnerships operate, which are, as noble Lords are aware, smaller than our current police force areas. That is the issue with which we are concerned.

[Baroness Henig]

Does the Minister accept that the problem here is that, as his comment suggests, the role of the police and crime panel is simply to review the actions of the police and crime commissioner? If that is the case, all the problems that we have identified will follow. Will the Minister look at this again? This is a completely inadequate role for the police and crime panels. They need to work with the police and crime commissioner and to have some responsibilities at local level. If that is acceptable, they could liaise with the panels, as we have been suggesting, and there would not be a problem. The problem is the Government’s hang-up that police and crime panels can only scrutinise the commissioner and do nothing else. That is the issue that would facilitate more sensible discussion.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I recognise that throughout the rest of today we will discuss the relationship between the PCP and the PCC, and the relationship that the police and crime panel has with all the other agencies. The Government are certainly prepared to look at that again to make sure that that we get this right, as it is very important. However, we also recognise that practice, as well as statutory requirements, will make a great deal of difference to how this new model works. We have to make sure that PCPs and PCCs work together.

On whether the police commissioner is required to have public meetings, the PCP and the police commissioner will have public meetings together. It will be perfectly acceptable—indeed, desirable—for the police and crime commissioner to invite the chief constable to accompany her to public meetings with the police and crime panel, and that that will become part of the pattern. Again, how far that should be on the face of the Bill is something we need to consider further, but we are happy to talk off the Floor between Committee and Report on the precise role which these will have.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

Should communication break down, that will become difficult. The Minister is perfectly proper in suggesting that the chief constable would normally be invited to such public meetings. Should things enter a difficult phase, which occasionally happens with the best laid plans, our concern would be that surely the public have a right to know that there is that expectation on the head of the service, rather than having to rely on an invitation being given.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the design of this Bill is that the accountable body that is directly elected will be the police and crime commissioner, and that the police and crime panel holds that police and crime commissioner to account. The operational autonomy of the chief constable is answerable both to the police and crime commissioner and, as a backstop, to the Home Secretary, as monitored by the Chief Inspector of Constabulary. However, the accountability of the police and crime commissioner is first to the police and crime panel, which is the key relationship designed in this Bill.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My thinking was to do with the presence of the chief police officer at particularly major public meetings. At the moment, they often attend full county council meetings and are highly visible. If the Minister will forgive my use of the slightly vernacular, there could be occasions when feelings are running high and even the commissioner could be asked the whereabouts of the organ grinder because the public do not want the monkey. I have been at these public meetings and this sort of thing happens only when feelings are running high. Feelings were phenomenally high during the run-up to capturing the Yorkshire Ripper. As for relying on just an invitation, in a way there is a missing link in the chain between the public and the chief constable or chief police officer as described by the Minister. The public will expect it to be at least as strong as it is now and probably more so.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Most of us who have dealt with chief constables will know that chief constables would be unlikely to be shrinking violets and absent from public meetings on such occasions. In the type of instances referred to by the noble Baroness, it is evident that the chief constable would be there to answer for his force alongside the police commissioner. However, it is the model of this Bill that, formally, accountability runs from the police and crime commissioner to the police and crime panel. We do not wish to muddle the line of accountability by establishing a direct link in which the chief constable on her own answers to the police and crime panel.

Many noble Lords have met chief constables far more regularly than I at public meetings and public consultations. In practice, when meeting CSPs and other bodies, chief constables naturally play their part in regular consultation: that is, consultation that answers to the public at large but is different from the relationship between the PCP and the PCC. We are, however, willing to take this away and to consider in detail whether there are ways in which the Bill can be tweaked to answer some of the issues that have been raised by those on the opposition Benches.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way and for the point he has just made. His explanation of how the Government envisage this working is as clear as it can be in the circumstances. He is telling the Committee that there is no requirement under this Bill for the visible answerability of chief officers of police. Visible answerability does not exist. It exists only if the chief constable, the chief officer of police, accepts an invitation to attend a panel. That is not going to be seen by the general public as being answerable in the same way as being called before representatives of the public to respond to questions is. That is the weakness of the Government’s proposals.

I understand the purity of the argument whereby a directly elected police and crime commissioner holds the police service to account, and that individual is then held to account by the police and crime panel. That is a wonderful concept, but it loses the visible answerability of the person with direction and control of the police force. That is what the public expect to see and what is missing from the Bill. If that is what the Government are proposing, that is fine; we understand it. However, I do not think it is in the interests either of properly accountable policing, or indeed of policing itself.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we will take this away. However, the principle of the Bill is that the chief constable is responsible to the police and crime commissioner. It does not exclude public consultations and public meetings, but that is the principle of the Bill. Of course chief constables meet a whole range of people on a regular basis, but democratic accountability in this form is from chief constable to police and crime commissioner, with the police and crime panel scrutinising the actions of the police and crime commissioner. That is the purpose and design of the Bill.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, in taking this point away, will the Minister please have regard to the public perception that if policing has become difficult in an area, the public wish to see the person who is the professional in charge of operational decisions being held to account in public and in their locality? I apologise for interrupting the Minister so often, but I am deeply committed to ensuring that, in whatever form the Bill is eventually enacted, people out there do not suddenly discover that there is less accountability, particularly if the Government do not intend that to happen.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am happy to give that assurance. We are all concerned to ensure that the operations of the police at all levels are visible and accountable. This is intended to make the mechanism of accountability rather more visible than it has been with police authorities. That is the purpose of the Bill. Having given that assurance, perhaps I may invite those who have moved and spoken to this group of amendments to withdraw them so that we may return to the issue on Report.

[Lord Soley]

My Lords, I have been trying to make sense of this exchange, and I think that my noble friend has been quite kindly in her interventions. I have to ask the Minister rather more directly whether it is the Government’s policy that the chief officer of police should not appear before the public in the way described in these interventions. Is that the intention or not? If it is not the intention, how will it happen?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

It is certainly not the Government’s intention that they should not appear in public. Incidentally, I am not aware that the precise current relationship between the police authorities and chief constables is written down in as much detail as some of the amendments might suggest. Some time ago I asked a chief constable how often he spoke to the chair of his police authority, and he replied that he did so on most working mornings. That is good practice, not a legal requirement. Chief constables speaking at public meetings, to community safety partnerships and so on again is regular, normal and desirable practice, and we hope and intend that it will continue to operate.

[Baroness Henig]

My Lords, I want to address the issue of crime figures being provided at divisional as well as force level. I am sure that this is completely uncontentious in that it is simply common sense that people would want those figures to be provided at both levels. However, the Minister has not mentioned it, so I wonder whether he could say a word about it.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I apologise. I did not get through all my notes; I was a little distracted at one or two points by former members of Lancashire County Council. It is our view that this requirement is already covered in Clause 12(1)(b), which requires PCCs to report the progress that has been made in meeting the objectives set out in the police and crime plan.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his response. I had not realised that this matter would be quite so complicated or contentious, because I said in moving the amendment that I thought that it was relatively straightforward. The amendment goes to the heart of something very important: the nature of scrutiny. The Minister said that scrutiny was of the commissioner by the panel, but that raises the question where the panel gets its information from, because panel members need to be involved at all levels. When the number of bodies involved in running or managing something is increased, the level of consultation, scrutiny and representation has to be improved, otherwise things will go wrong. Scrutiny cannot just be about what happened; it has to be scrutiny of what might happen and what people feel should happen. The only way of delivering that kind of scrutiny is through a more formalised mechanism for consultation. Therefore, to have members of panels who are members of a partnership body is central to enabling the scrutiny function to take place.

However, we have had an interesting debate. My noble friend the Minister has given a commitment that there will be further discussion prior to Report. I remind him that I raised a point about witnesses, which will no doubt be discussed as well. Given that we have had a detailed discussion of the issue and that those further discussions will take place, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, in looking at the response that the Minister is about to give, will forgive me for referring back to my experience for a short time on the government Front Bench. It was my experience that sometimes it was not the Secretary of State who wished to retain powers quite as much as it was the department—particularly the senior officials in the department—that wished to retain the powers. Perhaps I was slightly biased because my background was in education. I am sure that we can reassure him that both Ministers serving the House on this Bill will, when they have considered what has been said in this debate today, consider carefully whether it is the Secretary of State or the department officials who wish to retain the string.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I start by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, for that immensely helpful intervention; I think that we can all recognise where that came from. Perhaps I should also, with this and the next group in mind, congratulate a number of noble Lords, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, and my noble friend Lady Hamwee, on the immense care they have taken in going through the Bill in great detail. I have been thinking that I might have spent too much time on my allotments and should really have been looking more at the detail of Schedules 7, 8 and 11.

In this group of amendments we are discussing in detail the question of how far we should loosen central controls on the operations of the police and the forms of local accountability for the police. The coalition Government’s general approach is that, in the relationship between central and local government, we have wandered too far in the direction of allowing Secretaries of State or, in their name, departments to require a great deal of information and a great deal of detailed controls, which should, where possible, be loosened. However, we all recognise that some back-stop powers are necessary for central government to retain.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

I hope that the Minister, who has just spoken on the issue of loosening powers to local level, will also speak for the Government on the Localism Bill.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I deeply regret having to tell the noble Baroness that I shall not be speaking on the Localism Bill. I think that, for the time being, the EU Bill and the police Bill are sufficient for me—although I do occasionally miss the House on the one day a week that I am not here on my feet.

The Government’s general approach on the issue is that where possible we should reduce the level of the detailed oversight that the Secretary of State has on the operation of local policing. For example, police and crime commissioners will be subject to a general duty regularly to consult and involve the public. That is in the Bill. However, the Government take the view that it is not appropriate for the Secretary of State to prescribe how this should be interpreted at a local level. Where possible, necessarily, one has to look back through previous Acts and consider how far they need to be amended in the light of the new procedures. However, I should note that Clause 80, with its reference to efficiency and effectiveness, mirrors Section 36 of the Police Act 1996. We are not introducing new language; we are amending, but continuing, language from previous Acts. This therefore imposes an identical duty on the Secretary of State in relation to the way she exercises the powers conferred by that Act, but I am sure that noble Lords will understand that there are a number of previous Acts that have to be amended or adjusted in the light of the new provisions in the Bill.

Amendments 225A and 226 require the Secretary of State to use the powers conferred by Part 1 to safeguard public safety and security in addition, but the crucial considerations of public safety and security are already provided for, where necessary, in the provisions that contain the individual powers covered by Clause 80. For example, the strategic policing requirement under Clause 79 sets out national threats, which include any threat to national security or public safety. Clause 22 allows the Secretary of State to intervene where force budgets are set too low, but she can do so only where it is necessary to prevent public safety being put at risk. The power under Clause 93 is not a public safety matter since it simply enables the Secretary of State to receive criminal data and information from chief constables. Some of the clauses, particularly Clause 93, set out a number of requirements by the Secretary of State on local authorities and local elected police bodies.

The new accountability structures allow individual police and crime commissioners to decide for themselves how to carry out their duties in the light of local circumstances. That is the purpose of this Bill. They leave it to the public, not central government, to assess the performance of commissioners in detail. To that end, the Bill requires the commissioner to provide information to the public to help local people assess how their force is performing. That is set out in Clause 11. The police and crime panel provides additional scrutiny of the commissioner from the local perspective. The commissioner must attend the public meeting to present an annual report on the progress that has been made in meeting the objectives in the police and crime plan and must answer the police and crime panel on the report. That is required by Clause 12.

[Lord Beecham]

Will the Minister indicate whether he thinks it useful, in terms of informing the public, for the public to know what other police authorities are doing? Would it not therefore be sensible to have a point at which the information is collated generally so that those comparisons could be drawn? Would that therefore not be a good reason for police authorities or commissioners to report to the Secretary of State so that the information can be made more widely available and accessible?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I think the noble Lord wishes to tempt me down the road back to what his noble colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, suggested about detailed and excessive reporting to the Secretary of State. I take the point that he is making in terms of comparison, but this will be available in public. I think it highly unlikely that scrutiny committees in another place, and in this place, will not begin to look at the comparisons. That is part of the process of scrutiny. Perhaps I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who challenged me on accountability, that I have always understood that scrutiny is part of the process of accountability. I am afraid that I am not immediately able to quote Professor John Stewart on this question, but I think he would agree with me that scrutiny and accountability are indeed parts of the same process.

Clause 92 ensures that the Secretary of State will retain powers to intervene as a last resort when a police force is failing, but that is a backstop clause for the Secretary of State. In the event of serious or systemic failure of a police force, backstop powers will remain in place so that the Secretary of State can give directions to the police and crime commissioner. These existing powers, currently applicable to police authorities, are applied to police and crime commissioners under this clause.

Where the Secretary of State is satisfied that the police force is failing to discharge its functions in an effective manner, she can direct the police and crime commissioner to take measures to remedy the failure. These measures can include the submission of an action plan. This is important because retaining backstop powers in relation to police performance provides an additional layer of accountability and assurance to the public. But I stress that these are intended to be backstop powers and not to impose detailed reporting requirements on police and crime commissioners throughout all their activities. The intention is to loosen central controls on local policing. For these reasons, I respectfully ask that the amendment is withdrawn.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend’s time on his allotment was well spent and he should not fret about that. I agree with him that scrutiny and accountability are closely related. This is one of those replies when one needs to read the detail, which I will of course do, rather than attempt an off-the-cuff response.

However, I shall mention one thing that is not apposite but I cannot resist it. When Section 36, “General duty of Secretary of State”, of the Police Act 1996 was enacted, the Secretary of State was a man. Therefore, it reads:

“The Secretary of State shall exercise his powers … to such extent as appears to him to be best calculated”,

and so on. The drafter of this Bill finds it difficult to accept that the Secretary of State might not be a man. Although the word “her” appears sometimes, the wording is not precisely the same and does not change “him” to “her”. It changes “him” to “the Secretary of State”, which is rather sad. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, I hope that the Minister on this occasion—and I mean no offence to the noble Baroness, Lady Browning—will also quote what Professor John Stewart has to say about this idea. I agree totally with my noble friend Lord Harris about the confidence of the public in someone who has been elected. I also speak as somebody who was a member of a county council when an allegation was made about a chief constable and the chair of the police authority. Nobody knew where the ends of that ball of string would end up, and it is conceivable that somebody who was later drawn into the same allegation of corruption would have been the natural person to have been appointed instead. Flexibility has to be there because of the danger. It is not always clear at the beginning that it will go in a direction that involves members of staff.

The other points I put as questions to the Minister. I am a person who can see the potential for conspiracy, having been in politics so long, but it is possible that somebody would step aside with a spurious excuse in order that a member of their staff could act for a period of time and then stand for election themselves. You could see a situation in which the person concerned who had been elected was not aware of that. The Minister is looking puzzled, but it is quite possible that there could be collusion about the possibility of one individual appointing another individual into a post in their stead. That could lead to a form of nepotism, and that worries me unduly.

I come back to the point made by my noble friend Lord Harris. I do not think that the public can possibly have confidence in the system that is being proposed here.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am very sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, feels that the Government are not willing to listen. The Government have indeed just sent out a number of invitations to meetings in between Committee and Report. I understand that he is unable to come to the consultations to which he has been invited.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

It is true that I cannot attend, but I understood that the invitation was to give us the memorandum of understanding between the elected police commissioner and the chief constable. That is very welcome, but if the Government are putting all their eggs into the basket of a memorandum of understanding and reducing the veto on the precept from three-quarters to two-thirds, they are not going far enough.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

We are not putting all our eggs into that basket. Let us continue with some of those discussions. I shall also dig out my dog-eared lecture notes and see whether I can find some further quotes from Professor Stewart so that we can continue those discussions.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

Of course, I can see that if you are holding someone to account, clearly you are part of holding a person or body to account as you scrutinise their performance. I fully understand that, but we have been presented with the proposition that we are to have single individual elected politicians, accountable to the public through the ballot box, for the performance of the police, with the panel providing some kind of scrutiny in addition or as some kind of safeguard. The noble Lord took the argument a bit further forward today by emphasising the accountability of the police commissioner to the police and crime panel. I rather welcome that if the panel is to be given proper powers to hold the PCC to account. The problem is that it is very difficult to see how on earth the PCC can hold the commissioner to account because it has only two levers—one on the precept and the other on the appointment of the chief constable—and very little else.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

This is precisely the question of how the process of scrutiny holds people to account. Public meetings are absolutely part of that, but we clearly need to continue that discussion. It is indeed the purpose and design of this Bill that ultimate accountability for the key tenets of this reform agenda remain with the elected individual. That is, after all, the Bill’s underlying objective. It is also why the Government resist the proposals that a PCC could delegate to his or her operationally independent chief constable, or to others, the task of justifying the political decisions of the office of police and crime commissioner. We accept that there are instances where a PCC will be required to work with others to achieve their political and strategic intents, but we suggest that this should be through collaboration rather than simple delegation. We recognise, of course, that there is a clear need for effective checks and balances. I have already undertaken to the House to ensure that these are properly considered and will be further discussed.

On Amendment 211ZB, on which a number of noble Lords have intervened, the Government’s original proposition for the case in which an elected PCC was incapacitated was to secure an assurance that their plan and strategy would be impartially delivered while they were not in a position to provide the necessary oversight. Much as the Civil Service provide to the Government of the day, it was this Government’s intention to secure a similar degree of impartiality by looking to the head of paid staff to act as a day-to-day caretaker for the police and crime commissioner of their plan, while the police and crime panel would be utilised to provide effective and constructive support and scrutiny of the delivery of that plan.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

I am trying hard to think of a similar set of circumstances in which someone who is elected and holding an office—for example, as Secretary of State—is temporarily out of action. They may have a team of people who help and advise them. In this case, there are two Ministers in your Lordships’ Chamber. I cannot think of a politician or member of the public who would accept the Permanent Secretary stepping into their roles temporarily, although I can think of some Permanent Secretaries who may have wished to do so.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Perhaps the noble Baroness will be kind enough to name names outside the Chamber afterwards. I accept the criticism; we are indeed debating acceptable models. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, asked whether one should perhaps elect a deputy commissioner, with all the questions that then follow. What does the deputy commissioner do while she or he is waiting around in the hope that the police and crime commissioner will fall ill at some stage, possibly slipping arsenic into their tea at the same time? There are a range of issues that need to be debated there. The model of having someone from the police and crime panel as an alternative also has advantages and disadvantages; it threatens the possibility that there would be a different sort of competition. We recognise that none of these models is ideal. I assure your Lordships that we will look at these amendments and will ensure that they are considered by my colleagues in the Home Office.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Browning]

I apologise to the House and hope that noble Lords will forgive a new girl for getting her homework mixed up. Perhaps we might pause—I do not know the procedure—while I make sure that the right notes are in front of me.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I suggest that the Committee adjourn for five minutes.