A Manifesto to Strengthen Families

Lord Wasserman Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wasserman (Con)]

My Lords, I too congratulate my noble friend Lord Farmer on securing time for this important debate and on playing a key role in the production of A Manifesto to Strengthen Families. I also add my congratulations to those offered to my noble friend Lord Agnew on his appointment to the Government’s ministerial team and wish him well with his new responsibilities.

While I welcome and endorse the manifesto’s conclusions and policy recommendations, I believe that the authors of this document have missed a trick. I say this because police and crime commissioners should have been given a much more prominent place in it. PCCs already play a key role in this area of government business. By the very nature of their statutory responsibilities, they are best placed to deliver many of the policy recommendations set out in the manifesto, particularly those which are best delivered locally.

As my noble friend Lord Farmer has already mentioned, PCCs have a place in the document, but it is in relation to only one policy area, education, where it is recommended that they be encouraged to work with schools in their local area to ensure that any child living in a household where domestic abuse is present is automatically offered early support. This is obviously a good idea. Many police forces across the country are already involved in this scheme, and I am happy to say that many more are planning to introduce it shortly.

PCCs are also involved in countless other programmes aimed at strengthening families. But this should come as no surprise. After all, PCCs are explicitly tasked with keeping local communities safe. Although the manifesto does not say so in terms, we all know that those brought up in families where violence is common and love and support are rare are much more likely to find themselves on the wrong side of the criminal justice system, whether for serious crimes or anti-social behaviour.

Therefore, it is clearly sensible, when thinking about how best to deliver the policy recommendations of this manifesto, to look to our local police and crime commissioners. They are already committed to strengthening families as the most effective way of keeping their communities safe. They have already established close working links with the other parts of the criminal justice system and with the other local agencies, such as health and education, which are critical to building strong families. Most importantly, they are directly accountable through the ballot box to those whose lives are most directly affected by the success or failure of these policies.