Police and Crime Commissioners

Lord Wasserman Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wasserman (Con)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, on securing time for this debate on the role and responsibilities of police and crime commissioners. I am very sorry, however, that the subject has proved so popular that Back-Benchers have been limited to four minutes. To judge by some previous speeches, I appear to be very much in a minority in your Lordships’ House when I say that I believe that, on the whole, PCCs have made an important, positive contribution to public life in this country. There are a number of reasons why I believe this. One of the more important is the increased attention that PCCs have given, and continue to give, to the needs of victims, particularly the victims of domestic abuse. But, in the very limited time available today and in the light of the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, I want to argue that, on the whole, PCCs have increased and improved the democratic accountability of local policing.

Despite some of the arguments that have been made this morning, I believe that PCCs of both parties and none have made it one of their key objectives to strengthen the links between their communities and the police forces that serve them. As a result, police operational priorities now correspond more directly, more completely, more transparently and more accountably to local policing needs. This is done in a variety of ways: through local surgeries, public meetings and old-fashioned newsletters, but also in new ways, through the use of social media and webcasts. In Essex, for example, PCC Roger Hirst held over 120 public meetings last year. In Sussex, PCC Katy Bourne uses monthly publicly accessible webcasts—known as performance and accountability meetings—to hold her chief constable to account for the performance of the force. Of course, the Sussex Police Authority also held the chief constable to account at regular meetings, but those sessions were held only quarterly and behind closed doors.

When there are public concerns, the default reaction of PCCs is to expose them, rather than hide them. In North Yorkshire, for example, PCC Julia Mulligan—who is also the lead on transparency for the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners—on hearing the public concerns about illegitimate payments to senior officers in the force, instigated a review. It revealed that the former chief constable and deputy chief constable both received £100,000 of payments from the police authority that had no legal basis. Against the advice of both the force and her chief executive, Julia Mulligan published the full report of the inquiry, as she believed that the public had the right to know how their money had been spent.

I accept it is not all good news and there may be problems in relation to particular officeholders. While PCCs have been good at holdings their forces to account, there may be weaknesses in the arrangements in place to hold PCCs themselves to account. My suggestion for dealing with these weaknesses is simple: I refer to the power of recall whereby, if a sufficiently large percentage of the electorate were unhappy with their PCC, they could vote to require him or her to resign and force an election for a new PCC. This is not a new or radical idea at all; it was considered very carefully by the coalition Government in 2010, when they were developing the legislation referred to by the noble Lord. It was rejected as unlikely to commend itself in another place. This provision would certainly meet some of the concerns expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, and I, for one, would support it as a further step in strengthening local democracy, devolution and community safety.