Policing

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Wednesday 24th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) and we will all want to associate ourselves with his remarks about Greater Manchester police and, in particular, the tragic recent events in his borough.

This summer, during the Olympics, we heard very often about the armed forces and how they stepped in at short notice, but many police officers also stepped in at short notice and had their summer holidays cancelled for the second time, having been called in for the riots the previous year. We should pay tribute to the work they do with very little publicity.

I also welcome this debate. Those on the Opposition Front Bench have moved quite a way since I made my maiden speech on this subject. At that point, Labour appeared to me to be against elections full stop. The party that I had thought took its democratic instincts from the Chartists and the Levellers had become the party of the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Police Authorities. That position has changed gradually and the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) suggested the direct election of police authority chairs, which would of course be as expensive as the direct election of police commissioners.

Initially, the line—I think this came from the APA—was that we should not have those elections because they cost money and that democracy was bad because it was expensive. The line has changed once again with this motion, however, and it seems that Labour Front Benchers object not to the principle or even to the cost of elections but to the cost of holding additional elections in November rather than May. At least some of us on the blue side of the House would have some sympathy with that view. I also congratulate the Labour party on putting up twice as many candidates in the election as our coalition partners.

In due course, these directly elected individuals will be entrenched as the figure of authority to whom members of their local community believe that they can go and through whom they can make a difference to their police. We did not have that in the past; we had anonymous police authorities and very little changed. I was delighted to hear from the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy); the image of her policing a football match on horseback is very striking. She would be the perfect candidate for the enhanced specials that Craig Mackinlay, our candidate in Kent, is campaigning to introduce after the elections on 15 November.

We need a single figure who is accountable, who can set policy, who can reflect what the public want and who can ensure that policing, like other democratically accountable public services, delivers on the ground what the people in the area have the right to expect. We need to move on from a system under which national policing policy was set not so much by the Home Office but by an entirely unaccountable and private company, of which Sir Norman Bettison was vice-president until earlier today—that is, ACPO. I am afraid to say that ACPO is fighting something of a rearguard action against the Government’s proposed changes. We recently heard that Sir Hugh Orde believes that it needs to carry on. He thinks that it could be renamed the police leadership executive board—PLEB. That was an unfortunate suggestion by Sir Hugh.

The principle is that policy should be set by people who are elected and accountable. Each chief constable should report to their police and crime commissioner, who is elected. To the extent that there is national policy, we look to the Home Office, to Ministers and to the Home Secretary to set it, through the National Crime Agency where appropriate. We will also look to the professional body for policing—the college—that is about to be introduced. Half that body’s leadership will be civilian to ensure that it is properly accountable and reflects public desires and so that a group of senior officers do not go off on their own and try to carve up senior appointments, as recently happened—I believe—in the case of the head of the UK Border Force. I am glad that the Home Secretary has put a stop to that and that there will be a proper process.

Once we have elected police and crime commissioners, it will not be Buggins’s turn and ACPO will not be making the decisions. People with a democratic mandate will set policing policy in our country on behalf of the public. I hope and believe that that can now be welcomed on both sides of the House.