Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Simon Hart Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

Surely the hon. Gentleman misses the key point. First, the Mayor should not seek to direct an investigation any more than the Home Secretary should. Secondly, the Mayor will be held accountable for all issues, which is what Londoners expect. The point is that, before the Mayor, accountability was invisible. We seek to introduce that greater accountability elsewhere. The issue is not whether the hon. Gentleman thinks that the Mayor was right or wrong. There is now a figure who can be held accountable for the performance of the Met.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

The Minister will know of the constabulary of Dyfed-Powys police in west Wales. There are probably 15 elected politicians of various parties representing people for that area, including in the Welsh Assembly. Does he agree that if there were any hint of a police commissioner taking a political line, the 14 other elected members of various assemblies and Parliaments would hold him to account and ensure that that did not happen?

[Nick Herbert]

I agree with my hon. Friend. We are putting in place very strong accountability arrangements, but also checks and balances and transparency. That will ensure the visibility of decisions when they are taken. Panels of locally elected members will be able to hold the commissioner to account and to scrutinise the decisions that are made. All of that will be done in full view of the public, in a way that the current proceedings of police authorities simply are not.

I am afraid that I must briefly detain the House on other formal matters before us. In lieu of the Lords amendments, I shall move a Government amendment to re-establish the Secretary of State’s power to issue a financial management code of practice for police and crime commissioners. A code of practice is currently issued to police authorities, which are required to have regard to it in the discharge of their financial functions. This enables the Home Office accounting officer to assure Parliament that funds given to the Department are used appropriately.

The Bill repeals the general power to issue codes of practice to police authorities under which the existing financial management code was issued. To ensure that we adhere to the principles of financial regularity, propriety and value for money, we propose that the Bill be amended to retain the power to issue codes of practice, but to restrict it to codes relating to financial matters only. The code will set out to PCCs and chief constables how they are expected to conduct the financial management within their force area and ensure good governance of public funds, the majority of which fall within the ambit of the vote from this place. It will be the responsibility of the Government to ensure that the code is fit for purpose and that it enables a PCC to set a budget that is responsible and, crucially, responds to the needs of their local communities and priorities. As such, I cannot agree with the Opposition amendments.

Government amendment (b) in lieu of Lords amendments 1 to 4 and of Lords amendment 6 will move back the date of PCC elections by six months, from May 2012 to November 2012, to allow more time to ensure that all the necessary preparations are in place. That will give good quality candidates, including—I hope—independents, the time to come forward, plan and campaign. PCCs will still be able to lead the strategic planning for 2013-14, as originally proposed—that was the point I made to the hon. Member for Rhondda. Thereafter, elections will revert to May every four years. Reform in London can still take place early because the Mayor is already in place.

In respect of the amendment giving the Welsh Assembly the power to set the first election date in Wales, the Government have placed on the record, in this House and another place, the efforts and negotiations in which I took part and which we undertook with the Welsh Government in order that the National Assembly for Wales could play a stronger role within policing governance in Wales. We have made it clear that we cannot legislate potential to provide two different systems of governance within England and Wales. Moreover, we cannot withhold from the people of Wales the necessary reform that will give them a stronger voice and visible accountability for how policing is delivered within their four police force areas by delaying the implementation of these reforms until the National Assembly sees fit. As the House knows—and, indeed, has determined through statute—policing remains a reserved matter and therefore the House shall decide when and how policing governance will be delivered. That said, we hope soon to restart constructive discussions with the Welsh Government so that they can consider positively how to work in partnership with both PCCs and police and crime panels.

In conclusion, these reforms are essential to address the democratic deficit in policing, to end the era of central Government’s bureaucratic control, to reduce crime and antisocial behaviour and to drive value for money. There will be benefits all round. Chief constables will be liberated from targets and central direction so that they can be crime fighters. Police officers will benefit from a less bureaucratic system in which discretion is restored and someone close to their force has a strong interest in driving out waste and prioritising the front line. Local authorities will benefit from a continuing say in the governance of policing, and district councils will have a role for the first time. The taxpayer will see better value for value money as commissioners, who will have responsibility for the precept, focus relentlessly on efficiency in their forces. Local policing will benefit from a strong democratic input, focusing attention on issues of public concern. The Home Office will be focused on its proper role, especially to address national threats and to co-ordinate strategic action and collaboration between forces. Above all, the public will have a voice in how they are policed. PCCs will have the mandate and the moral authority to reflect public concern about crime.

In the end, the House has a choice. The shadow Home Secretary repeatedly described elected police commissioners as a “US-style reform”. It is striking that Labour seems to think that democratic election and accountability are un-British. The Government trust the people to elect representatives to make the right decisions and to kick them out if they do not. It is strange that so many democrats are so wary of democracy. I believe that we can and should trust the people.

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[Vernon Coaker]

Of course they will have the power of voice. I have the power of voice here, but I shall still lose the vote, unless something goes dramatically wrong. I can still argue for what I think is right, but at the end of the day a police and crime panel will have no real sanction or power to change what a police and crime commissioner is doing if it believes it to be wrong, apart from the two specific powers that I have mentioned. As will become clear when we debate the next group of amendments, the panel will not even have the power to veto the sacking of a chief constable. The police and crime commissioner will have a completely unfettered power.

The Minister told us that the Government had listened to what the Lords had said, and that a chief constable who was to be sacked would be able to go to the police and crime panel and tell it why the police and crime commissioner was wrong. The panel would not have any power to do anything about it, but the chief constable could make representations to it. That might be a good thing, but it does not alter the fact that a chief constable in that position would have no proper right of appeal. The hon. Gentleman is right in saying that the police and crime panel can say what it thinks, but ultimately it can be ignored by the police and crime commissioner, except in the two specific instances that I have mentioned.

[Simon Hart]

In what circumstances does the hon. Gentleman believe that a police and crime commissioner would go solo and make a serious decision like that against all the interests of the community and, indeed, the other elected politicians and councillors who might reside in the area? How likely is that to happen?

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[Simon Hart]

Not in Bury St Edmunds!

[Mr Ruffley]

Even in Bury St Edmunds, I dare say. Let me repeat the other statistic, because it is quite shocking. Fewer than one in eight uniformed officers are available to respond to the public visibly. That includes not only response units going around the streets but also those handling such calls—the visible availability. There must be a better way of asking any chief constable searching questions about why that is happening on their patch or police force area.

I conclude by saying that police authorities have had many years to ask some of those difficult questions, but those two statistics, shocking as they are, represented the situation in July 2011. The police authorities have had their fair crack but they have not been able to squeeze the efficiencies and to ask the difficult questions that they should have. It is time for them to move over and for the police and crime commissioners to have a crack and see whether they can do better. It is in that spirit of cheerful optimism that I support the amendments moved by my right hon. Friend the Minister.

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[Keith Vaz]

I shall leave it to my hon. Friend to decide what level of turnout is acceptable for the west midlands, with its population of 5 million. My concern is the electoral register. At that time, electoral registration officers will be involved in their annual canvass. Nobody likes to campaign in November. I cannot remember the last time we had elections in November, although the Minister will no doubt tell us when he winds up. It has certainly not happened in my time in the House, and I have been here for more than 24 years.

November is, of course, not the best weather to campaign, and I am not sure that everyone will open the door to Members of Parliament, even Members as charming as the Minister and the shadow Minister. The register will be in the process of being compiled, it will not be complete, and the basis of the register will be May 2013. The Minister needs to reassure us on this point, but I hope very much that we will take into consideration some of the comments that have been made. I look forward to hearing replies to some of them in the Minister’s winding-up speech.

[Simon Hart]

It is always a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz). May I say how glad I am that he had such a good shooting trip over the weekend, which I fixed for him with the Indian cricket team? I hope their shooting was better than their cricket.

I support the Government’s attempts to reverse Lords amendments 1 to 4. If I had not been convinced of the arguments for doing so before tonight’s debate, I would have been convinced after I heard the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker). I suspect he might accuse me of misquoting him, but he said that one of the problems with the election of police commissioners is that they will have a democratic mandate. Surely that is what the proposal is all about. Arguing against it on the basis of a fear that somebody might have a democratic mandate does not sit comfortably with the whole direction of the coalition Government.

I shall concentrate on two themes—first, communities and the police, as they are affected by the election of police commissioners, and secondly, a wider discussion of the broader consequences. Hon. Members know that I represent a small part of the Dyfed-Powys constabulary area in west Wales. There is always a perception that the priorities and work load of rural police forces are different from those of other forces, and to a great extent they are, but even a constabulary such as Dyfed-Powys, which has a huge geographical area to cover, covers some intensely urban and suburban areas which have all the same problems as any other part of Britain.

That is a particularly good example for the House to consider and to which we can apply the principle of elected commissioners to see whether the arguments stack up. I do not think that anyone on either side of the argument is suggesting that the current situation with regard to police authorities is perfect. Of course it is far from perfect. Nobody is arguing that the proposal is perfect in every detail but it is argued, with some validity, that it is considerably better than the situation we have put up with for 50 years. Let us not forget that police authorities have largely been operating under the same structure for that length of time, yet the challenge facing policing and the social dynamic of Britain has changed radically over that period. It is entirely sensible that we should seriously consider reforming the manner in which governance is applied.

There seems to be no question but that the relationship between communities, whether they are urban, rural or suburban, is at best remote and strained, and that when these recommendations are in place, it will be considerably enhanced. Much of the debate has been about the politicisation of the role. I think we exaggerate that. Having read over the weekend some of the contributions to the debate in another place, I recommend to hon. Members the contribution of Lord Dear, who was a serving officer in the west midlands for 40 years. He was happy to go on the record as saying that his initial reservations about the proposal had been gradually eroded as the debate unfolded.

The idea that there is no politicisation now is absurd. There is a huge degree of politics in policing now. Chief constables make rather adept politicians, as it turns out. They agonise over press releases and over the relationship that they have with politicians in their area. In an intervention, I mentioned my force, Dyfed-Powys. I feel rather sorry for the chief constable. Not only does he have a wide range of MPs to deal with from various political parties, but he has a wide range of Assembly Members representing different parties, and several different local authorities. He has to balance the relationships that he has with all those individuals.

The idea that a single elected police commissioner can storm into that relationship, overpower a chief constable and not be held to account by the numerous other elected representatives in that area is exaggerated. It is an excuse to try and undermine a good idea, rather than an evidential basis upon which to do that.

The role of commissioners will be the political one. To coin a phrase, the commissioners will do the politics, enabling the chief constables to do the policing. I do not know whether many Opposition Members look at the website “Labour Uncut”—it is probably their equivalent of “Conservative Home”—but even “Labour Uncut” thinks this is one of the Prime Minister’s better ideas. I think it goes so far as to say that it is his only good idea, a view that I do not share. It grudgingly reaches the conclusion that this democratic improvement is something that the coalition Government got right.

Continuing the theme of politics interfering with police forces, Lord Dear’s speech in April this year referred to his time in HMIC and in particular to Derbyshire police authority 15 to 20 years ago. If ever there was an example of intense political interference with a police force, that was it. It was staunchly party political and had a hugely debilitating effect on that police force. The consequence was that Lord Dear, in his position in HMIC, had to judge the force to be not fit for purpose as a direct result of the party political interference and the sub-standard police authority at the time. Therefore, the idea that this risk applies only to future proposals and has in no way poisoned the operation of constabularies in the past is also a complete myth. I concede the points made by the hon. Member for Gedling and acknowledge that there are concerns. The Minister has addressed some of those and, I am sure, will address more as the evening wears on.

Taking this from a police officer’s perspective, we can see that it is all the more important to address these concerns publicly now. The argument that this is a one-size-fits-all solution and that, because constabularies are not all the one size, it cannot possibly work in all places needs further explanation. The officers’ concerns about the ownership—not in the physical sense—of staff issues, building-related issues and the more mundane elements of policing are, in debating terms, unfinished business.

We also need to reassure people about political ideology. In our various debates on police reform, political ideology has somehow been labelled a negative influence. If political ideology includes the desire to make a police force more accountable and cost-effective and to give better value for money, that is an ideology that I am more than happy to sign up to. In going about our duty, we should not attempt to scare potential voters in these important elections into believing that someone who adopts ideology should be avoided at all costs. There will of course be political ideology, whoever ends up in these positions and whatever party they represent. Even if the status quo were to continue, political ideology pervades the system.

The Minister will no doubt offer some reassurances on the points raised about the crime panel, although I am less worried about it than others seem to be. There will be a large number of locally accountable people in my area of Dyfed-Powys who will be very sensitive to the risk of one man going off piste and running a solo political operation at the expense of the voters who put him there, which I think would be extremely unlikely.

[Vernon Coaker]

The hon. Gentleman says that he thinks that would be extremely unlikely, but given the fact that it could happen, however unlikely, and the seriousness of a PCC’s unfettered ability to sack a chief constable, does he not agree that the Bill should at least provide HMIC, for instance, with a reserve power to refer such a sacking to the Home Secretary so that he or she could judge whether anything untoward had happened? Is not some sort of reserve power necessary to protect against such an eventuality, however unlikely?

[Simon Hart]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, but I am not sure that that necessarily needs to be in the Bill. I think that there are sufficient checks and balances in the process anyway. His question presupposed that the existing system is risk free, but clearly it is not. We have all seen examples of the relationship between police authorities, local communities and chief constables breaking down. I argue that the proposals we have heard debated on numerous occasions so far during this Parliament represent a better and safer version of what we currently have. I share neither his concerns, nor his optimism that we can design a piece of legislation that is 100% risk free. I do not think that that is possible either in this area, or in many others.

To me the arguments that this is an improvement on the existing arrangements are reasonably compelling. However, I take the hon. Gentleman’s point and do not think that it has necessarily been answered in a way that is convincing for us, let alone for the people it will affect directly, either those who will vote, or those who will do the enforcing. Both deserve a clear answer. On that point, further clarification on what action will be taken in the event of a failure is significant, because I am not convinced—I am not sure about other hon. Members—that if the relationship between the chief constable and the elected commissioner breaks down for any reason, there are sufficient checks and balances to ensure that that will not have a negative effect downstream.

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[Mark Tami]

There are constant attacks on the back office, or the middle—a term introduced today—as if these people sit around doing nothing. I do not know what they do, but that is the image that the Government are trying to put across, as if we can sweep all those people away and service will be unaffected.

[Simon Hart]

I certainly do not think that that is the Government’s position. It might be the position taken by some of the media, but I do not believe for one minute that the Government are attempting to underplay the importance of some of those jobs. I just think that sometimes, in the interpretation, we attach less value to the back office than we do to the front line. That seems to be an interpretation of the tone in which Members from both sides of the House sometimes speak. For those doing vital back-office intelligence jobs, or even those providing relatively mundane services to support front-line officers, that can have a very debilitating effect. I think that the packaging, tone and messaging of this kind of debate is an area where we owe the recipients rather more care than perhaps we have been able to provide so far.

A police officer said to me only this morning that the House is sometimes guilty of basing this argument purely on efficiency. The expression “We’re all in it together” sometimes triggers a groan from Opposition Members, but for many officers who are looking with a pretty uncertain eye at what the future might hold for them and their families, it would be more helpful if we were to say that what is happening is part of rectifying a wider economic issue than we have perhaps been able to stress so far. I also think that there has been a fixation—I try to be balanced about these things, but Opposition Members sometimes test the patience of all of us, and on this particular point a little too far—that somehow there is always a correlation between police numbers and police efficiency. Whatever survey or piece of evidence we tend to look at these days, there is an increasing amount of information, which should enable us to come to the view that the two things are not always connected. They are some of the time, but the idea that an efficient police force is a big police force is a myth that this debate has to some extent helped to dispel.

In public opinion terms, however, we have to go quite a lot further, because that idea leads, unfortunately, to a problem whereby the public have confidence in their police force only so long as it is a bigger police force which is expanding its numbers, whereas we should be reassuring voters and, in particular, vulnerable members of society that an efficient police force, which finds ways of carrying out its work better for less and involving fewer people does not mean that they will not be safe in their beds at night. We exploit the fixation with numbers irresponsibly if the person listening happens to be a pensioner wondering whether they are going to be burgled.

[Mark Tami]

Developing that point, can the hon. Gentleman tell me when he has seen a Tory party leaflet that states, “We want fewer police,” and puts across that argument? I have never seen one.

[Simon Hart]

What emerges from that intervention is that the hon. Gentleman reads Tory leaflets and I do not, and he can keep reading as far as I am concerned, but the fact is that evidence now goes so far as to show even opposite trends. We do not have to go into that now, because I suspect that it is slightly outwith the amendment, but I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman uses his time so wisely.

Having started from the position of being a little sceptical about how a police commissioner covering such a vast area of urban and rural Wales could be effective, I have slowly but enthusiastically come to the conclusion that they will have an incentive to take into account public mood, public aspiration and public desire in a way that the current arrangements do not, and that it is a good thing, because it will therefore automatically lead to police priorities being more sensitive to a community’s requirements. If that happens, public satisfaction with and confidence in the police will, I trust, improve, and if that happens so will value for money in real terms and the perceived value for money of police forces, which are undoubtedly having to do some things that neither we nor they wanted them to do.

Although significant concerns have been well and reasonably articulated in the House, they in no way override the benefits to my constituents of proceeding with elected commissioners next year. We all know that they will not work perfectly everywhere all the time—no proposal that any of us has seen will do that—but one thing is certain: they will bring the community closer to their police force than is the case at the moment, and that is all the more to their credit.

I believe firmly that if we have good chief constables, which by and large we do, and if we have good police commissioners, which I have no doubt we will—let us face it, they are going to earn twice as much as a Member of Parliament, which probably means that they will be twice as good, and there is no reason to believe that they will not be extremely efficient and conscious of the impartial role that they have to play—that will lead to a vast improvement on the existing situation, recreate public confidence and trust in the police force and deliver value for money. As our friends in the Treasury remind us, that is never far away from such debates, but sometimes we lose sight of the fact that we have an economic mountain to climb.

We do not need to go into all that now, but this is one small part of the climb, so I will happily support the Government in opposing Lords amendments 1 to 4, and I hope that other Members will do likewise.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

I will be brief, because I know that other hon. Members wish to speak.

August reminded us why our police service matters. In the face of the worst outbreak of rioting and arson that that this country has seen in 30 years, terrorising communities all over England, including in Birmingham, our police were truly heroic. They were the thin blue line, acting decisively to restore order in the most difficult circumstances, and they were under outstanding leadership from their chief constable, Chris Sims, a man who acted decisively not because he needed to be told to do so by politicians returning from holiday, or by putative police commissioners, but because he was going to put right a terrible wrong—the outrage of what we were seeing on the streets of Birmingham.

In that process, Chief Constable Sims made it clear to Birmingham Members of Parliament that he was utterly determined to defend the British model of community policing. What was so impressive about the way he put it was this: he told us how he had become a police constable a year before the 1981 riots; how he had lived through some dramatic moments throughout the ’80s, ’90s and into this century, with tensions on the street and, sometimes, widespread public disorder; how he, like the rest of our police service, had learned painful lessons from the mistakes of the past; and that what the police service had done was to fashion a model of community policing that he and his fellow chief constables were absolutely determined to defend—what he called the bedrock of our ability to police more generally and to restore order in those most desperately difficult circumstances.

That model is based on trust, confidence and consent, and it must never, ever be put at risk by the politicisation—of the wrong kind—of our police service, be it loose talk from Ministers of water cannon and baton rounds, which would have been exactly the wrong thing to use, or this proposal to elect police commissioners. We undermine that British model of community policing, with independent chief constables able to make crucial operational decisions, at our peril and at the peril of the model itself.

The proposal for the election of police commissioners is also a grotesque waste of money: £112 million to be spent on the election of 41-odd police commissioners, some of whom might well indeed be odd. That money could put back on the streets 3,000 police officers. In the west midlands, the proposal would also see one man or woman elected to cover an entire conurbation, the nature of which is very different from one end to the other, of 5 million people.

The Government appear determined to plough on regardless with this proposal, as they do with the cuts to our police service—1,200 police officers will go in the west midlands. Ministers must recognise that if they want to spend money they should do so on police officers at the sharp end and on supporting them, not on elected police commissioners, not least because the impossible pressures being generated by Ministers are leading to perverse outcomes at the sharp end in the midlands. They include the revelations in the past fortnight that the police have had to use G4S to undertake major police functions, such as the investigations into the tragic killing of the three young men in Winson Green, the shooting at the Barton Arms during the riots and the murder in terrible circumstances of a 63-year-old in Northfield.

Because the police are so short of key staff, they are having to use G4S, employing many “A19” officers to perform the same duties now as they did in the past, when they would far rather be in a bobby’s uniform than that of G4S—and at £20 an hour, which is far more than police officers would have been paid. The part-privatisation of our police service is the perverse consequence of the pressures that the Government are putting on chief constables at the sharp end.

I would like any hon. Member in this House who went to the people of his or her constituency last May and said, “Vote for me—I will cut the police,” to put their hand up. I suspect we will be waiting for that for a very long time. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) said in his excellent contribution, we must work without hesitation further to improve how democratic accountability operates. At a time like this, elected police commissioners are the wrong priority at the worst possible time.