Police and Crime Commissioners (Wales)

Simon Hart Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Damian Green]

I agree with the point, which many people have made, that one would have wished the turnout to be higher. It was not ideal, but the fact was that 5 million people cast votes in last year’s elections and that is approximately 5 million more than ever had a say in the police authorities that the PCCs replaced. Police authorities were unaccountable, invisible bodies. Now, people have the chance to elect the police and crime commissioner.

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

Does my right hon. Friend agree with the senior Dyfed Powys police officer who told me that it might be between two and five years before we are able properly to assess the benefits or otherwise of police and crime commissioners? Perhaps it will be then that we will see whether there is public appreciation of them and voter turnout might be somewhat different.

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point about the length of time. Now that we are more or less up to the first anniversary of the PCCs, we can see what each of them has done and can make a realistic assessment of their effectiveness, rather than simply looking at the turnout in the elections last November.

Let me deal with some of the specific issues that the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent and others brought up. One was transparency. I find it difficult to accept the criticism that PCCs are in any way less transparent than the system before. I defy any Member of the House to have gone out before last November, asked their constituents who the chair of the police authority was and expected more than one in a million to know the answer. They were completely invisible; we know that.

Specific criticism was made of the police and crime commissioner in Gwent. I have been on his website and found that, on the page entitled “Transparency”, he says:

“As well as the information we have a legal responsibility to provide under the…Act…and The Elected Local Policing Bodies (Specified Information) Order…we have…agreed to make the agendas and minutes of the Strategy and Performance Board…and the Joint Audit Committee…available. The SPB is where the Commissioner holds the Chief Constable to account and the JAC provides comments, advice and assurance on matters relating to the internal control environment of both the Chief Constable and the Commissioner.”

There is a series of pages, whose titles include “Gifts and Hospitality”, “Register”, “Publications”, “Finance”, Performance”, “Decisions Made”, “Estates Register” and “Complaints Information”.

The document is transparent. A person does not even need to be in Gwent to see it; they can sit in London and find out quite a lot of detail about what the police and crime commissioner in Gwent is doing. I gently suggest to the House that none of that would have been available 12 months ago, because police authorities did not have to do that sort of thing.