Draft West Midlands Combined Authority (Transfer of Police and Crime Commissioner Functions) Order 2024

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Monday 26th February 2024 General Committees

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

Thank you, Sir Graham, for allowing a Member of Parliament from the west midlands to speak. Further to the point of order made by my hon. Friend the Member for Easington, could I ask the Minister what legal advice has been taken on whether the Government are acting ultra vires, if the court decides that the consultation process the Government have belatedly undertaken has not been followed correctly?

[Chris Philp]

The question of ultra vires relates to whether the Government have a statutory power to act in a particular situation. The Government quite clearly do have a statutory power to act by bringing forward this order. The judicial review concerns the nature of the consultation, which is a separate question. I can tell the right hon. Lady that the Government believe that the consultation was properly conducted, and we will vigorously and robustly defend the judicial review.

[Valerie Vaz]

The issue of whether the Government are acting lawfully is a very serious one. My question was whether the Government had taken legal advice on that point, given that judicial review proceedings are pending and the court will hear the whole case on 7 March. The Minister talks about consultation, but could he say whether the people of the west midlands actually wanted this process and what the results of the consultation were?

[Chris Philp]

I have already answered the right hon. Lady’s first question: the Government are very clear that there is a lawful basis on which to bring forward this order in statute. We will also robustly—and, I trust, successfully—defend the judicial review relating to the consultation, which is a separate question. On the outcome of the consultation, about 7,000 replies were received, which is of course a tiny fraction of the population of the west midlands. The responses were fairly evenly split: I think it was 50% against, 46% in favour and 4% undecided, so it was pretty even. However, as the right hon. Lady will know from her long experience in the House, the Government will take the consultation responses into account when they make their decisions. This is not a vote or a referendum, and it is not that the largest number of responses wins; the quality of the responses and the arguments advanced in them will be carefully considered before the Government—in this case, the Home Secretary—take their carefully considered decision.

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[Chris Philp]

I will.

[Valerie Vaz]

On a point of order, Sir Graham. I understand that the hon. Member for Lichfield has a connection to the Mayor, and I wish that he could state what that is. Should he or should he not be taking part in the proceedings?

[Michael Fabricant]

Further to that point of order, Sir Graham. I am really grateful to the right hon. Lady for pointing that out. Legally, I am under no obligation, as I understand it—perhaps you can clarify this, Sir Graham —to declare an interest, because there is no pecuniary interest whatever. I am more than happy to say that Andy Street is a friend of mine, and I am sure he is a friend of many others. Indeed, I like to think I am a special friend of Andy Street’s, and I simply state that for the record.

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[Chris Philp]

Indeed. The copy-and-paste responses were on the negative side. Of course, if one discounted those, the balance of replies would have been different, wouldn’t it? It is important to stress that we do not know who the Mayor will be after the election. The election will take place, and the people of the west midlands will decide who will be the Mayor, exercising mayoral functions and, if the order is successful, PCC functions as well.

That is important, because the West Midlands police force is one of only a small handful of police forces across England and Wales in so-called special measures—it is called “formally engage”, but in substance it is special measures. I would also add that West Midlands police force is, I think, the second worst-performing police force in the country when it comes to detecting and clearing up crime. It strikes me that there is a great opportunity to improve the performance of West Midlands police force under new management, whoever the Mayor may be following the election on 2 May.

Let me make some more progress.

[Valerie Vaz]

Will the Minister give way on the consultation, because it is important?

[Chris Philp]

Goodness me, I am being generous today —I will give way.

[Valerie Vaz]

The Minister really is, but this is important, and it is our job to question him—I thought that was what we were here for. The consultation took place over Christmas. Those are never good consultations, because people have other things to do. The Minister says there were just 7,000 responses, but I think that is quite a lot. Could he clarify what he means by “cut and paste”? If the question is, “Do you want this to happen?”, the answer is going to be only either yes or no. By “cut and paste” does he mean just a yes or a no? Lastly, there was a referendum on this very proposition in 2021 and the people of the west midlands decided against it.

[Michael Fabricant]

rose—

[Michael Fabricant]

I understand that the last time the consultation was done, they were strongly supportive of the Mayor. They thought it was a waste of money, actually.

[Valerie Vaz]

Are you the Minister? Are you answering the questions?

[Michael Fabricant]

No, I am intervening. The right hon. Lady keeps intervening, so I am sure she is not saying that I should not intervene, with the Minister’s permission. Am I not correct that, in fact, people were overwhelmingly supportive? Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan, Labour Mayor Andy Burnham and Labour Mayor Tracy Brabin all have control over the police, too. It saves money. It is not meant to be a job-creation scheme.

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend is quite right. Let me turn to some of those questions. The consultation period ran from 20 December to 31 January. It will not escape eagle-eyed Committee members that that encompasses the entire month of January, which by no stretch of the imagination can be described as “over Christmas”.

The right hon. Member for Walsall South referred to a referendum. I do not know if she was referring, perhaps, to the previous police and crime commissioner election—

[Valerie Vaz]

In 2021.

[Chris Philp]

I am glad that the right hon. Lady, from a sedentary position, has clarified that. So when she referred to a referendum in her intervention a moment or two ago, she was in fact referring to the previous police and crime commissioner election. That was, of course, appointing an individual to the position of police and crime commissioner. He may have had a number of things in his manifesto, but I do not think we can in any way construe that as a referendum. There was certainly no question on the ballot paper about transferring, or not transferring, PCC powers. I do not think describing a PCC election as a referendum on this matter is an accurate representation of what occurred.

Let me return to the substance of the issue. Part 1 of the Government’s review of the role of PCCs cemented the Government’s view that bringing public safety functions together under the leadership of a combined authority Mayor has the potential to offer wider levers and a more joined-up approach to preventing crime. Our levelling-up White Paper reinforced that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield pointed to a number of other large cities around the country where police and crime commissioner functions are already exercised by the Mayor—with varying degrees of competence, I would add—and there are good reasons for that. There are efficiencies. The Mayor tends to be a higher-profile figure than the police and crime commissioner. The Mayor can exercise systems-wide leadership over a variety of things that are relevant to fighting crime. Typically, they can offer more effective leadership than a PCC can in the urban area concerned. I am an MP in London. While Sadiq Khan does not do a very good job as Mayor of London in general, he does have a wide range of powers, and the position has the potential to provide wider leadership on issues of crime and public safety than someone acting as a police and crime commissioner alone. We believe that that applies here as much as it does in those other cities.

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[Chris Philp]

For the record, I did not quite say that. I did not talk about disregarding all the negative responses; I referred specifically to the copy-and-paste ones. However, I would like to make it clear for the record—

[Valerie Vaz]

What is the difference?

[Chris Philp]

There were more negative responses than just the copy-and-paste ones. I would like to make it clear for the record that the Government carefully considered all the responses, regardless of whether they were copy-and-paste ones or not. It is very important that anyone reading the report of our proceedings understands that.

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[Chris Philp]

Sir Graham, I will of course follow your advice, or perhaps your instruction, and reply to that another time. We have had a wide-ranging debate, and I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton, for the considered manner in which he made his remarks and for his commitment not to divide the Committee.

There was just one question I wanted to answer, which related to whether there is to be further consultation. There are no plans to consult any further. We have conducted the public consultation. The Government’s position on this question was categorically not predetermined. The Government did not have a fixed view of the matter during the consultation and took their decision quickly but only after carefully considering all the consultation responses.

[Valerie Vaz]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chris Philp]

I do not want to test colleagues’ patience.

[Valerie Vaz]

It is important.

[Chris Philp]

We have discussed it extensively already.

We very carefully considered all the responses, and only after considering them very carefully was a decision reached. In terms of local democratic consent, this transfer was possible only following a request by the Mayor of the West Midlands, who has by far the largest democratic mandate of any politician in the west midlands. On that basis, Sir Graham, I commend this order to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft West Midlands Combined Authority (Transfer of Police and Crime Commissioner Functions) Order 2024.