Viscount Bridgeman
Main Page: Viscount Bridgeman (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Viscount Bridgeman
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate, for instituting this important debate. We also have the benefit of a very balanced report, produced jointly by the Chief Inspector of Constabulary and the two audit bodies for England and Wales.
I should like to add my support to the Government’s intention to consult—I repeat, consult—on plans for the election of police commissioners. This strikes a balance between the practice in, for instance, the United States—on which the noble Lord gave us a valuable insight—where chief police officers are elected on a political basis, and the United Kingdom. The former is quite rightly anathema to senior police officers in this country, since it would remove the ultimate operational independence from the chief police officer, while the Government’s proposal would make the commissioner accountable to his electorate.
However, this is a sensitive subject on which there are differing views from within the police forces and outside, as the noble Lord articulated. The Government are wise to consult on this. A factor to be considered will not least be the actual control that a commissioner would have over the selection and employment of chief and senior police officers in the respective forces. I should be very interested to hear the contribution of my noble friend Lady Harris from the Benches of our coalition partners.
I turn to SOCA. At a recent conference of the Police Foundation, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson left his audience in no doubt on the resourcefulness of the masters of organised crime, not only in the sophistication of their methods, but in the ever widening geographical scope of their operations. For instance, I understand that SOCA keeps closely in touch with the US Coast Guard. I believe that SOCA in its short life has made a promising start, but it must be resourced to enable it to have multifocused vision, as it were, on its global activities, while being able to address domestic considerations in the United Kingdom. It is in the latter environment that more co-operation between forces would be beneficial to SOCA’s effectiveness.
That leads me on to the subject of amalgamation of forces. I entirely support the Government in their view that this can be only on a voluntary basis with mutual agreement between forces. We saw a few years ago the tensions that arose from what was perceived by certain forces as attempted shotgun marriages, if your Lordships will pardon the metaphor.
Where there is real scope for co-operation is in relatively non-contentious areas, such as IT and the back office in general, in forensics and in motorway policing, where a regional or even a national unit might be considered. In many of these areas, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire have taken the initiative and that could provide a good example nationally.
Let us not forget the main thrust in this debate. The police community in England and Wales is understandably concerned at the impact of the cuts that will inevitably be required to be made. It has been well said that every country has the police it deserves. We are proud and well served by our police forces, and it is incumbent on the coalition Government that these unpalatable measures are handled as sensibly and sensitively as possible.