Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Viscount Bridgeman Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

I take the point. I conclude by saying that the Welsh Assembly’s Communities and Culture Committee reported on this Bill. Its headline recommendation was that the Welsh Government should have a dialogue with the UK Government to persuade them to defer the introduction of those aspects of the Bill that relate to the abolition of police authorities and the establishment of police commissioners and police and crime panels in Wales, at least until the effectiveness of their impact in England had been assessed.

Later, we shall come to amendments that relate specifically to Wales. They go further than I am asking the Government to do. I simply ask them to take account of the issues, and I urge them to give this proposal a test drive before imposing it on Wales and on the Welsh Assembly Government and the Assembly.

[Viscount Bridgeman]

My Lords, I shall be very brief. Perhaps I may respectfully say that the protocol has been given a very bad press by both the noble Lord, Lord Blair, who is not in his place at the moment, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester. I draw your Lordships’ attention to what I think is one nugget in the protocol. It says that the police and crime panel has:

“The power to ask HMIC for a professional view when the PCC intends to dismiss a Chief Constable”.

So far as I am aware, there has been little or no mention of the role of the HMIC in the relations between the commissioner and the chief constable, and I suggest that this is a very important link.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, I, too, welcome the Minister to her appointment. I welcome her because of her experience, her willingness to listen and the manner in which she has behaved since she came into this House. I, too, thought of something that I will, if she will forgive me, offer her as a word of advice. It came to mind when I was listening to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, and particularly the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough. Sometimes this end of the telescope is slightly more difficult than the other end. On occasions, the difficulty is in convincing colleagues in the other place of the strength of feeling in your Lordships’ House. During the passing of the Police (Northern Ireland) Act, the then Secretary of State stood in the Corridor trying to negotiate through me, as the Whip, in order to get things through. Therefore, I welcome the noble Baroness’s experience and I am sure that she will adapt to this end of the Corridor.

I listened with interest to the noble Lord, Lord Dear. With respect, I think that he proved the point that I am about to make rather more than the one that he made. Had there been the direct election of an individual, I fear that at that time and in those circumstances the person to whom he referred, David Bookbinder, would have been elected because the political climate then was even less fettered. However, the most important point is that, as a result of some difficult experiences, modifications and improvements were made to the composition and role of police authorities, but they were incremental. One noble Lord after another has spoken about the need for incremental change in a service that we all hold dear.

My second point is equally important. The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, referred to our police service—to me, it is a service, not a force—roughing up the middle classes and failing to look to the interests of deprived communities. I am sorry: I live in the police authority area where I served as a member of the authority for 20 years and I do not recognise that description. What I do recognise, however, is that the middle classes are more vocal. They want a police officer in a car to appear at their door if they have a burglary and they also want police officers walking the streets, but I am afraid that, however populist the campaign, the concerns of that community will not be met by anyone. To my mind, my noble friend Lady Henig was, as leader of the County Councils Association, one of the best chairs of a police authority in the country. However, she could not provide what those vocal people wanted, because they wanted it and they wanted it now, and they were not prepared to talk through how much money it would cost.