Police and Justice Bill

When the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs. Moon) welcomed the fact that every speaker so far had generally welcomed the Bill, my heart sank somewhat. I did not interpret those speeches in quite the same way. However, the hon. Lady’s long row of ““buts”” then emerged, and she presented us with a considered and thoughtful response to many of the Bill’s provisions. That applies not least to her description of parenting orders, which bring into question the Government’s top-down approach to the respect agenda. She was right to say that judgments about parenting or antisocial behaviour cannot be imposed by formula by an office in Whitehall, although I fear that that is one of the aims of the Bill. In one respect, I concur with most of the speeches made so far—indeed, all except the Home Secretary’s speech. The Bill appears to be a very centralising measure. The Home Secretary tut-tutted at my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), suggesting that his facts were wrong, but we need only open the Bill to see that it gives the Secretary of State additional powers. How can a Bill that gives a Secretary of State additional powers be described as anything other than a centralising measure? Indeed, the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), who is not in his place at the moment, expressed concern on behalf of the Select Committee on Home Affairs at the idea that this is a centralising measure. I draw the House’s attention to one particular provision. Set out in schedule 2 is new section 40 of the Police Act 1996, which replaces with a very wide power the pretext for intervention in the 1996 Act, as amended by the Police Reform Act 2002. At the moment, any intervention by the Secretary of State in the running of a constabulary depends on a trigger from an inspectorate. There has to be a manifest failing in the performance of a constabulary before there can be an intervention. That is itself a stronger power than this Government inherited—and now it is to be replaced by the following, under the heading ““Power to give directions in relation to police force””:"(1) Where the Secretary of State is satisfied that the whole or any part of a police force is failing to discharge any of its functions in an effective manner, whether generally or in particular respects, he may direct—"