Police and Justice Bill

My Lords, this has been an absolutely fascinating, thought-provoking and clear introduction to the Police and Justice Bill at Second Reading. I start on a relatively supportive note by welcoming the creation of the new National Policing Improvement Agency; the harmonisation and extension of powers for community support officers, with some qualification; the tackling of problems caused by computer hacking; the tackling of illegal possession of indecent photographs of children; the taking-on by the Independent Police Complaints Commission of complaints of misconduct in the area of immigration and asylum; and the inclusion of local authorities in the scrutiny process of crime and disorder in the community, with some concerns which I shall express later. That having been said, there are plenty of areas about which I have severe reservations. As we have heard, we have had in place for 42 years a system of policing in this country which has served us well. It separated out the powers of the Secretary of State to direct policing broadly in the way that the country and the service itself wished, it created a local system to oversee and scrutinise how the police service was run on behalf of local communities—that is the job of the police authorities—and it allowed the chief constable, as head of the local force, autonomy on how he or she directed the actual work of the police. This was called the tripartite system of policing. The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, explained its principles very clearly and concisely, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Henig. The noble Baroness, Lady Stern, also aired her deep concerns about the matter. The tripartite system is when three partners work together to produce a service that will be democratically acceptable and, in the phrase that we have come to learn is synonymous with policing, ““fit for purpose””, although we have heard other uses of that phrase this afternoon. I say that this was the tripartite system of policing because this Bill is about to change much of that. At a stroke, it creates an entirely different balancing of the system. In Part 1 of the Bill, we see the Home Secretary giving himself the ability to direct both police authorities and police forces without having to come before Parliament to justify his actions. That blows apart the delicate but necessary processes that have been carefully constructed to form acceptable policing principles for almost 50 years. It is not for the Government to sweep away parliamentary scrutiny of policing and the proposal flies in the face of good governance of the service, something that I thought this Government wished to improve and uphold. Of course, administrative detail can be put into secondary legislation. That is right and proper for a modern, functioning service that needs some flexibility in how it operates within the system. But the key powers, functions and, above all, principles that enable the tripartite relationship to continue must be placed in primary legislation. A number of noble Lords expressed similar sentiments, notably the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, and the noble Lord, Lord Harris. I mentioned the NPIA, which is a body that I support, and I agree with much of what the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, had to say about it. A great deal of its constitution is to be put into secondary legislation, so the Home Secretary will be able to tinker about unchallenged whenever he feels the urge. Why should not elements about the basic governance of the agency be set out more fully in primary legislation? It is a new body and I am sure that Parliament will very much wish to see how it operates and be able to change its terms if necessary. Although I welcome the creation of the NPIA, I would just like to put on record my thanks and great admiration for the excellent work done over very many years by Centrex and its predecessors, which have trained our police officers to such high standards and to be the envy of most of the world. The training centres throughout the country have produced thousands of able police officers and I know that your Lordships would want to thank all the staff at those centres—many of which have now closed due to the reorganisation of training—for all their hard work, commitment and dedication over the years. I had the great honour of taking passing-out parades at a number of those establishments and I regret their closure immensely. As a former chair of a police authority and member of the National Crime Squad Service Authority and various other national police bodies because of my role as a former deputy chair of the Association of Police Authorities—deputy to, of course, our excellent chair the noble Baroness, Lady Henig—I have seen over the years the changing face of training. Some aspects in this Bill worry me, not least the training needs of community support officers. As I indicated earlier, I welcome the further work that they will be doing, but I am concerned about whether the new powers proposed for them will be adequately carried out. That means proper training, as my noble friends Lord Dholakia and Lady Walmsley reminded us. Will the Minister guarantee that proper training will be available for them all? Who will pay for it? Would it not be better to look at other ways of tackling non-attendance at school than by sending the CSOs out on a truancy sweep? My noble friend Lady Linklater of Butterstone referred to that. Should the CSOs not be developing diversionary activities, listening to children and playing an important preventive role in improving community relations, rather than being seen as always wielding a big stick? Again, this was referred to by my noble friend Lady Walmsley. The evidence cited by the DfES in its statistical report Pupil Absence in Schools in England: 2004/2005 indicates that unauthorised absences have increased, as was mentioned by my noble friend Lady Walmsley. This comes after the Government introduced twice-yearly truancy sweeps in May 2002. We will at a later stage be questioning other clauses of the Bill that deal with children, notably with reference to crime and anti-social behaviour. Schedule 2 and Clause 2 of the Bill make enormous numbers of amendments to the Police Act 1996. In essence, it is a good idea to ensure that BCUs have coterminosity with the local authority boundaries. But BCUs are not autonomous entities, so why do they need to become statutory constructs? The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, touched on this point. My concern is that, if they are made such, that may be the precursor to other, more radical developments, such as direct funding for BCUs, bypassing both police authorities and chief officers. But I do not want to give the Secretary of State any more ideas. I am concerned about the changes to the current duties of police authorities to obtain the views of the community on policing. This was previously in primary legislation and now moves to secondary legislation, once again enabling the Secretary of State to order authorities to make consultation arrangements. It is a fundamental responsibility of police authorities to consult communities on how the police function. There are wide powers in secondary legislation to determine and change the membership of CDRPs. We will find out more of the Government’s thinking in Committee. I have some concerns over the proposals for local authority representation in proposed strategic areas, mainly because of the large number of councils involved, given that the Bill seems to suggest that all district councils should be given representation on what will become the new strategic police authorities. The noble Baroness, Lady Henig, referred to this, as did the noble Lord, Lord Waddington. I think that I would want that, if legislation suggested that I could have it. On top of that, how will political balance be guaranteed under the proposals for police authority members? Will this not mean huge new authorities to cope with the disproportion of representation across a huge new policing area? Just how many seats on each of these authorities will there be? One of the most difficult matters for me to accept is the power to be given to the Secretary of State to appoint a chair and one or more vice-chairs of a police authority. I well remember the fierce battle that we had on all sides of the political divide when this measure was originally proposed by the then Conservative Home Secretary, Kenneth Clarke. It is iniquitous that the police authority cannot be held responsible for choosing its own chair any more. That is wrong and completely unacceptable. We will closely examine other paragraphs in this schedule dealing with membership of police authorities. All the regulations, of course, can be made by negative resolution—so no parliamentary debate, again. The proposal to remove from police authorities the need to apply best-value reviews, performance plans, audit and so on is just plain stupid. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich felt strongly about this, as did the noble Lord, Lord Harris. How can police authorities fulfil a duty to secure best value without having the ability to conduct best-value reviews? If reviews are conducted properly, they are the mechanism through which problems are both identified and resolved. For example, a review team would identify the functions being performed, challenge their need, discover missing functions and develop smarter practices. Just because such a mess has been made of best value throughout government departments does not mean that other organisations cannot undertake best value and maintain continuous improvement in their operations. I spoke recently against the proposals dealing with force mergers as outlined by the Secretary of State and I agree with the sentiments expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay of St Johns. I will refer to them briefly here. Underlying many of these proposed changes is, of course, the looming prospect of large strategic forces, which we will do all that we can during the passage of the Bill to resist. In no way will they improve local accountability. How can they, if they are far larger than those in the present boundaries? How will the needs of the rural areas be protected from the inevitable demands of the high crime urban areas within the same huge force area? Again, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, referred to this, as did my noble friend Lord Dholakia and the noble Lord, Lord Waddington. What do the Government have to say about their own Home Office strategy unit report of 2004? The report said:"““Evidence from other sectors suggests that merger can be a costly, protracted exercise which does not always deliver expected benefits and inevitably causes distraction for management and staff””." The truth is that one report, concluded—after many drafts—with the political direction that the Secretary of State desired, has decided the fate of local democracy and its ability to scrutinise effectively the most important organisation affecting our lives and security. It is a bitter day when Government fail to listen to the clearly expressed will of the people. People do not want these large forces and the Government would do well to heed them. We oppose the removal of magistrate members from police authorities, as does the noble Viscount, Lord Tenby. I declare an interest in this as a former magistrate and now a supplemental magistrate member. Magistrates bring a much needed wider perspective to how policing is practically administered and we will be resisting moves to take them off police authorities. New powers given to the Home Secretary will allow him to decide what issues a police authority looks into, requiring them to determine objectives and to issue plans and reports. Again, that is more intervention from the Secretary of State. We have grave concerns about the parenting contracts—my noble friends Lady Linklater and Lady Walmsley spoke about this, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Stern. Once again the phrase,"““or is likely to engage””," in anti-social behaviour appears. Like my noble friend Lady Walmsley, I ask whether the Government are saying that they are now able to guess what a child might do. That indeed would be an amazing assumption. These orders should be used not only to prevent anti-social behaviour but also to promote the well-being of the child or young person. To extend these powers to registered social landlords is not appropriate and I urge the Minister to think again about that. Where do the registered social landlords get their special expertise in deciding whether a child should be subject to one of these orders? The specialist resources needed to do this properly surely come from within local authorities and other specialist agencies. Under the crime and anti-social behaviour provisions, will the Government consider reinstating reporting restrictions for children subjected to ASBO proceedings? These are important aspects which touch on the Convention on the Rights of the Child; the removal of the safeguards of reporting restrictions in these proceedings may well violate children’s rights under Article 37 of the convention and possibly Articles 3 and 8 of the ECHR. There are also concerns about holding children in prison. My noble friend Lord Carlile of Berriew’s investigation into the use of restraint, segregation and strip searching of children in prison was extremely damning of our practices in this country. My noble friend Lady Linklater made reference to this. The Youth Justice Board’s findings also showed that, in the 12 months to September 2005, painful restraint was used 768 times in the four privately run secure training centres alone, resulting in 51 child injuries. Twenty-nine children have died in penal custody since 1990, nine of whom were on remand. No public inquiry into a child’s death in custody has ever taken place. That is an appalling scandal. I believe that it would now be appropriate for the Government to end penal custody for children and to look at other methods of securing appropriate punishment. Most speakers have commented on the merging of the inspectorates. I have great unease about the proposal. The specialist skills and knowledge of the people presently occupying these organisations is unique and invaluable. It was a great privilege to hear the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, speak from his very specialist knowledge base. For those people to lose their ability to undertake the crucial task of scrutiny of our police, prisons, the CPS, the probation service and court administration would be catastrophic. I hope that the Minister will look again at how they could be enabled to work more closely rather than to impose such enormous changes on the entirety of the services that they so professionally and ably supply. The amendments to the Extradition Act in Schedule 14—to which a number of my noble friends, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay of St Johns, the noble Lords, Lord Hurd of Westwell and Lord Waddington, and the noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, referred—also give us some concern. Previously, a requesting authority had to establish a prima facie case to obtain extradition. Now all that is needed is proof of identity before sending someone to their fate. As we have heard, we were told that an order which allowed extradition to the US would be followed by US ratification of the treaty. That was back in December 2003 yet nothing appears to have been done about it. Should not this now be rethought properly and proportionate measures be taken if extradition is deemed necessary? Finally, I am glad that I am not the only one who believes that this Bill is a mish-mash of different provisions, repeals and revocations. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich feels as I do. There are five and a half pages of them. The sheer number of Acts being amended and re-amended, and those that have previously been subject to multiple variation through statutory instrument and are now further amended by the Bill before us, is, quite frankly, depressing. Is it not high time that we consolidated much of these proposed measures into coherent, sensible legislation, understandable to everyone? That would be a good power for the Secretary of State to take unto himself. I commend that action to him.