Policing and Crime Bill

My Lords, like my noble friend Lady Harris, I have been a Member of this House for 10 years. When I first came here, I learnt that you should never talk about anything you do not know something about. I feel moved to speak in the debate because I was a member of the Thames Valley Police Authority from 1993 to 1995 and from 1997 to 2008—13 years. During that time the authority had three chief constables and three out of six women holding ACPO officer rank. Yet I can remember the days when Michael Howard, who I have not heard mentioned, was Home Secretary. He came to Thames Valley and told us that we had to lose 200 officers—that is 7 per cent of our constables. I should like the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, when he sums up, to tell us that that is not on the agenda of the Conservative Party, and that we shall not very quickly see a return to form and a reduction in police availability. I have also witnessed many initiatives attempting to increase efficiency. I must say that most of these have led to more bureaucracy and centralisation. I am fairly independent on who I criticise. I remember Jack Straw and David Blunkett. I remember the despair in the authority surrounding each measure that they proposed to introduce, the huge amount of work it meant and the huge amount of police resources that were taken from actually doing a policing job to responding to new legislative proposals. I am also very much in the court of the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, in thinking that an elected commissioner would be absolutely awful. I cannot see who will vote in an election for that position other than various extremists, the sort of people who would probably elect people dressed in monkey suits and so on. It is fashionable to think of the police as thugs, social workers as soft, and politicians as crooks. That seems to be the mood of the moment. Of course, we are also asked to believe that all journalists are saints. However, most policemen are honest and are keen to do a good job. Most of them join the force to spend their time catching villains, not filling out forms and responding to various consultation documents. They dislike paperwork and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, said, the police should be visible on the streets, so that the public, who are paying for them, know what they are actually doing. I have witnessed increased centralisation, direction and interference from the Home Office; an increased tendency to load the police with greater responsibilities; and, particularly latterly—noble Lords have referred to the alcohol problem—a total distortion in the deployment of resources that is necessary to police alcohol problems experienced in our city and town centres at weekends. I am sorry that I am giving noble Lords a lecture on what I can remember, but I remember the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, introducing the Licensing Bill and telling us that we would move to a "café culture", as on the continent. I ask the Minister if he has been walking around the streets of our inner cities late on Friday and Saturday nights to see whether what goes on there—which I can assure him is squalid, violent and degraded—has anything to do with the café culture. How proud is the Labour Party that it has left us with this legacy? It may not be proud of other things, of course. I have recently observed that the police force increasingly feels that it is the fourth emergency service. In fact, many people, including county council workers, go home on a Friday night, but the police happen to be on duty all the time. Anyone who has ever been to a police control centre and listened to the calls that come in will know that most are not about someone being attacked, for example, but are from people seeking access to various social services which only the police are there to answer for. On the composition of police authorities, I have also seen a large number of women join; and in Thames Valley Police Authority, as it was when I left it last year, three out of 19 members were from ethnic minorities, including the chairman. I have also seen—the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, referred to this—much more independence from the political process among members of the authorities. I believe that more responsibility needs to be invested in police authorities. They know about local priorities. Despite what the noble Lord, Lord Patten, said, they are involved in a huge amount of consultation with all sorts of people right down to the neighbourhood action groups, as well as with business and local councils. The chief constable spent a huge amount of time visiting people and even taking the maps, to which the noble Lord, Lord Patten, referred, showing the violence ward by ward. I just say to the Minister that the police authorities know what they are doing, as do the chief constables, the ACPO rank officers and the chief superintendents. I share the reservations expressed by my noble friend Lady Harris about value for money. Huge amounts of consultants’ time was taken up in value-for-money exercises, which quite honestly in many cases could have been done by one intelligent person in a day, and a huge amount of money was spent. Although this has nothing to do with the Bill, I refer in passing to the county of Surrey, which is being capped. It has an elected police authority, and many of its members have to face elections this week. If the people of Surrey do not like those members asking for more money, they can of course reject them at the election. That is probably the best way in democratic terms, as opposed to the Home Secretary imposing from on high his or her view of what should happen. One has to understand that an authority such as Surrey is close to the Met. Every officer there can transfer to the Met and get more salary and more pension, and therefore that authority is constantly losing people. I ask the Minister whether anything is being done to effect some form of transfer fee for the forces around London, which train people in, for example, firearms and investigation, and then lose them to the Met on transfer and have to start all over again. I believe that the changes in Part 1 are unnecessary, as it is possible to increase efficiency and facilitate co-operation without this Bill. For example, we appointed a joint IT team for the Thames Valley and Hampshire, and we had an arrangement with Bedfordshire whereby we looked after the vehicles. It is possible to do these things and directions do not need to be given. I believe that independence is needed in the selection of chief constables and ACPO ranks. We get good advice from HMIC and the Association of Police Authorities. I have taken part in a lot of interviews, and we choose the people who are best for the job. They may not always be right at the top of the list because to some extent it has to be a case of horses for courses: policing is different in different areas, and the police authorities are well aware of that. I wonder why the Government always reach for bureaucratic tools, vast computer systems and monitoring bodies, rather than facilitating getting on with the job, which I think most people want. I said that we will resist any further centralisation in the Bill. We will facilitate rather than prescribe collaboration, and obviously we are open to listening to any sensible proposals about alcohol misuse. The proceeds of crime section of the Bill has many welcome intentions. However, I remind Members of the House that we passed the Proceeds of Crime Act in 2002 and there are now 45 pages in this Bill amending the Act that we passed only a few years ago. That does not say very much for the drafting of the original Bill. Furthermore, of course, the Government resisted a huge number of the amendments that were put forward during the consideration of that legislation. Airport security is an area to which I will turn in Committee. There is a very bad arrangement whereby the chief constable decides what is necessary at an airport and the airport pays. There appears to be very little discussion and the arrangements for resolving disputes are unsatisfactory. Of course, airports are under huge financial pressure at the moment. Their revenue is falling, they are going to pay passenger tax and their policing costs are going up. Serious consideration needs to be given to an arrangement such as exists between the railway network and the British Transport Police. There are genuine negotiations between the train operating companies and Network Rail as to what policing and security are necessary, and who is going to pay for that. I cannot accept that we should just take the word of a policeman, who probably views an airport as a big target and therefore wants to deploy a lot of people there. Railway stations are also big targets but we see much more negotiation there. I shall mention just one or two other things. I wish that the Government would address the question of police service. The luxury of retiring after 30 years’ service may have been appropriate when policemen were expected to chase criminals down the street. However, I have seen people leaving the police force with a very good pension at the age of 51 or 52 and then marching into another job with a big salary. The Government have to consider extending the time spent in the police force. People are living longer and I think that they should contribute more. I shall leave it at that but we look forward to many more debates as we progress through the Bill.