Policing and Crime Bill

The noble Baroness, Lady Henig, has made a constructive speech and, while disagreeing with the change from non-statutory to statutory, she has produced some constructive amendments. She has raised several points about the panel—in particular, the role that the Secretary of State will play in the appointments process—and about the ongoing development of the panel. A shake-up is clearly needed in the appointments process. The difficulty of attracting sufficient numbers of appropriately qualified candidates to apply for available positions is an indication that much more needs to be done to support and train candidates to prepare them for senior roles. However, I agree with both noble Baronesses who have spoken that some concerns remain, certainly among outside organisations, that the Government have not established the panel on the best footing to achieve this. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us more detail on exactly how he envisages this legislation improving how the panel currently operates. The role is to be put on a statutory basis, as the Government propose. However, in the previous arrangements, if the Secretary of State had wanted to consult the non-statutory appointments panel, there was nothing to stop him. We generally support this clause as a welcome sign that the Government have turned their attention to a pressing problem and hope that the panel will be able to make an important contribution to the process. We agree, however, with the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, that the changes that need to be made are not ones that can be legislated for; they need to be made in government and in the police bodies. I turn to the details of the provisions—and this is where we very much agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Harris—and how they differ from the proposals in the noble Baroness’s amendment. The noble Baroness is quite right to highlight the significant powers that the Secretary of State is taking over the constitution of the panel in the future. We understand the need for some flexibility, but the failure to specify the number of members or the relative proportions of the representative members means that the future make-up of the panel could well be very different from the model envisaged by the Government. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us more detail on this matter.