Policing and Crime Bill

Clearly, the noble Baronesses tabled these amendments because they think the Secretary of State’s powers and involvement in the budgetary and financial affairs, strategic direction and performance management of police authorities need to be fettered to allow them greater autonomy in determining their budgets. The proposed new clause suggests that police authorities do not already have the ability to determine their own local precepts. In fact, they already have the powers suggested by this amendment—under Section 40 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992, read with Section 19 of the Police Act 1996—and will continue to do so. More worryingly, the proposed new clause seeks to remove the Government’s powers to cap police authorities. Ministers currently have powers under the Local Government Finance Act 1992—amended by the Local Government Act 1999—to cap excessive increases in council tax. These important powers protect council tax payers from excessive increases in council tax; but they are reserve powers, and are not used lightly. The Government are reluctant to cap, but cannot stand back and ignore circumstances where council tax payers are being subjected to excessive increases. It was a manifesto commitment that we would cap where such action was appropriate. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, mentioned the Surrey police authority. The Government imposed a cap on its precept because, for the second year running, it was the only authority in England and Wales to propose an excessive increase in its precept. The noble Lord said that council tax payers in Surrey were happy about the increase. I do not know whether a survey showed that they were happy about the increase to their council tax—in most places in Britain, people are not happy about such increases. The matter of the Surrey police authority has been raised a number of times in the House. When capping action is initiated, authorities have a right to challenge their proposed caps, and Ministers are bound to consider their representations carefully before taking a final decision. Authorities can be confident that, under the current system, they can present their case and ensure that Ministers are fully aware of their circumstances before taking a final decision. This is being done. When a decision is taken to cap an authority in-year, or in advance for the following year, it is subject to the approval of the House of Commons unless an authority has accepted its proposed cap. The proposed new clause goes on to remove the powers of the Secretary of State to make strategic policing priorities, performance targets and codes of practice. There will always be a need for national co-ordination of policing, so we will always need a national strategic framework to ensure that policing is being delivered efficiently and effectively. Strategic policing priorities, and the targets that flow from them, are vital to achieving this, as is the power to establish codes of conduct. They are always set at a very high level, stating what the Home Secretary thinks should be considered by police authorities when exercising their functions. They do not dictate how an authority acts or how it should act, but merely allow for a modest degree of national co-ordination of priorities. Removing them would mean that each authority would have to consult individually with the Secretary of State, and there would be no co-ordinated setting of priorities, as there is now. I see no reason to remove the current provisions, only to replace them with a duty to consult with the Home Secretary. That would be far more time-consuming for the authorities, as they would need to do this individually with no national co-ordination of strategy. I hope I have been able to convince the noble Baroness and the Committee that, in budgetary management, police authorities already have some of the powers that are being sought in the amendments, that some of the existing safeguards on capping are necessary, and that the proposed removal of the Secretary of State’s powers would spoil the very fine balance between local efficient and effective delivery policing and nationally co-ordinated and strategically consistent efficient and effective policing. I therefore ask the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.