Policing and Crime Bill

As was the case with Amendment 25, proposed by the noble Baronesses, Lady Harris of Richmond and Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, I reassure noble Lords that the Bill’s provisions are not intended as a form of micromanagement that is being imposed because the Home Office does not trust the police service to make its own judgments about collaboration. Instead, this is a power to direct that we expect to have to use rarely, if at all. It is a necessary failsafe as opposed to a proactive legislative tool for regular use. Our approach to promoting collaboration has been to encourage forces and authorities to take bold and, at times, innovative steps to work jointly. We continue to encourage this approach and have issued some guidance and good practice on a range of issues to ensure that we learn from those leading the way. However, as our knowledge develops further, we will become better at identifying those instances where experience tells us either that collaboration is not the right form of delivery or that a certain type of collaboration is not going to deliver the improvements needed. Rather along the lines mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, when we were discussing a previous issue, this is something to draw on. In those instances, which are likely to be rare, it is the Secretary of State’s duty to ensure that policing more generally does not suffer from the few badly executed collaborations. This growing pool of knowledge will also begin to identify preferred models of collaboration for certain policing functions that will need to benefit from a minimum level of consistency nationally in order to be effective. Police functions such as serious organised crime and counterterrorism are already providing good examples of this. In these rare instances, it is in the public interest that the national interest is reflected through the Secretary of State’s powers to intervene as a last resort. While we hope that we will not need to use this power, Clause 5 provides a legitimate attempt to ensure that, where a collaboration agreement goes against the interests of policing more generally, the Secretary of State is able to reflect and defend the public interest. Should this power need to be used, it will of course be for Parliament to scrutinise and judge the Secretary of State’s decision to act. I therefore ask that the amendment be withdrawn.