Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Not at the moment. The Government's proposals inevitably restrict the range of candidates to either those who are sufficiently rich or those with party political backing. [Interruption.] Hon. Members are making comments from a sedentary position, but that happens to be a fact. The process of electing police and crime commissioners will be fraught with difficulty. It is not beyond the imagination of any Member of this House to see that the sensitive parameters of the commissioner's role and the importance of operational independence may be compromised, as candidates seek popular support on local law and order issues. Besides that, I feel that we are in danger of unrealistically raising the expectations of local communities about what a commissioner can truly achieve. That will serve only to undermine trust in police forces further. Once the polling has drawn to a close and the commissioner is in place, there is great potential for further problems to arise. There is an increasing risk that someone who has been elected will be reluctant to make an unpopular decision, regardless of its necessity. A prime example would be on the visibility of police officers, which is a particular concern to me. In my view, an elected commissioner would prioritise highly visible policing, such as policing to tackle antisocial behaviour, while less visible policing, such as policing to tackle organised crime, high-value electronic fraud and paedophile rings, would be left to one side. An elected commissioner would be faced with a stark choice: do they do what is in the best interests of getting re-elected, or do they do what is in the best interests of community safety? The Government's proposals mean that policing decisions will be made in people's narrow electoral interest, and not in the wider national interest. That is a concern supported by Sir Paul Stephenson, who stated that"““we must ensure that this does not become just talking about popular visibility issues””." The powers conferred on the commissioners, such as drawing up the police and crime plan, the firing of chief constables and the control of the budget, will give them a broad amount of control over operational matters. They will get to decide that visible crime such as antisocial behaviour is prioritised over invisible crime such as the criminality I discussed a few minutes ago. Bearing in mind the commissioners' wide-ranging powers and the party political nature of their election, I also have grave concern about the hijacking of these positions by extremists. Having one person in control of such a vast power, particularly in regard to law enforcement, will naturally attract those from the far right. To dismiss these concerns as ““scaremongering”” is both short-sighted and inappropriate. Twenty years ago, no one would have imagined the British National party sitting in the European Parliament. Despite not winning a parliamentary seat in this place at the last general election, its overall share of the vote increased. This Bill poses an important question for the future of this country's policing. We are faced with the choice of abandoning political independence and objective decision making for politicised choices made in the electoral interest. At stake in this Bill is the integrity of our police forces. Chief constables, such as the one in my area, are expressing concern about being forced to make cuts that will impact on front-line services. The Government must decide what they value most: is it to be the ill-thought-out, dangerous and costly policy or will they fund the police properly and ensure that front-line services are not affected?