Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill (Programme) (No. 2)

The power over the precept is an extraordinarily important one, particularly over the whole elected term of the commissioner. Even I, as a strong supporter of directly elected commissioners, would be slightly nervous about one individual on his own taking those budgetary decisions for a number of years. I welcome the involvement of the panel in that, but I do not envisage a constant negotiation—[Interruption.] I apologise to the House. A three quarters majority will be required. What is needed is almost a reserve power, so that if the commissioner wants to slash the budget massively against the will of the local area, or put through really hefty increases, there is some oversight and some way that that can be mitigated. The panel is a sensible body to do that, but we need to be clear what it would then do. Would it veto the plans and would the commissioner be obliged to accept that, or would it just say, ““Go away and think again””? The present wording, ““have regard to””, represents an intended compromise, but leads to considerable uncertainty. As none of us wants to see litigation on this aspect, I am proposing instead that we bolster the local crime panel with a clear power. That will not necessarily be a veto as, if it is, it will be a soft veto. If the panel was seriously worried about the precept, there could be a referendum in the local area. The members of the panel would be appointed by the councils in that area, so those councils would bear the cost of a referendum. They would think long and hard before calling a referendum if they were paying for it. That arrangement would provide some protection. If the commissioner went off in one direction, away from others, it would give some possibility of pulling him back, but it would not make him subject to the panel, because the commissioner would have the directly elected mandate, whereas the panel would be appointed. Giving the panel the power to require a referendum would be a sensible way forward. We may be envisaging a referendum power, but it seems that we are expecting to import parts of the Localism Bill into the policing environment, when we already have a separate police and crime panel as a check on the elected commissioner, whereas we do not have a similar check in local government. I propose that the two should be distinct and that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government should have the power of referendum for local councils, but in the policing universe where we are setting up a panel that will be representative, that panel should be responsible. In extremis, it would have the power to call a referendum on the local precept. We therefore would not need the central oversight and dictation of the Secretary of State in this area. The new clause would bring greater clarity and provide the local and democratic arrangements that we need. I commend it to the House.