Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

My Lords, I am grateful for the generally thoughtful tone of the debate this afternoon and evening, even if it was not especially supportive of the Government’s position. Like other noble Lords, I was struck by the fact that it was graced by three outstanding maiden speeches, from my noble friends Lady Berridge, Lady Newlove and Lord Blencathra. Listening to the speech of my noble friend Lady Newlove, in particular—I agree with those who said how moving it was; indeed, she told a tragic story—I was reminded that this Bill is also a social responsibility Bill. I am sure that the whole House hopes that when enacted it will reduce the likelihood of the sort of incident that she described occurring in the future. As time is short, I should like to confine the greater part of my closing remarks to Part 1 of the Bill. I hope that the House will understand if I do not tackle all the points made, but I hope to touch on the key themes. Something else that struck me in the debate was the fact that many of the doubts expressed by Members of this House betrayed what I would regard as being a preference for expertise over visible leadership, reliance on robust democracy and indeed the good sense of the electorate—a prejudice that my noble friend Lord Howard warned us against at the beginning of the debate. Reliance on the people is not, as some noble Lords have suggested, naivety. It is actually healthy democracy. As against that, I particularly welcome the offer from those who have considerable experience in policing to work with us to engage constructively on making these reforms work. Of course, I accept that there are ways in which they can be improved. The core of the Bill, however, is about accountability. It is not about operational policing matters. The Bill will support operational matters and will not, as has been suggested, somehow adversely affect them. That is why your Lordships did not hear from me this evening about many operational policing matters, on which Members on the opposition Benches have touched. I agree with those who have said that we have the best police service in the world, but we do not have the best governance of that police service. It is that aspect that the Bill is designed to improve. There have been many queries as to why the reforms are needed and why they are needed now. Let me touch on this again; I spelt it out in my opening remarks, but it is worth repeating one or two of the points. A number of noble Lords suggested that the reforms are not needed. We disagree. It is clear, as I have indicated, that there are some philosophical differences between us, as well as, I suspect, differences in the assessment of the quality of the situation that we have at the moment. In our view, the case for change is clear. Police authorities are not sufficiently connected to the public. We know this because only 7 per cent of the public understand that they can approach their police authority if they are dissatisfied with policing. I reject the argument that anonymity does not matter. A typical police authority gets only about two letters a week from the public. When the Mayor of London took on the responsibility of policing in our city, the fact that there was a recognisable figure in charge prompted a significant rise in the amount of correspondence received from the public. The public care and, contrary to what has been suggested, they are not satisfied. At the moment, they simply do not know whom to call. We believe that some of the provisions, which have not received great attention in the debate, for greater transparency in all the proceedings that will take place between the police and crime commissioner, the chief constable and the PCPs, which lie at the core of the Bill, will help immensely in generating greater information about and confidence in the police. The noble Baroness, Lady Harris, argued that no police authorities had failed their inspections. That is the case, but we do not think that not failing is good enough. As I mentioned, only four police authorities are performing well out of the 22 inspected by HMIC. I think that we all agree that HMIC must be respected in its judgments. We believe that we can do better than that and that the public have a right to expect better performance. We also think that there is a democratic deficit between the authorities and the public whom they are meant to serve. Only 8 per cent of wards in England and Wales are represented on a police authority. We think that the system of governance, even if it is not broken, is not performing well enough and requires improvement, so we are going to make the changes. We also think that the change is needed now. As I indicated, the Government do not believe that piloting would be helpful. I have no doubt that I will have considerable opportunity in Committee to explain in greater detail why I think that that is the case, but I must inform the House that I will be resisting that idea vigorously. The coalition parties support the direct democratic reform of police authorities. It is interesting that the Opposition also favour the democratic reform of police authorities. The only difference between the Opposition and the coalition Government is how, not whether, it should occur. That puts a point on some of the arguments that we have heard tonight. Right at the outset of the debate, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, suggested that HMIC be asked to approve the Government’s reforms before they are instituted or that there should be a series of local referenda before they could take effect. If we think, as a House and as Parliament, that direct democracy in policing could be improved, it seems to me odd that we should suggest that HMIC should make a judgment on what is clearly a political matter. That is not what HMIC is there for. As for local referenda, the PCCs are a national policy, and a single system of governance is needed. Policing crosses force boundaries, just as criminals do, and we must have a degree of commonality in how it operates, so I do not think that we can go for local referenda. In respect of the arguments made to the effect that these reforms will politicise policing—we have heard a great deal of that this evening—I want to be absolutely clear: that will not be the case. There is no reason why there should not be partnership between the PCC and the chief constable. Many of the Bill’s provisions are clearly designed as a failsafe, in case there are problems. But the whole premise of the Bill is that there should be partnership. We agree with those who say that there should be partnership, and we are confident that partnership will come about. Equally, it is important, as the whole House acknowledges—we certainly support this—that the operational independence of chief officers is not prejudiced. It will not change. Under the 1996 Act chiefs will continue to have direction and control of their staff. Operational independence is already protected, not just by measures in primary legislation but also in common law and the attestation of all constables on appointment, as has been said in debate. It is a cornerstone of British policing and nothing—nothing—in the Bill or any protocol that we produce will alter that, but we shall seek to make the principles of the relationship between the various parties clear in the protocol. It has been well said that the police are answerable to the law. Indeed, we are all answerable to the law. But the Government see no contradiction between being answerable to the law and being accountable. These two things go hand in hand. I have no doubt that in debate we will spend some time on the arrangements in London. I am not going to deal with those this evening, but I should like to make a comment on one point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Harris. He seemed to be suggesting—perhaps I have him wrong—that because the precise method of accountability of the chief constable had not been prescribed in the legislation, therefore it could be assumed that there was no such answerability. That is not the case. The PCC has the same statutory responsibility to hold the chief constable to account as he has at present to the police authority. Not everything has to be spelt out in detail in the legislation as if no one is capable—