Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

My Lords, I thank your Lordships for such a warm welcome from across the Committee. I would appreciate it in any circumstances, but I have been in this post for only 48 hours, and the very last thing I was told was, ““Oh, by the way, there is a Committee stage to take on Wednesday””, so I have particularly appreciated your kindness and generosity this afternoon. I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Harris of Richmond and to the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, for tabling this amendment as they have given us an opportunity to discuss other models of accountability. Indeed, our debate today has been wide ranging, so wide ranging that I believe it would be a great pity if we were denied through a vote any chance of discussing what are clearly matters that many noble Lords consider to be very important that will follow from the first group of amendments. In winding up this debate, I will not be able to cover every point that has been made. Not only have they been wide ranging, but there is clearly common cause in many areas of policy. I cannot go out on a limb as a new Minister and say, ““Okay, I’ll go along with that””, but I will take away from this debate and subsequent debates areas where I feel we might improve the Bill with the contributions of noble Lords. I stand in great awe of the vast experience in this House, whether noble Lords are in favour of the Bill or not. This is your Lordships' House at its best. This is what this House is about. It is where that experience and expertise come together. I may not always appreciate it, but I am sure I am going to be very grateful for the opportunity to hear first-hand. I am new to the role, and I have had to ask myself some searching questions in taking on these new responsibilities, but I hope to set that out. I shall begin by dealing with one or two areas that your Lordships have raised that perhaps have common cause and where it might be helpful if I respond specifically to points raised. The first was raised by my noble friend Lady Harris who was very concerned that commissioners will have fewer powers than police authorities. Police and crime commissioners will not have fewer powers than the authority. However, they will be subject to checks and balances. I hope we can go into more detail on that because it is clearly a matter that we have to get right. They have got to be there. The police and crime panels have been mentioned, and we will come on to them later in the Bill. They will have the power of veto over the proposed precept, and there will be other measures that we will perhaps want to discuss in more detail. The noble Baroness, Lady Henig, who has put her name to this amendment, spoke about how PCCs will work with local partnerships, which is very important. They will be able to bring community partnerships at force level better to tackle areas of concern. They will also be able to make grants to partnerships to respond to local needs, rather than responding to centrally imposed initiatives. Getting this right and targeted at local level is extremely important. Many noble Lords referred to the protocol which was published yesterday and which I hope your Lordships have been able to access in the Printed Paper Office. I clarify that it has ““final draft”” printed on it. In other words, the draft is final, but it is still a work in progress. Some noble Lords have expressed concern about the protocol and others were perhaps not aware that a lot of work has gone into it. The work in it has been contributed to by many bodies, including the Association of Police Authorities, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Local Authority Chief Executives. When we see the final version of the protocol, which people will now have an opportunity to contribute to, it is important that it gets right the balance between the commissioner and the chief constable. We all recognise the sensitivity of this, and I was very encouraged, for example, that on publication today the Metropolitan Police put out a statement which welcomed the publication of the protocol. It said that it provides clear direction on the roles of chief constables, PCCs and the Home Secretary, ensuring the balance between operational independence and appropriate public accountability. I emphasise that this is not the final version of the protocol but the final draft, so there will be an opportunity for a lot more input on this. The MPS specifically welcomes the inclusion of the fact that the PCC must set the strategic direction and objectives of the force and decide the budget of the force while the chief constable will remain operationally independent. That is something that has been focused on by all sides of the Committee during today’s debate. Many people have raised issues that come up in later amendments. If your Lordships will forgive me, I shall not go into them in too much detail, although I have copious notes. I hope that you will instead indulge me while I share with the Committee my personal view on the amendments in this group. I am pleased to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, that I quite take the point that she raised about Wales, but there will be a meeting on Friday between Home Office officials and the Assembly. We recognise that that matter needs to be addressed rapidly. The noble Lord, Lord Dear, who made a compelling contribution today, wrote in the Times last week that he has seen this reform evolve into the Bill and that he firmly believed that the introduction of police and crime commissioners will lead to better policing in our country and a better, more responsive public service, something that any public service reform should aim to achieve. I am very grateful to the noble Lord for that, and for his contribution today. Many people have spoken in support of the principle, and it is to the principle of the amendments that I want to address my remarks rather than drill down to the detail, which I hope we will do in later amendments. I have no doubt that your Lordships will want to continue in the true spirit of this House and seek to review, revise and improve the Bill in the days ahead. However, I am clear that, once the case for reform is considered and a model is set out in its entirety, review and improvement are precisely the tasks in hand here, rather than dismissal or fundamental alteration of the PCC model. Perhaps I may share with your Lordships the reason why I agree with the principle of the Bill. This was touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss and my noble friend Lord Hamilton—my noble friend used the term the ““middle classes””; I think that I know what he means by that. I was a Member of Parliament for nearly 20 years in rural Devonshire. As my noble friend said, I had a lot of dealings with police authorities and the excellent Devon and Cornwall force. I think that any of us who have observed, worked and had ongoing communication at close quarters with both police authorities and police forces, including chief constables, recognise that they are excellent people who achieve a lot and work very hard. However, I have in recent years expressed to police authorities and chief constables my worry that a serious disconnect has grown up between them and the public. I shall not call them the middle classes, but what I will call them is that great body of the British people who live their lives by the law, who seek to keep the law, who respect the law and who bring up their children to respect the law. When that group of people—label them however you will—starts to believe that the police are not on their side nor are there for them, we should regard it as a dangerous slippery slope. That was my experience as a Member of Parliament. It is no reflection on the Devon and Cornwall force, whom I regard very highly; my concern came about because of the way policing changed, because of directives that came from on high, and because we did not look at how we might keep that connection with the public. Policing by consent is at the heart of our policing in this country and has been for generations. We are policed by people who live and work among us. Therefore, it is extremely important that the people regard the police as being there to protect them and to respond to them. I know that there can be vexatious complainants —we have all had them—and they can be a real pain, but the main body of the public expect something to happen when they are victims of crime, whatever its level. When they feel let down, which I believe many people have begun to feel, we must address it by doing something more than maintain the status quo and reconnect the police with the people in their communities. That is why, although I come to this subject matter from a very low base as I am sure many of your Lordships will tweak out from me in the days and week to come, I believe in the principle of the Bill. I believe in the reconnection that it brings about. That is why I have no hesitation in saying that I shall be very happy to take it through your Lordships' House, although I hope that we can improve the detail on the way. If the intent of the amendment is to question the need for reform, I ask your Lordships to consider the evidence when assessing the effectiveness of the current system, over and above my own personal experience as a former Member of Parliament. Cabinet Office research in 2008 showed that 7 per cent of the public understand that they can approach their police authority if they are dissatisfied with policing. This is at the heart of the case for change. For example, when the Mayor of London took on responsibility for policing in London, having a recognisable figure in charge prompted more than a fourfold rise in the amount of correspondence and contact from the public. That was a significant change that shows that the public care but that they just do not know who to call. As has already been mentioned, independent inspection by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and the Audit Commission showed that less than one in three police authorities, which are charged with providing the vital link between police and public, was engaging well with its communities. Only one, Lancashire, was performing excellently in community engagement. This is not about the individuals who sit on police authorities, who I am quite sure have worked extremely hard and diligently and given great public service, but more the corporate view. However, there is a need now for change. The inspection also showed that only four out of 22 authorities inspected—less than 20 per cent—were performing well both in setting strategic direction and ensuring value for money, the most fundamental of their functions. Less than one in three police authorities inspected was performing well in scrutinising its force, and one was performing poorly. The current model, with police forces accountable to police authorities, simply does not provide the public with the mechanism for holding their police service to account. To those who say that it does not matter, I have to say that I disagree, because repeated research has shown that the public are interested and want a say in their policing. The success of the crime-mapping website, launched in February this year, is evidence of the public interest, having had 410 million hits. Perhaps we need to look at the route by which the public can make contact with those responsible for policing. Cabinet Office research in 2008 showed that more than two-thirds of the public wanted an elected person to hold the police to account. The evidence as to the process that we would need to undertake to make changes that meet what the public expect forms the basis of this legislation. I ask your Lordships to consider what a singly elected representative means in the light of all this evidence. It means a voice responsive to local people’s needs, both visible and accountable. It means an elected individual charged with being the voice of some of the most vulnerable people, particularly those who are victims of crime and for whom the Bill would be particularly important. It means somebody to hear those voices and act upon them at both the local and the national level. Quite simply, after careful consideration I believe that police and crime commissioners will be both visible and democratically accountable. When I read the briefing notes for the Bill, of which I have had a great many, I asked myself why that mattered. What did it mean in terms of real results and outcomes? We hear a lot about outcomes, but they are important. Looking at the reform in detail, it is not unnecessary organisational change for the sake of change: it goes to the heart of effective policing and delivering policing by consent. The much quoted Peelian principal, which has already been quoted once today, that: "““The police are the public and the public are the police””," is as important in today's society as it was in the 19th century. That means a public who feel that the police’s fight against criminals is their own fight and a police service that feels that the public's concerns and issues are also their own. That creates a society of capable guardians willing to step up and take a stand to support their police service and their communities. It does not benefit the organisation: it benefits the public whom the organisation is there to serve. The Government are clear that there is a need to replace police authorities. While there are examples around the country of individuals who work hard, it is clear that the system is not working in order to achieve the outcome that we are seeking in making that important and now very timely reconnection between the people and the police. We are not alone as a Government in believing that. There is a consensus across the main parties that some form of direct accountability is needed. The coalition agreement brings together the Conservative model of a directly elected individual with the Liberal Democrat model of a directly elected police authority. As we have heard, Labour also acknowledged that, in former legislation that it considered but did not bring forward. Police authorities are not as responsive as they could be to the needs of local communities. That is something that we need to address. The Government's proposed reforms are intended to address that gap. I now come to the issue that I believe is where the debate is to be had—on checks and balances. They have already been mentioned a lot today. We believe that the checks and balances should rest outside the office of the police and crime commissioner and I welcome the opportunity for us to discuss that in much more detail in amendments that will follow. The checks and balances should be strong but, in keeping them separate from the PCC, we will ensure that policing can benefit from a clear mandate and accountability that is lacking at the moment. Putting the functions together in any form of committee or commission does not fit the key weakness that we are trying to deal with. Crucially, it removes any direct accountability and returns to accountability by committee, which we know has not worked. Therefore, I must say to my noble friend that I recognise the feeling with which she brings the amendments to the House today, not least because she has dedicated her life to something that the coalition Government are now proposing to abolish and replace with something else. But I hope that she will understand that I believe the way forward is for us to review and improve the legislation before your Lordships' House. There is a lot of detail to be discussed in the course of this Committee. I ask my noble friend seriously to consider withdrawing her amendment. I will not go into the history of whether it is appropriate or not because I have not been in your Lordships' House long enough to know whether a vote at Committee stage is or is not appropriate or should or should not be opposed. However, we have a lot of work to do in this House in scrutinising this important Bill. If these amendments are voted on and carried today, we shall lose a lot of valuable time today and later in the Bill for scrutinising and carrying out the function that your Lordships do so well.