Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 64B, which differs only in a minor fashion from one or two of the others, and in support of Amendments 66A, 67, 67B and 234A to 234Q, to which I have added my name. I want to say why all this stuff matters. It no doubt seems like a terribly arcane set of arguments, but I rather suspect that some of our discussions on this group of amendments will determine whether what the Government are trying to do on police accountability actually happens. The way that the Government have framed all this is a recipe to undermine police accountability rather than strengthen it. I am sure that that is not the intention, but I suspect we have ended up here almost by accident. Let me explain what I mean: it relates to the amendments dealing with corporations sole. The Government have decided that it would be appropriate for chief officers of police and the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis to have responsibility for the employment of police staff—a function currently carried out by police authorities. I think that is the wrong decision because it places too much power in the hands of a single individual. It is the argument that we have about policing and crime commissioners, and everything else. However, it is particularly difficult in a policing context. There is a tendency among some chief officers of police to have around them a group of blue-eyed boys and girls who they see as their favoured supporters, and who they tend to promote in favour of others. One of the checks and balances that we have at the moment is that appointments at ACPO rank—commanders in the Met and assistant chief constables and above outside—are appointed by a panel from the police authority rather than simply on the decision of the chief officer of police. I am suggesting not that chief officers of police would use this power capriciously but that the temptation or tendency might be there. Having worked closely with a number of chief officers of police, I am well aware that some of them have extremely strong personalities and that they like to get their own way. This is about creating some checks and balances on those very strong personalities from getting their own way on every single occasion. It is going to be particularly important on employment. It is actually a protection for the chief officers of police not to be doing this or not to be taking sole responsibility. I lose track of the number of instances where there have been complaints following appointment processes in the police service—the police are a particularly litigious lot. The complaints were about whether processes have been followed properly, whether there has been favouritism or whether individuals have been discriminated against. For a chief officer of police to be able to say, ““Actually, this was done through a proper equal opportunities process and properly documented by the police authority”” is an important protection. However, Ministers in their wisdom have decided that the employment function for police staff, as well as for the appointment of senior officers, should pass to the chief officer of police. If that is the decision that the Government have taken, it is of course not too late for them to reconsider this matter. I do not believe that it runs to the centre of the main political headline that the Government wish to achieve by all of this, so they have that opportunity but they have made that commitment. To make that commitment work, as police officers have a particular status of being officers of the Crown, if you transfer responsibility for police staff across to chief officers of police you have to create the legal framework around which that can happen. The solution that the Government have come up with is to create chief officers of police as corporations sole. It might be ““corporation soles”” but I leave that for others with a more distinguished track record in the English language to determine. Creating them as a corporation sole is seen as a solution. The trouble is that the corporation sole is defined in this Bill not just in relation to employment purposes but in general terms. That gives the chief officer of police all sorts of additional power as has been referred to. There has already been mention of entering into contracts and all these other things. Therefore, you have transferred power from what is currently the body to which the chief officer of police is accountable to the chief officer of police. You have diminished the line of accountability. I am sure the Government would argue that, because in their preferred model the police and crime commissioner is directly elected, the extra authority of being directly elected will counterbalance the transfer of power that has been achieved by some of the other changes to the chief officer of police. I have to say to your Lordships that I am not sure that that is the case. Part of exercising power, responsibility and your role in terms of accountability is having a number of levers to operate and strings to pull. Some of those are about contracts and these other processes. This is about finance and the ownership of property. The noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, will recall an occasion when I was chair of the police authority and he was the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, when we disagreed on some point. I admit that I can no longer remember the precise nature of the disagreement. The consequence of this was that for an exciting 48 hours the Metropolitan Police Authority withdrew financial delegation from the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis. This produced a dramatic reaction and much toing and froing. The Home Office was called in and there was all sorts of excitement. However, the point was made. It was the exercise of, if not soft power, semi-hard power by using the levers that were available. What the Government are in danger of doing is removing some of those levers. It will make it more difficult on occasions, when perhaps an amicable agreement has not been reached in the way it normally would. Most of the time our relations were extremely amicable. However, sometimes you need those powers and that facility. The Government are in danger of taking away all that. You will end up with elected police and crime commissioners, or whatever other model, if the Government ultimately have their way on this Bill. The expectation of the public will be that these individuals—or the commission, or whatever it turns out to be—have the power to hold the chief officer to account. However, it will be a case of the emperor’s new clothes. Although you will have the elected authority, you will not have the mechanisms to make something happen in extremis. This is likely to lead to disputes. There will be areas where the question of what is operational, as opposed to what is the legitimate role of the body that holds the police to account, will come into sharp relief. I recall lengthy debates, mostly after my time as chair of the police authority, between the police authority and the Metropolitan Police about the use of Tasers. This is often a controversial area. We were concerned about the move to have Tasers more widely used within the Metropolitan Police district. Under the arrangements here, if you are not careful, the chief officer of police, holding out the protocol that the Home Office has carefully crafted, may say, ““This is my operational decision””. Not only will the chief officer of police be able to say that, he could also say, ““Because I am a corporation sole, I have placed a contract for the delivery of 2,000 Tasers with a company and there is nothing that you, as the elected police body, can do about it””. I rather suspect that when Ministers went down the road of strengthening police accountability they believed that there were some matters over which the elected police and crime commissioner could say to the chief officer, ““I believe, as a matter of public policy, and as the individual directly elected by the public, that you should be much more cautious about the use of Tasers””. One could give plenty of other examples but the same principles apply. By having such a broad definition of ““corporation sole”” so as to protect the decision that apparently has been taken with regard to the employment of staff, the Government are in danger of throwing away all the other mechanisms that the elected individual and the elected policing body can use to ensure that the police service is accountable. I do not think that that is what the Government want to do. That is why these amendments have been tabled. They are central to the thrust of the Bill. Irrespective of what the Government, this House and Parliament as a whole end up doing as regards the headlines of the Bill, this matter must be right because if the Government get it wrong they will end up with completely toothless bodies allegedly holding the police to account. The public will expect them to hold the police to account but they will not have the mechanisms to do so. I wish to say a few words about the amendments relating to the chief finance officer. Again, I suspect this is something that the Government have not thought deeply about. It is part of the same process of giving a little bit more to the chief officer of police and forgetting that you are throwing away some of the mechanisms by which he may be held accountable. The Government are creating—I am sure this is not deliberate—two parallel but totally separate financial systems and two statutory chief finance officers, one in the force and one in the policing body. That means that there will have to be two completely separate sets of accounts, audited for the time being by the Audit Commission while it continues to exist, but both will be externally audited separately. There will be separate audit departments. A whole series of separate arrangements will be put in place because that will be required. There will be an extraordinary situation in London if the Government bring forward some of these changes early there, which means that they may occur as soon as 1 October. A set of accounts will have to be produced for the period up to 30 September and then, by 1 October, two entirely separate financial systems will have to be set up. Those will be separately audited in order to produce two completely new sets of audited accounts for the period from 1 October to 31 March. If nothing else, this seems to me a cavalier use of public money at a time when we are told that every effort should be made to economise. I suspect that this duplication is unnecessary and unintended. I hope that the Minister will take this matter back, the Home Office will look at it again and that it can be sorted out without this unnecessary duplication.