Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to the amendments. Although I have not taken up the Committee's time by tabling parallel amendments in respect of the arrangements for Greater London, they could be proposed for consideration. I want to pick up three issues. First, I echo the remarks of my noble friend Lord Beecham about the importance of chief constables being required or encouraged to attend key meetings. That ties in with Amendment 83C, to which my noble friend Lady Henig referred. It is about the visible answerability of the police in public: the police being seen to be accountable. The Government's original arrangements did not create a mechanism whereby the police would be seen to be accountable. The amendments would write that into the Bill, either under the model of a police and crime commission or whatever other model one chose. That is extremely important. I have discussed this matter with a number of senior police officers and they, too, are conscious that when they take difficult decisions it is important that they are seen to answer for them in a public forum, that they are seen to justify why they have done what they have done, and that they are seen to answer questions from those who are informed and empowered to ask questions about that specific point. That is why the visible answerability of chief officers of police needs to be found a place in whatever arrangement finally emerges from this Committee’s and Parliament’s consideration of the Bill. I hope that, in replying, the Minister will be able to indicate the Government’s thinking on this and tell us where it is envisaged that the visible answerability will take place. Finally, I want to pick up on Amendment 83ZZA, which relates to membership of crime and disorder reduction partnerships. The current legal framework has built on the concept that local crime and disorder reduction partnerships should, first, be centred around the local police commander and the local chief executive of the local authority working together to solve problems to reduce crime. Various key stakeholding parties have been added over time, one of which is currently the police authority. Whatever emerges from consideration of the Bill regarding how the police service is governed and held accountable, we will have the rather strange situation that the body which holds the police service to account and which, so far as concerns the public, is responsible for most of the key decisions on the direction and strategy of the police force will not have a seat as of right on local crime and disorder reduction partnerships. There is then the complication of who exercises that right, although it is important to have that input at that level in crime and disorder reduction partnerships. Again, I should be grateful if the Minister could indicate how he envisages that this will happen in the future. I have already said that by and large these amendments do not relate to Greater London, although similar points apply. There is a need for the visible answerability of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis to be seen to take place in some forum, whether it is the London Assembly panel which is created for that purpose or anything else. There will also be a need for input into local crime and disorder reduction partnerships from the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, because in many London boroughs those partnerships are the engine for delivering crime reduction.