Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

No, indeed, I very much agree with the noble Lord. I was not suggesting that he, by raising the point, was helping to recirculate the myth; I was just indicating how it can unwittingly be recycled, creating the concern that he identified. The HSE issued guidance in 2009 in a document entitled Striking the Balance between Operational and Health and Safety Duties in the Police Service. That was in response to concern and misunderstanding about how police services can comply with health and safety legislation in their operational work, given the often testing and difficult circumstances in which they are called to act. I understand that work is now under way to draft an explanatory note to the guidance which will help further to clarify how effective and efficient policing can be delivered. That document, which was jointly produced, illustrates that these are issues of balance. In the principles that the document enunciates, it states that there are particular challenges for the police: "““they have to send officers and staff into dangerous situations in circumstances when anyone else would be seeking to get away from the danger … in fighting crime, the Police Service is, in effect, reducing the overall risk to the public— police officers may need to take actions which put the public and themselves at risk. This is appropriate when the benefits from taking these risks outweigh the sum of all other risks; however, in doing so, police activities may create other risks””." The guidance sets out why the application of health and safety law is challenging for the police service, but it also makes clear that health and safety duties are not absolute and are generally qualified by the test of what is reasonably practical. It points out that the Health and Safety at Work Act places duties on employers, but also on employees to take reasonable care of themselves and others and to co-operate with their employer, but it does not require all risks to be eliminated. The Health and Safety Executive recognises that even when all reasonably practical precautions have been taken to deal with foreseeable risks, injuries and deaths will still occur. Let us not forget, as was raised by several speakers in the debate, that dozens of police officers have lost their lives or been injured by putting themselves in harm’s way on our behalf. The guidance also sets out what officers and staff should expect of the police service in terms of good health and safety management systems and how the HSE will approach any investigation of individual police forces. Following the report of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Graffham, commissioned by the Prime Minister and debated in your Lordships' House in November last year, renewed guidance was issued by the Crown Prosecution Service concerning circumstances where police officers may, in performing an heroic act, have breached Section 7 of the Health and Safety at Work Act in failing to take reasonable care of their own safety. It states: "““In those circumstances, and where the safety of others is not put at risk, public interest would not be served by taking forward a prosecution under section 7””." The document and the other guidance seems to do just what noble Lords have asked, which is that we need to address this in a sensible, proportionate way and there needs to be co-operation in how these measures are applied. Although not without challenge, the current system is not broken. As my noble friend Lord Hunt said, the HSE gets challenged as many times for not prosecuting people as for prosecuting people. The briefing we received from IOSH includes a quotation from the chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales. It reads: "““All the major police officer representative bodies; the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Police Superintendents’ Association and the Police Federation agree the position that the Police (Health and Safety) Act in its current form has resulted in significant improvements in the health, safety and welfare of police officers whilst still allowing effective policing to be achieved””." The law as it stands serves both the public and police effectively. It is certain interpretations of the law that have produced isolated anomalies. Therefore, clarity of interpretation is needed rather than the unnecessary changes to health and safety law that could turn the clock back decades on the protection afforded to society. The briefing paper that we have received is clear that, as deliverers of front-line policing, they know that health and safety legislation does not prevent them carry out their duties for their communities. They are clear that since the 1997 Act there has been a real and beneficial reduction in sickness and injury to police officers while on duty. The noble Lord, Lord Condon, made that point. There has been improvement in equipment, technology and training given to officers. The impact of the amendment would be to remove the statutory protection afforded by the Health and Safety at Work Act from police officers—I think that that was the point made by the noble Lord. It would do that not only when officers were involved in front-line and, particularly, dangerous operations but when they might be involved in more routine duties, if such exist for the police service, and training. The provisions of proposed subsections (3) and (4) would seem to undermine the chain of command and create a possible free-for-all in situations of operational delicacy. Perhaps, in responding, the noble Lord could clarify the definition of, "““public official, of whatever rank””," and whether that would include a police officer of more senior rank to the individual involved. If that is right, that is an encouragement to ignore the chain of command. That may not be what the noble Lord intended so perhaps he would take the opportunity to clarify that. It seems to me that if there are issues and problems to address, the solution is not to discard the statutory protection—the Health and Safety at Work Act—but to address issues of training and management systems and not to throw away any engagement with legislation that has served this country well for nearly 40 years, which is why we are unable to support the amendment.