Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

My Lords, we should not get too carried away over what this memorandum will do. My noble friend Lord Hunt quoted some remarks that I made when I said that if the memorandum is referred to more than twice in any interaction between a commissioner and a chief officer of police, it will look as though the relationship between the two has irredeemably broken down. It will be too late by that stage. The draft of the memorandum that has finally emerged from the Home Office is helpful in setting these things out. Its value lies in striking a balance between the legitimate role—to question, challenge, set an overall strategy and direction and so on—of those who hold the police to account and the operational professional decision-making that chief officers of police must exercise all the time. It is helpful to have that in the background to avoid the mavericks and to put constraints on those who might press a matter far beyond where any of us in your Lordships’ House, or any other sensible people, might see this balance being struck. However, we should not see this as some magic wand that will solve all the problems and issues that might arise from these new systems of governance. Therefore, it is helpful to have the memorandum. It would be helpful, as my noble friend suggests, for there to be reference to it in the Bill. However, we should not believe that it is a magic wand. It will not prevent circumstances in which chief officers of police find that they have lost the confidence of those who are responsible for their governance. Those individuals, when they have lost that confidence, will in effect be unable to continue. This measure does not prevent that, but it draws some lines in the sand for what are or are not acceptable areas in which those responsible for oversight and governance should get involved. In Committee, I think I mentioned my experience of being told firmly that the policing of the Notting Hill carnival was entirely an operational matter in which it was inappropriate for the police authority, as it then was, to be involved. I do not accept that advice and did not at the time because this is a major policing decision that impacts fundamentally on the relationship between the police and the community and involves substantial expenditure of resources. However, that was not the same as a chair of a police authority in this case—it could be an elected police and crime commissioner—saying, ““I am quite clear that you should close such and such a road””. However, I can see that it is helpful to have set down somewhere something that reminds people that there are lines that you should not cross and that it is not appropriate, when you are responsible for oversight and governance, to say, ““In this investigation you should arrest this person or not arrest that person””. We all accept that, but perhaps, just occasionally, some people will need to be reminded of that.