Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

My Lords, I support the amendment, or at least the basis of it. My experience is from the Northern Ireland Policing Board—which is, incidentally, perhaps the last such board, but also the one which has been modernised most recently, and in difficult circumstances. It was required to cover all the aspects that we are talking about in that it had to be workable. As for having non-executive directors or the equivalent, this is not just about the commissioner’s power or about bringing in the expertise; quite frankly, it is about the impossibility of the commissioner carrying out all the functions that he will have to carry out. The functions of the police panels are laid out quite clearly. The Bill says that they are to monitor and keep up to date with the commissioner. It does not say anything about their powers to call police and other people. In fact, Clause 30(2) says: "““Nothing in subsection (1) requires a member of the police and crime commissioner’s staff to give any evidence, or produce any document, which discloses advice given to the commissioner by that person””." The commissioner is the one who has the power to call the police to give evidence on what is happening, and to scrutinise everything that goes on in the police force. Although I hesitate to do so, I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Howard. The problem is that the powers do not overlap. It appears that the panel has no right to go into the police to find out the details; that power rests entirely with the commissioner. The problem is that no individual—commissioner or otherwise—can possibly go into all the issues such as finance, staff, equality, property and everything else. To correct that in the Northern Ireland Policing Board, we had somebody in the property market as well as an accountant and somebody in HR. I do not believe that anyone here could give us an example of an individual who could do the work that we had to do to monitor the police. There is no such individual. So I would ask the Minister: who in the police and crime commissioner’s office will do that? The answer is that it will be done by paid staff. The police and crime commissioner’s staff will produce an opinion to one person without that being questioned by any expertise or any experience on that side at all because, as I understand the provision that I have just read out, the panel will have absolutely no right under the Bill even to hear that advice. I support the amendment because I believe that, first, no single individual could physically do all those jobs that are required and, secondly, if the PCC does not have non-executives with the experience, the panel will need to provide that but, from my reading of the Bill, the panel does not even begin to have the powers to get to the bottom of the issues so it definitely could not provide a balanced view on what is going on. That simply does not happen. If any noble Lords wish to go and see the Policing Board in Northern Ireland, they can do so because these were exactly the issues and the problems that we had with our police force, which even I accept was not functioning properly—that is why these reforms were made. That is why such a committee, which may be formed of non-executives or, indeed, of panel members, should have the right to call any policeman within the headquarters or any department to account for the decisions that have been made. The committee could then produce a balanced view for the commissioner. Therefore, I support the amendment.