Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

My Lords, this has been an interesting and, I believe, an important debate. My noble friend Lord Harris, in what I thought was a powerful introduction, pointed out the huge power and authority that is being given to an elected police and crime commissioner if the Commons decides to send this back to your Lordships’ House in its original construct. I noted the comments on that of the noble Lord, Lord Howard, but when he referred back to his legislation of 20 years ago, I think he also referred to a number of ping-pongs. That is a salutary reminder to your Lordships’ House that if we do not think that the House of Commons has thought sufficiently, we can send the Bill back to give it a bit more time to reflect—but we will come to that in a few months’ time, no doubt. The issue of governance is very important. My noble friend was right to point out that we are giving huge responsibility to police and crime commissioners, if that is the final outcome of the Bill. The need for some way in which the individual can be allowed to test out their ideas and have them challenged as my noble friend describes seems an important issue. We know that when individuals are given great power, sometimes they abuse it. We are talking about a considerable number of police forces. It is inconceivable that we will not have one or two persons who are unsuitable but who are elected to those positions. Earlier, we were referred to a number of local authorities where mayors have been elected. I would say that the experience of elected mayors has been mixed. Some have been outstanding, but there have been one or two who ought not to have been elected and great problems have been caused there. I think of them when it comes to the issue of governance around police and crime commissioners. Other noble Lords have pointed out that the Government do not seem to speak with consistency in these matters. Earlier this week, as the noble Lord, Lord Condon, pointed out, we had the change in governance relating to the MoD. My own area of knowledge is in the National Health Service: I declare an interest as chairman of the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust and as a trainer consultant in the NHS. The NHS Bill had gone through most of its stages in the Commons when the Government instituted a pause and, only 10 days or so ago, announced the results of it. One of them was to strengthen governance within clinical commissioning groups. Originally, they were going to be GP consortia and a few GPs were going to sit round the table deciding how to spend £80 billion of public money. The result of the listening exercise has been that they are now going to be called clinical commissioning groups, because there has been recognition that you cannot just give that huge power to a few individual GPs. We are now going to have two lay people appointed to those commissioning groups: a nurse and a consultant from outside the area. Why outside the area? It is because there is recognition that there might be a conflict of interest if a hospital consultant in the catchment area of the commissioning group were to be appointed. As a result of the listening exercise, what has happened is that a much stronger corporate governance structure is being put into place. What I do not understand is why the Home Office seems oblivious to what other departments are doing in relation to legislation or, for instance, to the changes in defence. It is difficult to see where there is any consistency of purpose. I listened with great interest to the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, who has not spoken much in these debates, alas. He talked about the fiduciary duty on non-executive directors. However, we are talking about public bodies. I say to him that within the public sector, a duty in relation to the finances of the organisation is part of the role of non-executives. However, in the NHS there is a duty in relation to quality, a duty in relation to safety and risk, and a duty in relation to exercising overall judgment and supporting the executive directors and chief executive in the performance of their duties. That ought also to apply to the police and crime commissioners. The noble Lord then raised several interesting practical points about the amendments that we are debating. I should have thought that they could have been dealt with either by model Standing Orders or by the Government tabling a tidying-up amendment at Third Reading if one of these amendments is successful. It would be entirely appropriate and proper for the Government to do that. The puzzle is that the party opposite, as I said in Committee, has a very good record in supporting and strengthening corporate governance. My noble friend mentioned the Cadbury report and he was absolutely right to do so. The noble Lord, Lord Howard, suggested—several noble Lords have commented on this—that we need not worry about the police and crime commissioner exercising so much power because we have the panels. The problem with the panels is that they have no teeth. They have only two vetoes. One is over the appointment of a chief constable; the other is over the setting of the precept. As the Bill stands, 75 per cent of the members of the panel are required to exercise the veto. That will come down to two-thirds. However, that is still a tough threshold to reach and relates to only two aspects of the performance of the PCC. In the absence of any indication that the Government will accept the amendments that my noble friends, particularly my noble friend Lady Henig, have tabled, we are right to support this amendment. I have no doubt that my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey will wish to comment on the respective merits of his amendments and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. Certainly, if the noble Baroness presses her amendments to a vote, I would have no hesitation in supporting her.