Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

As my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey has said, this group of amendments provides for a deputy mayor of policing and crime in London to be responsible for the Metropolitan Police in much the same way as the Government intend their police and crime commissioners to have that responsibility outside London. The Mayor of London would no longer be the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime. The amendments also provide for the deputy mayor of policing and crime to be elected, with an election being held in 2012 and in each subsequent fourth year. The amendments carried in your Lordships’ House at the beginning of Committee on this Bill removed the requirement for the proposed police and crime commissioners outside London to be elected but left the situation in London largely unchanged. We have heard from the Government that they expect the posts of police and crime commissioners to be full time. Indeed a change has recently been made in relation to a deputy being appointed. Therefore, the police and crime commissioner in, say, Wiltshire will be engaged full time purely on the role and responsibilities of that position, but in London, which has by far the largest police force in the country, the elected mayor, who has the ultimate responsibility for policing at present, does not devote his time and energy full time to his police role for the simple reason that as mayor he has a large number of other roles and responsibilities. One would have thought that in London the case for a full-time police and crime commissioner was stronger than anywhere else. The mayor gets over the problem in London by appointing a deputy mayor with responsibility for the police but still retaining in theory ultimate control himself. However, it is quite clear where the real power lies—that is, with the deputy mayor because the mayor does not have the time to keep up to date with what is happening in the Metropolitan Police and to undertake the strategic and other responsibilities of the position because of his commitments to London as a whole. The Government have said that their objective is to increase accountability and transparency, but accountability and transparency are not increased if the in effect police and crime commissioner in London is in reality appointed by the mayor, who does not have the time to do the job himself but who in theory has to pretend that he can be like a police and crime commissioner elsewhere in the country and devote his efforts full time to that role. We need to take steps to ensure that there is no dubiety over who is in reality—as opposed to in theory—the police and crime commissioner in London, and recognise the true situation by having a deputy mayor who has that role, and with it both the time and the authority of police and crime commissioners outside London. These amendments provide for elections for deputy mayor at the same time as for mayor. The current holder of these responsibilities is ultimately the elected mayor, and the amendments propose to move those overall responsibilities for the police from one elected office holder to another who has the time to do the job in full. I hope that the Government will recognise the contradictions between the situation in London and the situation outside London, as my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey stated, and by accepting this amendment bring the two much closer together.