Police reform and social responsibility Bill

There are many amendments to consider, and I shall be as brief as I responsibly can be in taking the House through them. Since the Bill was first introduced, a number of points have been made against it, principally on the issues of operational independence and the alleged politicisation of the police, and on the police and crime panel's relationship with the police and crime commissioner being unclear with the panel having insufficient checks and balances to be able to scrutinise the police and crime commissioner properly. I want to reassure the House that the Government have listened carefully to those concerns. We spent many months considering them, and I believe that we have responded to all the key issues. That is reflected in the amendments we made in the other place. I will not say any more now about operational independence, as we fully discussed that in our previous debate. I also alluded to the checks and balances, saying that we had made changes to strengthen them, and I want briefly to set out what they are. We have increased the powers of police and crime panels by allowing a veto of either the police and crime commissioner's proposed precept or proposed candidate for chief constable through a two-thirds, rather than a three-quarters, majority. That was pressed on us early on, and we agreed to it. The panel will also have the power to request the chief constable—or Metropolitan Police Commissioner in London—to attend before the panel to answer questions, alongside the police and crime commissioner; that was also urged upon us. The changes will also give the police and crime panels more discretion to decide their own make-up, thereby allowing a more diverse mix and better geographical spread. I know how important that is to many hon. Members. The panel will now be able to co-opt additional members, and the provision restricting the number of co-opted members to two will be removed. Instead, provided it is with the agreement of the Secretary of State, panels will be able to co-opt further members, so long as the total membership of the panel does not exceed 20. A local authority will also now be obliged to nominate a locally elected mayor, should there be one. These changes further remove the provision preventing co-opted members from being local authority members; instead, there will merely be an insistence that at least two must be non-authority members. That change allows maximum possible discretion as to the panel's membership and flexibility across larger force areas or areas where local government structures vary. Similarly, we are freeing up arrangements in London, where the London assembly will be able to decide the composition of its panel and allow the panel to contain persons who are not members of the assembly. Our approach will further allow the panel to decide the composition of its sub-committees, and allow for them also to contain non-assembly members. We have further strengthened the powers of the panel in London to allow it to veto, by a two-thirds majority, a candidate for the position of deputy mayor for policing and crime, if that individual is not a member of the London assembly. I remember discussing these issues in Committee, so I hope that the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) will be pleased that we have moved towards some of the suggestions he was making then. The changes place a new duty on the police and crime panel to support, as well as challenge, the police and crime commissioner, helping to ensure that they work together in the public interest, rather than having an adversarial or political relationship. That concept of support and challenge is important, and I am pleased that it has been introduced by way of these amendments. The changes ensure that the London assembly will have all the necessary powers to require reports of the Mayor and to decide the constitution of its police and crime panel. They will also allow the assembly to hold a binding confirmation hearing should the Mayor wish to appoint anyone other than an assembly member to the post of deputy mayor for policing and crime. Our amendments will ensure that regulations regarding the handling of allegations of misconduct can be made in relation to not just police and crime commissioners, but to deputy PCCs, the holder of the Mayor's office for policing and crime and the deputy mayor for policing and crime. On PCCs working with police, the criminal justice system and local government partners, the changes will help to ensure that PCCs work well with their local government partners by requiring PCCs to send copies of their police and crime plans to community safety partners and by placing a reciprocal duty on PCCs and community safety partners to have regard to each others' objectives. The changes will also ensure that PCCs hold chief officers fully to account for the way in which they carry out their duties to co-operate in safeguarding and promoting child welfare under the Children Act 2004. Our amendments will ensure that PCCs have the right powers to hold chief officers to account; they ensure that PCCs can obtain the right information from forces and that the chief officer cannot borrow money or enter contracts, except of employment, without the police and crime commissioner's consent. We are also proposing changes in relation to deputy PCCs. These will ensure that should a PCC wish to appoint a deputy, they would have to do so through a specific process and could not appoint certain people, for example, another PCC. That will ensure greater transparency in senior appointments within the PCC's office. I should emphasise that there will be no requirement to appoint a deputy PCC; our amendment will simply allow it to happen. That inserts further flexibility and localism into the Bill by allowing PCCs the freedom to manage their affairs as they see fit. We have discussed the appointment and dismissal of chief officers and I raised it briefly in our debate on the previous group of amendments. I wish to reiterate that it is a key part of a PCC's role and it is essential that it is properly undertaken. Chief constables should not be appointed or removed on a whim or for improper reasons. Police and crime commissioners must take these key decisions fairly and reasonably, and the arrangements must include appropriate safeguards. We have ensured that the chief constable will have the right to attend a hearing of the police and crime panel should they be facing dismissal, and to make representations at that hearing, rather than simply being able to answer questions. We will also consult the Police Advisory Board for England and Wales on regulations for these arrangements. We have made amendments to allow a retired chief officer to be re-appointed as a chief officer, whereas previously the Bill would not have allowed that. The change will widen the pool of talent available to the service and allow PCCs to appoint the right people to the right jobs. I wish to repeat what I said about the first group of amendments, which is that it is important to get the checks and balances on appointment and dismissal right. I hope that what I have said this evening will reassure chief officers that the Government intend that proper arrangements should be in place to deal with those procedures. On elections and eligibility, the changes would ensure that the elections for PCCs can be properly regulated by the Electoral Commission, especially in terms of campaign spend. A lively debate took place in the other place about the role of peers in the House of Lords should they wish to become a PCC. There was a strong feeling in the other place that peers should be allowed to stand for this position and, following that debate, we introduced changes that will allow them to do so. We will allow a candidate to serve as many terms as a PCC as the public wish them to serve, rather than be limited to two consecutive terms. That will allow the public truly to decide who they wish to serve as their PCC and heighten the pressure of democratic accountability over them. It seemed on reflection that the two-term limit, which was a constitutional innovation in this country, was not necessarily appropriate. By introducing a two-stage process for the transfer of police authority staff, the changes will allow police and crime commissioners to be properly involved in the decision about how staff will be split between themselves and the chief officer rather than the decision being made for them by police authorities before they come into office. That will be complemented by a power of the Secretary of State to direct a policing body to vary a transfer scheme, which is an oversight power to ensure transfers are handled effectively. I believe there is general support among police authorities and chief constables for such a two-stage process. I ask the House to agree to all these amendments and to pause to note that they represent the fact that the Government have listened to the debates on a range of subjects in the Commons as well as in the other place and responded by tabling amendments. That is contrary to what the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) was saying. We have listened on some of these important issues and have shown ourselves to be willing to amend the Bill and to introduce the necessary checks and balances. The Government tabled amendments in the other place to allow the police and crime commissioner to suspend or remove a deputy or assistant chief constable who is standing in for the chief constable. I ask the House to disagree with amendment 43, because the Government have tabled new amendments in lieu of it. They achieve the same effect as Lords amendment 43 in respect of deputy or assistant chief constables, but also give the Mayor's office for policing and crime the same powers of suspension and dismissal in respect of an assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police who is standing in for the commissioner. Meanwhile, we are amending Lords amendment 163, which gave the police and crime commissioner responsibility for complaints against a deputy or assistant chief constable who was standing in for the chief constable, again with the intention of applying it to London as well. I ask the House to agree to this Lords amendment, as amended. Let me turn now to a couple of amendments tabled in this place. First, I want to discuss the amendment tabled by some of my hon. Friends on the Liberal Democrat Benches. I understand that the amendment is an attempt to deal with what I know is a considerable concern—the matter was raised at Home Office questions today—about the position of Cornwall. As it is a unitary authority, it would have had only one member of the police and crime panel under the Government's previous proposals. As we debated the matter in Committee, there was general recognition that that would have to be dealt with. We listened carefully to the concerns and that is why the Government amended the Bill in the other place to allow panels to co-opt additional members up to a maximum of 20. In the case of Devon and Cornwall, that will allow an additional five councillors to be co-opted. If the councils agreed to that, once it had been submitted to the Home Secretary it could potentially bring Cornwall's representation up to six members, which is proportionately higher than its current share of the police authority. The amendment would mean that when exercising that power, Durham, Devon and Cornwall and West Mercia police and crime panels would have to try to make representation on the panel as proportionate to the population as is reasonably practicable. Although I do not disagree with those principles, I believe we can trust elected local government representatives to make decisions in the best interests of the public. I do not think that councils would want to take advantage of a perceived benefit by denying other councils in their area sufficient representation. Government cannot prescribe in detail how those relationships can work, but it is important to note that the Secretary of State has the final say in approving the additional members of the police and crime panel who might be appointed. As I said in a letter to the leader of Cornwall council, which I copied to my hon. Friends who are Members of Parliament for Cornwall, the Home Secretary is fully aware of the situation and the potential imbalance in membership of the police and crime panel between Cornwall and Devon. We therefore expect that, in meeting the geographical balance criteria now in the Bill, as a consequence of the amendment that we tabled, police and crime panels with balanced county representation will be produced. That is now provided for in relation to the new members. I fully understand why my hon. Friends seek to promote the amendment and I fully understand that they do not wish the power of determination about who should be on the panels to be in the hands of another county, as they see it, but I hope they will be reassured by the important checks provided by the Home Secretary's having to approve the amendments and by the geographical balance provision. I believe that we have acted in a way that will meet the concerns of people in Cornwall about being properly represented on the panels. On the basis of that reassurance and on the understanding that the Secretary of State will address these issues in the approval of schemes, I ask my hon. Friends to withdraw the amendments.