Police reform and social responsibility Bill

I want to speak in favour of a number of amendments. Before doing so, however, I make a plea from the heart as a new Member of the House. I am working with the Plain English Campaign to urge simplicity and transparency in product design and communications coming from the financial services industry. Having faced a minefield of amendments, amendments to amendments and disagreements with amendments over the past few days, I suggest that the Plain English Campaign could well assist this House with some of its processes. Let me start with amendments 70 to 78 and 80 to 83, which deal with the composition of the police and crime panels. Originally the Bill allowed for a minimum of 10 members from local authorities, or one member from each authority for police areas with 11 or more authorities, and two non-political co-opted members in each instance. Our amendments in Committee sought to create additional capacity within the membership of the police and crime panels. The Lords amendment would mean that there was still a minimum of 10 political members and two non-political co-opted members but allow for a resolution by each panel to appoint any extra number of co-opted members provided that the total number does not exceed 20. We spent a great deal of time on this subject in Committee and debated at least 40 probing amendments to the Government's initial proposals. Then, as now, the key issue for the composition of the panel was how well it could manage to meet its balanced appointment objective as set out in schedule 6(30)(3), which bears quoting:"““The 'balanced appointment objective' referred to in this paragraph is the objective that the appointed members of a police and crime panel (when taken together)…represent all parts of the relevant police area””—" it says ““parts””, not ““local authorities””, to seek to ensure geographical balance—and"““represent the political make-up of…the relevant local authority, or…the relevant local authorities (when taken together)””." That is a very important sub-paragraph. Our amendments proposing to increase the size of the police and crime panels would have given the PCPs a small amount of wriggle room to meet those geographical and political balance objectives. That involved an extra two members specifically to address concerns about balance. The Minister agreed to reflect on those amendments, and I am happy to see that what has come back here today is a significant improvement, not only on what was initially proposed but on what was included in my amendment. While my amendment would have given an additional two members to help with the balance, these new proposals give a potential eight extra members who could be co-opted on to a police and crime panel, all of whom would be subject to the balanced appointment objective. This is a significant change which gives the vast majority of PCPs the flexibility they will need to ensure that we achieve an effective body for reviewing and scrutinising the police and crime commissioner across all the constituent local authorities. Of the 41 police areas, 31 would have the potential to use the maximum eight additional co-optees and only five would have fewer than an additional four members. The one question that remains, although the Minister has already dealt with it to a great extent, is what constitutes, or indeed necessitates, the agreement of the Secretary of State to allow for the further co-opted members to be appointed. It is clear that this power is necessary. It would be bitter-sweet to have identified the issue and proposed the amendment to deal with it only for the Secretary of State to fail to agree to the use of that power. I would like to hear more about what circumstances the Secretary of State would take into account before making that decision—as, I am sure, would those who tabled amendment 80. I do, however, thank the Minister for listening and welcome this improvement to the Bill. Lords amendments 69 and 98 deal with the power of veto for police and crime panels over the setting of the precept and the proposed appointment of a chief constable. The issue that consumed more time in Committee than any other was that of the powers available to the PCP to discharge its duty to review and scrutinise the decisions and actions of the commissioner. We had a wide-ranging debate that examined many possible additional powers. We agreed that the sharpest teeth—or some might argue the only teeth—that the PCP will have is the power to veto the proposed precept and the proposed appointment of a chief constable. I tabled amendments in Committee to achieve precisely what is now being proposed by the Government. In doing so, I challenged the Minister to reflect on whether any other veto power had such a high threshold of 75%. We argued, with the support of the Local Government Association, that the three-quarters majority required for the veto was too stringent and impractical to provide an effective block on the commissioner. No democratic system places executive power in the hands of an individual without providing suitable and strict checks and balances, and no strong democratic body requires a three-quarters majority to provide such a check on the executive. A veto by a two-thirds majority vote is given to the London Assembly and councils with directly elected mayors in budget matters. That would be strongly preferable and would give suitable strength to the authority of panels. It would align the commissioner model with a tried-and-tested framework for holding a democratic executive to account. The move to a two-thirds majority will strengthen local democracy and accountability, and it will be a major step forward. When I made that point in Committee, the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) agreed with me, so much so that he was desperate for me to push the matter to a vote, despite the promise of the Minister to reflect on the points raised. However, I took the Minister at his word and I am happy to see these amendments today.