Police reform and social responsibility Bill

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friends the Members for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) and for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart). I wish to speak to Lords amendments 69 and 98. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West is leaving the Chamber, but I would just like to tell him that I enjoyed his contributions in Committee, and that when I was on a Home Affairs Committee trip to Turkey, I spent several long bus journeys reading his voluminous contributions, including those on Lords amendment 68. He put the case for the panel being able to veto certain mechanisms with a two-thirds, rather than three-quarters, majority. I was persuaded by his arguments, and I welcome the fact that Ministers have now adopted those proposals. I oppose Lords amendment 98. I am also concerned that, despite the late stage of the proceedings, the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) does not appear to have grasped a key element of the Bill. He seemed to suggest that there was a distinction between the dismissal of a chief constable, when the panel would not have a veto, and the appointment of a chief constable, on which he was correct. The veto of an appointment would mean that the commissioner could not then appoint that individual. Presumably, if he then put forward another individual whom the panel did not like, it could veto that individual as well and, in theory, that could carry on ad infinitum, or until an agreement was reached. That would clearly be a veto. However, the hon. Gentleman went on—incorrectly, I fear—to draw a parallel with the setting of the precept. He stated that a police and crime panel would be able to veto a police and crime commissioner's precept. The Bill states that the panel may do that, but if the hon. Gentleman reads further in the Bill about the mechanisms that would apply, he will see that it is far from clear that there would be a veto. In the case of a so-called veto of the commissioner's precept by a two-thirds majority of the panel, the commissioner would have to ““have regard”” to the veto, yet in the next step, he could set the precept anyway. I presume, given the extent that he has to have regard, that precept could not be exactly the same as the one he set before, but there is no mechanism to require him to do what the panel wants, or to allow the panel to come back. There might therefore have to be a slight change to what the commissioner wanted, but it is quite wrong—despite the language in the Bill—to suggest that the panel has a veto or that it can in any sense be judge and jury in this matter. My concerns are accentuated by the proposed 15 November election date. In principle, I think that that is right, and it will fit in quite well with the budget cycle, at least as it is operated for police authorities. However, we shall then have the extraordinarily convoluted process in which the panel will consider the commissioner's precept and could then, with a two-thirds majority, veto it. The commissioner would have to have regard to that decision, but he could then go ahead and set the precept. So that is an extraordinarily weak power for the police and crime panel. On Report, the Minister told us that if there was a problem, a mechanism would exist whereby a referendum could be held and the local electorate could decide between the police and crime commissioner's precept and the one proposed by the police and crime panel. That is not the case, however. The provisions for a referendum on the precept are entirely unrelated to the police and crime panel, or to whether or not it exercises a veto, or to the degree to which the commissioner has to have regard to that. The process of setting the police precept—a very small amount of the council tax—could therefore have four different actors: the commissioner, the panel, the Secretary of State and the local electorate. There is, however, no mechanism to resolve any conflict between the panel and the commissioner. The commissioner will set the precept, and the panel could then say, ““Hang on, you haven't had regard to what we want.”” The commissioner could say, ““Yes, I have””. What happens then? There is no mechanism for settling such a dispute. We are told that there will be regulations, but they will have to respect the Bill, which states that the commissioner must ““have regard”” to the panel's veto. What will those regulations do? They will not allow a ruling that is definitely in favour of either the panel or the commissioner. Perhaps we should split the difference, or toss a coin. I suspect that, in fact, the regulations will provide for the Secretary of State to determine the precept, which would be a complete reversal of the intention of the Bill, which is to devolve power. So we are going to set up an elected commissioner and a panel of elected councillors, acting as checks and balances on each other, but if they disagree over the key issue of the police precept, we shall have no answer to the question of what will happen next. I fear that if the Secretary of State sets the precept, we infantilise these two new actors even before they are set up. How can they act as a check and balance against each other if they are looking over their shoulder to the Secretary of State? How can the police and crime commissioner develop a mature, responsible relationship with his chief constable if he cannot even get that chief constable money in return for the two of them agreeing a strategy to improve the local area? Do we still envisage the Secretary of State looking over 41 force areas and deciding what is an excessive precept? Will that be a single figure across the country, or will it respect the different needs and requirements of all the different areas, particularly after the spending reductions? What on earth is the point of having an elected commissioner and a panel of elected councillors if the key decision about the precept is left with the Secretary of State—or, I fear, if these regulations do not do their job, and I cannot see how they will, letting it go straight to the courts? What does ““have regard”” mean? We need an answer to that question; we need some mechanism to settle it. The mechanism I proposed—it was discussed on Report—has not yet been developed, I am afraid. My Liberal Democrat colleagues, the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) and the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) have given this proposition their support and a number of my hon. Friends have supported it, but in order to simplify the process so that we do not have these four different actors setting the precept and also to provide some mechanism so that we know what will happen if there is a dispute between the panel and the commissioner, I have suggested that the power to hold a local referendum should not lie with the Secretary of State, looking over the shoulders of these 41 actors across the country, but that there should be a mechanism by which the panel can resolve a dispute with the commissioner. If that panel is made up of local councillors and if the councils in the local area had to pay for a referendum if such were called, we know that the panel would exercise that power responsibly. If it felt that the commissioner had not listened and had not had regard to what it had said, this mechanism would provide the ability to deal with the situation—without the courts intervening and without infantilising the two new actors on the policing landscape by giving the Secretary of State even more power than he now has over setting the police budget locally, which should be a matter for local democratic accountability. No amendment has been tabled here to deal with that situation, although I believe that the amendment I proposed on Report would have done so. The mechanisms in the Localism Bill, however, would allow the referendum to be used, but only if that Bill were amended to state that, in the context of policing, the arrangements were entirely different because a special panel of councillors from every council in the area and two independents had been set up to scrutinise the commissioner, to look over the budget and ostensibly to veto it. With that veto, however, nothing much can be done: the commissioner has to have regard, and then we know not what. I propose that we should frame an enabling power within the Localism Bill. It would not require Ministers to do anything, but it would leave all the options for regulation open to the Home Secretary, as previously discussed. If, between now and November next year, a mechanism for the budget that will work can be developed, and will not lead to litigation and if that mechanism will not leave the Minister to decide what is going to happen all the time, and if the referendum proposals for policing can be allowed for in the Localism Bill to enable the panel rather than the Secretary of State to decide, that could provide a mechanism for precept-setting that works, that empowers local democracy and that will not have this House and this Government blamed for every local decision about the precept or police numbers. Instead, it would provide a chance for that panel, that commissioner and that chief constable to develop a mature, local and responsible relationship.