My Lords, I raised this issue in Committee with the then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Henley. The debate got into a pickle and he was not able to answer all my questions. He kindly wrote to me, which was helpful up to a point but did not allay my concerns over this particular clause. My Amendment 31B seeks to delete paragraph 5 of Schedule 5, which is about the advisory panel. I admit that even after the debate in Committee and the letter from the noble Lord, Lord Henley, I remain really puzzled by the purpose of both that paragraph and the clause.
The Bill before us allows for an advisory committee to be set up to advise the Secretary of State once the director-general has been appointed as to the operational responsibilities that the director-general should have. I fully understand that not all candidates and not necessarily every director-general who will be appointed for however long it is will have all the skills and expertise in the wide-ranging areas of responsibility that the National Crime Agency will have. But the advisory panel, if it is the panel of experts that I am told it will be, is not to be set up prior to interview and so will not be able to ascertain with the Secretary of State what additional support a potential director-general would need. Instead, the Secretary of State can appoint an advisory committee after somebody has been appointed—although she or he does not have to set up such a panel—to give advice on the operational responsibilities.
When the then Minister responded previously, he said that the Secretary of State for the Home Office,
“will make an assessment of the director-general’s suitability and capability to exercise the operational powers in any given case. It might be that the advisory panel, through its chair, could then assess whether the director-general was adequately trained to exercise those operational powers”.—[Official Report, 20/6/12; col. 1824.]
So the Secretary of State, presumably prior to appointment, decides that the director-general is capable and suitable to have these operational powers. Then, having made a decision, she—one day we might have a he again—may ask an advisory panel to advise on what training is required. That is where this starts to break down. If this role is so important as to give the Secretary of State that advice, why is it an ad hoc body?
The reason given in the letter to me from the noble Lord, Lord Henley, was basically, as I have pointed out, about what a wide-ranging group of responsibilities there are and that it would be unusual and unlikely to find somebody who had the capacity and ability in all the areas they would need to have. But before the agency is set up, the Secretary of State has appointed a director: Keith Bristow. Clearly she is entirely confident that he has all these capabilities—although we are not clear what some of those capabilities could be because we have not yet seen a framework document—because she has not set up an advisory panel.
I can understand why it would be helpful prior to interview for the Home Secretary to have a committee of experts which would decide the operational powers required. I would have thought that those should be given in the job description for a director-general. The committee would say, “This particular candidate does not have this or that, but there is training”, and then look at what support was required so that the candidate chosen would have all of it. That is not what is here today.
I then find it strange that the Secretary of State can do away with the committee anyway and not have it there. If it is needed, it should be there permanently; if it is not needed, it should not be there at all. This is confusing and has not really been very well thought out. As I said, the previous response from the Minister did not give me the answer I sought. I am not likely to press this to a Division but I need to understand why the Government think this is an appropriate way forward; what skills they would expect the panel to have; and why, if it is so important that the Secretary of State has that advice, she can choose, basically on a whim, not to have it.