My Lords, I also rise to speak particularly about Amendment 292D. I support the noble Lord, Lord Bach, with all his experience of being an excellent police and crime commissioner.
There are many other examples. The noble Lord gave two. I shall just give one. A 59 year-old senior civil servant who worked for the Ministry of Justice in a responsible position connected with the criminal justice system, wished to retire and stand to be a police and crime commissioner. He was disqualified because, at the age of 13, he had been fined £5 for each of two minor juvenile offences. It is completely disproportionate and absurd that such people should be disqualified.
I seek to compare those disqualification rules with the rules applying to Members of another place. The last figures I saw produced by IPSA, the standards authority for Members of the other place, revealed that, in recent years, 43% of the Members of the other place had convictions of one kind or another. Maybe that tells you a lot about the other place. Nevertheless, this distinction makes its own point.
In passing on to the other issues, I agree very much with my noble friend Lord Hogan-Howe. Fundamental to this problem is the fact that we have 43 territorial police forces. This number ought to be at least quartered. If so, the structure—including police and crime commissioners—would be much more coherent. There would be far greater consistency and police forces which currently struggle to deal with very complex inquiries would be able to deal with them because they would have the critical mass of staff.
I turn next to police authorities. I hesitate to disagree with those noble Lords who tabled the first amendment in this group because I respect them all. Part of my experience as a Queen’s Counsel has been to advise police authorities when they have got into difficulties. I recall one case from the north of England in which the police authority concerned was institutionally corrupt and in the pockets of a small group of senior police officers. It had got itself into a hopeless mess and at least one criminal prosecution ensued. To describe it as an example of democratic effectiveness was an insult to both democracy and effectiveness.
I accept, of course, that some police commissioners are better than others. So are some Cabinet Ministers. So are some head teachers. So are some doctors. So are some Members of Parliament. This is inevitable. Some of the commissioners are very good, such as the noble Lord, Lord Bach, and Dame Vera Baird, who was referred to earlier. Where police and crime commissioners are effective, they are very effective indeed.
Just think about it territorially. If one of these referendums took place and there was a police and crime commissioner in Cheshire but not in Lancashire, or one in north Wales but not in Dyfed-Powys, people in the areas that did not have a police and crime commissioner would be unlikely to say, “Oh, how wonderful; this is going to be run by our local council.” In the modern world, they will say, “Our democratic rights have been diluted.”
Other noble Lords remember, as I do, when the Welsh Assembly was created. In many parts of Wales, people said, “Nobody will know who their Assembly
Members are. It’s all a waste of time. It will be completely ineffective.” It is true that, for a time, people tended not to know who their Welsh Assembly Members were. Today, however, if you look at the evolution of the Welsh Government during the last 20 years or so, it has become remarkably effective. It has brought people much closer to government.
I believe that police and crime commissioners are still evolving. They have a valuable role to play, particularly, as I said earlier, if the Government have the courage to reform the territorial policing services in this country.
As to the deposits, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. The £5,000 deposit is not reasonable. I would not oppose a much lower deposit of the kind that has to be put down by somebody standing to be elected as a Member of Parliament. The election process is expensive. Some kind of gatekeeping requirement of this kind is helpful.