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Mr. Ivan Henderson (Harwich) rose—
Mr. Letwin: I will not give way.
I turn now to professional autonomy. There is no hope of restoring serious professional autonomy so long as the Home Office continues to run local policing. There is too much of a temptation for Ministers to do exactly what the Home Secretary and his colleagues have done—try to run the whole show on the basis of strings pulling puppets. That applies to the present national policing plan or any other such plan. We have to move power away from the centre to the localities and give back to the police the professional autonomy that comes from not being controlled from on top.
Mr. Henderson: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
That is why I proposed at the Conservative party conference last week—and will continue to propose and develop—our plans to give serious autonomy to the police.
Mr. Henderson: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Letwin: I will not: otherwise Government Members will accuse me of continuing for too long.
We have to create for the first time in English law a statutory version of the Denning doctrine. We must establish the absolute right of the chief constable to operational independence, so that no politician—local or central—can tell a chief constable how to behave in respect of operations.
The third element—that of local accountability—is equally important. Once we have removed powers from the Home Office, we cannot dispense entirely with the democratic check. If the check cannot, in order to avoid a top-down centralist bureaucracy, be from above, it
must be local. If a serious transfer of power to the localities goes ahead, we can expect local electorates for the first time to take an interest in those elected to police authorities under a system of direct election.
Mr. Letwin: I have every confidence that that thesis is gaining ground. I say that because, just a couple of days—[Interruption.]
Mr. Letwin: When the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) hears who I am about to quote, he might change his mind. A couple of days after our announcements, Sir Ian Blair, deputy Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, and two other chief constables with whom he was working, came up with a most illuminating, inspiring and excellent set of proposals. I shall quote from Sir Ian's speech:
- "It is now becoming increasingly clear that what we would describe as policing for the purposes of reassurance has got to become a matter as significant as preventing and detecting recorded crime; we have to understand what it is that people see as being the signal events which show disorder within their community . . . I am quite certain that this will be pointing the police service towards its role in the strengthening of communities . . . We need to go much more local, much more accountable . . . However, it is no use doing so, unless those local policing boards can actually determine what the local police should broadly be doing . . . If localism is to work, then the number and weight of national . . . targets must lessen."
In summary, the argument is simple. The need for neighbourhood policing is a matter, as I said earlier, of consensus. That top-down bureaucracy directing insufficient resources to the police does not work is an emerging consensus among those most seriously involved. A consensus is also emerging that the way forward is a properly resourced professional autonomy subject to local democratic accountability. The Home Secretary is part of that emerging consensus at the level of rhetoric. [Interruption.] As he says quietly from a sedentary position, he writes such things. He does. He writes and says such things, but he does not do them. The question is, when will the Home Secretary stop merely talking about localism and professional accountability and autonomy, and start doing them?
4.55 pm
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Blunkett): I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
- "welcomes the Government's investment in policing which has resulted in 136,386 officers by the end of August 2003, an increase of more than 4,000 since December 2002 and the highest level ever; notes that there are now more than 1,900 Community Support Officers and record numbers of police staff assisting police officers in their work; further notes the priority given by the Government to reducing bureaucracy to enable officers to concentrate on
- frontline duties; and welcomes the Government's commitment to further reform to improve accountability and engagement between the police and the communities they serve."
We are all looking forward to the right hon. Gentleman's forthcoming visit to fantasy island, once he has identified which island it is. On that island, with the asylum seekers, there will be sheriffs and new local boards. They will seek to hold to account the local chief constable who will have been granted complete autonomy. Not only could the Home Secretary not require or demand anything on behalf of the people who elected the Government who then selected him, but of course the local board and sheriff would not be able to demand anything of the local chief constable. Autonomy means complete freedom from any political direction and complete detachment from any requirement from whoever has been elected locally or nationally. That cannot be the same thing as accountability. The right hon. Gentleman used the word "direction" and he quoted Sir Ian Blair accurately. We agree with Sir Ian Blair, but he also mentioned responsiveness and accountability.
Mr. Letwin: Does the Home Secretary recognise the difference between operational autonomy and the general character of policing in an area, and does he accept that a force can be operationally autonomous and also accountable to a local, directly elected police authority for the general pattern of policing?
Mr. Blunkett: Of course I accept that, and the police already have operational responsibility. At another time and in another place, we might have an interesting intellectual debate about where the line lies between operational responsibility and some form of accountability. If the police authorities, or their successors under the Conservative scheme—or revisions under the scheme that I shall bring forward for consultation—have any form of influence, let alone power, there has to be an understanding of where the power lies. Otherwise, we would have a Home Secretary who appeared on the "Today" programme and bemoaned the fact that nothing could be changed. Under the scheme devised by the Conservatives, Home Secretaries could not do anything, because they would have no power. They might want to suggest change, but they would have to get in touch with the multiplicity of different police forces, sheriffs and boards. What is more, the local sheriffs and boards would not be able to effect change, because nobody would know what they could ask the chief constable to do.
Mr. Ivan Henderson : Is my right hon. Friend aware of the comments by Robert Chambers, the chair of Essex
police authority, on the Conservatives' proposal to introduce sheriffs? He has tried to raise his concerns, and those of his colleagues, with the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin), but he says in an article on the subject that he has not even had the courtesy of a reply. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the right hon. Gentleman should start listening to his own members and to the chairs of police authorities before he introduces such a ridiculous initiative?
Mr. Blunkett: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend's prognosis. We do not have to disagree with Opposition Members: they disagree with each other so readily that the matter is taken out of our hands.
In future, we may disagree more with the Liberal Democrats than with the Conservatives. I should like to take this opportunity to welcome to his new post the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten). I am sure that the House will be looking forward to shorter speeches from now on. I have paid tribute to his predecessor, who had real commitment and understanding and who was certainly around a long time in connection with Home Office matters. His contributions were enjoyable but—
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