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Mr. Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con): If the Home Secretary is going to stop short of giving the power of arrest to PCSOs, will he consider giving them the power to disperse? As the law stands, unless a specific area is designated as a dispersal zone, PCSOs have a great deal of difficulty supporting full-time police officers in dispersing a large crowd of unruly youths.
Mr. Clarke: That is a fair point that some PCSOs have raised with me directly from their personal experience. That is why we have set out a detailed schedule that will be debated in Committee. However, given the hon. Gentleman's contribution, I hope that he will acknowledge that setting things out in a clear way that runs across the country is the right thing to do. The House will decide how best to deal with the issue when we consider it in Committee.
Mr. Clarke: I shall give way twice more before I make progress.
Ms Dari Taylor (Stockton, South) (Lab): I am delighted to hear my right hon. Friend say that the basic command unit and the local authority will remain in close partnership and that they will have a clear relationship with one another. But what about local residents? Am I reading the Bill correctly? Is it stating that if a persistent problem of antisocial behaviour continues to be unresolved by the police, the local authorities or the other partners, the residents will have the right to call those groups to account?
Mr. Clarke: The House will not be surprised to learn that my hon. Friend, as usual, has got it completely spot on and correct. I shall make further comments on the detail of how that will operate in my speech, but it is very important that every community feels that it can successfully deliver the action that is needed to clear up their community. The Bill will help to strengthen that.
Mr. Mark Francois (Rayleigh) (Con): I thank the Home Secretary for his courtesy in giving way again. He has already stressed in his speech the importance of maintaining the support of communities, but is he aware that, with regard to his proposed changes to police forces, all the methods that have been used so far to test public opinion in my county of Essex—telephone or internet polls organised by local newspapers and phone-ins to Essex radio stations—have shown overwhelming support for the retention of an Essex police force in its own right and very strong opposition to proposed mergers? If he really believes in keeping the support of communities, will he take that into account before any changes are announced in the east of England counties? Will he give us an assurance that the Essex force will be allowed to stand alone?
Mr. Clarke:
We have already addressed this issue across the Floor of the House, and it is not a matter that
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is directly part of the Bill. As I said to the hon. Gentleman both across the Floor and privately, I will give him the guarantee that when we have proposals to make, we will make them and he can then comment on them.
Lynne Featherstone (Hornsey and Wood Green) (LD): I thank the Home Secretary for giving way again. I wanted to raise the issue of giving registered social landlords the ability to opt for parenting orders. Youth offending teams are very experienced in that regard and my concern is that registered social landlords might not be. What sort of training does he have in mind?
Mr. Clarke: There will certainly be clear guidance but, to be quite candid, I am sure that the hon. Lady will acknowledge that there are real issues for the major registered social landlords. We need to try to ensure that we can deal with those issues as well. That is why we have provided the power that is set out in the Bill, but she is right to say that we require proper guidance on how that power is used. We will set that out as we go through.
I now turn to the second level of policing—at the basic command unit and borough level. As I said in response to interventions, partnerships between BCUs and crime and disorder reduction partnerships are absolutely essential, and I think we can do more. The key partnership operates at that level, but it cannot operate effectively if it works across administrative boundaries. Police forces across the country have made excellent progress already in bringing BCU and local authority boundaries into line, so that there are now only three forces that have certain BCUs that are not aligned with local authority boundaries. However, that could be changed, which is why the Bill seeks to place BCUs on a statutory footing and requires their boundaries to be aligned with those of local authorities. It also makes it a matter for chief constables to consult with key partners before altering BCU boundaries.
We have established the whole process for crime and disorder reduction partnerships. Again, as I said in answer to interventions—I will not repeat it all now—we believe that amending the structure of partnerships to reflect the changed environment since 1998, reducing unnecessary bureaucracy, enabling better flows of information, implementing national standards to ensure the best working practices and improving the accountability arrangements for partnerships are, based on what we have learned since the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, the key means to improving the quality of the CDRPs. The purpose of the standards, among other things, will be to raise the profile of CDRPs with local authorities so that local communities can see that they are responding to their concerns and priorities.
We believe, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South (Ms Taylor) suggested in her intervention, that it will be necessary to ensure that the BCU commander and other senior representatives hold regular public sessions to help the public to hold them to account, and that local people themselves should be able to get action on community safety issues that are of concern to them. That is the reason for the community call for action that is provided for in clause 15. It will give people a way in which to trigger action on the community safety issues that are of particular concern
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to them. Ward councillors will be given greater powers to take up problems on behalf of their communities. I would expect that, where neighbourhood policing is working effectively, there will be little need to have recourse to the community call for action, but it is important that the mechanism to empower action exists as a backstop.
The third level of policing is the strategic police force. As the House knows, and as we have already discussed to some extent, we have already embarked on a process of restructuring to ensure that forces can effectively meet the challenges of the 21st century. Many of the provisions in the Bill are designed to ensure that the new strategic forces successfully reconfigure to deliver protective services to national standards and the public's expectations of responsive neighbourhood policing.
We want to continue to strengthen the role of police authorities, first by ensuring that their members have the skills and experience necessary to undertake this challenging role—that is not always the case—and secondly by conferring on authorities an express duty to hold the chief officer to account. We will also add further functions, such as a duty to promote diversity, by secondary legislation.
Intervention is sometimes necessary to improve performance. Therefore, in addition to measures to ensure that strategic forces are effectively held to account, the Bill also modifies the reserve powers of the Home Secretary of the day to intervene in an underperforming force or police authority. I should stress, however, that I am not taking new powers; in the case of police authorities, these powers have existed since 1994, and since 2002 in the case of police forces. The Bill simply ensures that the existing intervention powers are fit for purpose. The changes made by the Bill draw on our experience over the past three years in embedding a performance culture and helping underperforming forces to turn around their performance. The Bill widens the sources of information that the Home Secretary can consider in deciding whether to exercise his powers, and ensures that that mechanism can be operated effectively.
Also relevant to the whole of the justice system is the creation of the new justice, community safety and custody inspectorate, which is provided for in part 4 of the Bill. This new single inspectorate for the justice sector will replace the five existing inspectorates covering the police, probation, prisons, court administration and the Crown Prosecution Service. The inspectorate will create a modern, unified, strongly led and forward-looking inspection regime. It will support front-line staff by minimising unnecessary duplication of inspection and the additional work that that entails. Perhaps most importantly, by taking a holistic view of the justice system, the new inspectorate will provide an enhanced capacity to challenge whether the police, courts, CPS and National Offender Management Service are giving the public the best possible service.
The Bill also provides the police with new powers to help forces to improve their provision of protective services, which was the driver behind the recommendations of Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary. We will enable the police to request passenger and crew information about journeys within the UK, to mirror provisions that we have made in
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respect of international journeys in the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill that is being considered in the other place. This power will greatly enhance the ability of the police to investigate serious organised crime and even terrorism.
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