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Session 2008 - 09 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Policing and Crime Bill |
Policing and Crime Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Chris
Shaw, Andrew Kennon, Committee
Clerks † attended the
Committee WitnessesSir
Norman Bettison, Chief Constable, West Yorkshire Police, Association of
Chief Police Officers Dave Whatton,
Chief Constable, Cheshire Police, Association of Chief Police
Officers Bob Jones, Chair of the
Association of Police Authorities Robert
Siddall, Chief Executive, Airport Operators
Association Ian Hutcheson, Security
Director, BAA Ltd, Chairman of the Airport Operators
Association Security
Committee Denise Marshall, Chief
Executive, Eaves, the POPPY
Project Frances Brodrick, Assistant
Chief Executive, Eaves, the POPPY
Project Niki Adams, Spokeswoman, English
Collective of Prostitutes Hilary
Kinnell, Co-Vice Chair of Safety, Violence and Policing Group, UK
Network of Sex Work Projects Kathy
Evans, Policy Director, The Children’s
Society Sandrine Levêque,
Campaigns Manager, Object Public Bill CommitteeTuesday 27 January 2009(Morning)[Sir Nicholas Winterton in the Chair]Policing and Crime Bill10.30
am
The
Chairman: I would like to deal with some domestic matters
and make a few preliminary announcements. Members may remove their
jackets during Committee sittings to ensure that they are attentive and
comfortable at all times. Members should ensure that mobile phones,
pagers, BlackBerrys and other electronic gadgets are turned off or
switched to silent during Committee sittings—I feel that
strongly and say it forcefully. There are money resolutions and Ways
and Means resolutions related to the Bill, and copies are available in
the Room.
I remind
Members that adequate notice of amendments should be given: to be
eligible for selection at a Tuesday sitting, amendments must be tabled
by the rise of the House the previous Thursday; and for a Thursday
sitting, they must be tabled by the previous Monday. As a general rule,
my fellow Chairman, Mr. Hugh Bayley, who is sitting to my
right, and I do not intend to call starred amendments. I hope that that
is carefully noted by all Members, particularly by the political
parties.
Not everyone
is familiar with the process of taking oral evidence in Public Bill
Committees, so it might be helpful if I briefly explained how we will
proceed. This morning, the Committee will first be asked to consider
the programme motion, which is on the amendment paper and for which
debate is limited to half an hour. We will then proceed to a motion to
report written evidence, then a motion to permit the Committee to
deliberate in private in advance of the oral evidence sessions, which I
hope we will be able to take formally. I will then ask members of the
public to leave us briefly. Assuming that the second motion is agreed
to, the Committee will then move into private session. After we have
deliberated, witnesses and members of the public will be invited back
and the oral evidence session will commence at approximately 11
o’clock.
I give the
spokesman for Her Majesty’s Opposition due notice that, with
regard to oral evidence, I will call him first to question our
witnesses. If the Committee agrees to the programme motion, it will
hear oral evidence today and on Thursday then revert next week to the
more traditional—I was going to say “familiar”,
but I prefer “traditional”—proceedings of
clause-by-clause scrutiny.
The
Minister for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing
(Mr. Vernon Coaker): On a point of order, Sir
Nicholas. How should we address you in this
sitting?
The
Chairman: You can call me Chairman or Sir
Nicholas, or anything else that describes me accurately and is
polite.
Mr.
Coaker: Thank you, Sir Nicholas. I hope that
notwithstanding the serious matters that we are discussing, the
atmosphere in which we have begun will continue throughout our
sittings.
I beg to
move,
That— (1)
the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 10.30
am on Tuesday 27 January
meet— (a)
at 4.00 pm on Tuesday 27
January; (b)
at 9.00 am and 1.00 pm on Thursday 29
January; (c)
at 10.30 am and 4.00 pm on Tuesday 3
February; (d)
at 9.00 am and 1.00 pm on Thursday 5
February; (e)
at 10.30 am and 4.00 pm on Tuesday 10
February; (f)
at 9.00 am and 1.00 pm on Thursday 12
February; (g)
at 10.30 am and 4.00 pm on Tuesday 24
February; (h)
at 9.00 am on Thursday 26
February; (2)
the Committee shall hear oral evidence in accordance with the following
Table (3)
proceeding on consideration of the Bill in Committee shall be taken in
the following order: Clauses 1 to 16; Schedule 1;
Clauses 17 to 20; Schedule 2; Clauses 21 to 25; Schedule 3; Clauses 26
to 31; Schedule 4; Clauses 32 to 61; Schedule 5;
Clauses 62 to 86; Schedules 6 and 7; Clauses 87 to 91;
new Clauses; new Schedules; remaining proceedings on
the Bill; (4)
the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought
to a conclusion at 10.25 am on Thursday 26
February. I
do not really want to say much at this stage. My understanding is that
the programme motion has been agreed, but I shall respond if there are
further
comments. Mr.
David Ruffley (Bury St. Edmunds) (Con): It is always a
pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Nicholas, and to
debate with the Minister. We have previously debated measures in
Standing Committee and in Statutory Instrument Committee, and we have
always had a fruitful and businesslike way of
dispatching business. I hope that that continues, but I have some
comments to
make. The
Bill is important, and Her Majesty’s Opposition are supportive
of some of its principles. However, there are also some thorny
questions about how the clauses will operate in practice, so it is
incumbent on us to test carefully and scrutinise in detail the way in
which many of those well-meant clauses would operate. In my judgment
police reform is not thoroughly covered in part 1, and there are some
omissions. I understand, and the Minister will no doubt remind us, that
the announcements in the Green Paper have been carried through,
particularly in relation to targets and the policing pledge. Changes in
primary legislation are not needed to effect those—we understand
that.
The same
might also be said of reforms to Her Majesty’s inspectorate of
constabulary. However, it is disappointing not to see in the
legislative programme—and certainly not in the
Bill—important changes to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act
1984 which would, if brought in quickly, ensure that more police time
would be spent on the street. I shall not detain the Committee, but an
important consultation was launched by the Minister’s
predecessor in March 2007—it went to two consultations—on
reforming the Act.
The
Chairman: Order. I hesitate to stop the Opposition
spokesman, but this is a programme motion. We should not be going into
the substance of the Bill. I should like to establish with all members
of the Committee, right at the outset, that my fellow Chairman, Hugh
Bayley, and I are very much on the ball. We are following what is going
on, not just sitting here. If hon. Members go off the subject and are
not speaking either to the Bill or to the relevant amendment,
we shall quickly remind them.
Mr.
Ruffley: Your strictures are taken into account, Sir
Nicholas. I shall move on to say that part 1 contains police reform
provisions, which need adequate time for debate; where the Bill deals
with police reform, in a way that does not involve reform of the Police
and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, the provisions partly contentious. The
clauses on the senior appointments panel and on collaboration—a
hugely important issue—will require the Committee’s time,
although not to oppose the principle of the reform of
arrangements to facilitate collaboration. With your permission, Sir
Nicholas, I stress that while some of the issues in part 1 and other
provisions are, in principle, not inimical to the Conservative
position—some of the principles are sound—the manner in
which the clauses have been drafted prompt many questions. I am sure,
Sir Nicholas, that you would not want us just to rubber-stamp things
that look okay on the face of it. That is not the case in relation to
collaboration or the senior appointments panel in part 1, nor is it the
case in relation to part 2, which deals with sex offences and has some
important aims. However, as we shall hear from witnesses, and as we
shall tease out in future sittings, the drafting of part 2 is
incredibly contentious both for support groups that want to help
vulnerable sex workers and victims in the sex industry, and for the
bodies responsible for clamping down on trafficking. Those important
issues are not contentious in principle, but their
implementation under the Bill is contentious.
The same can
be said of alcohol misuse and the proceeds of crime in part 4. The
Opposition are tough on serious organised crime, and tough on
terrorism, so the reform of the proceeds or assets from crime regime
has our general support. The way in which those provisions will be
implemented, however, is quite another question, and it must be teased
out in full, not truncated, debate. Finally, aviation security, about
which we shall hear more in our evidence-taking session, raises all
kinds of questions for industry at a time at which the recession is
biting. We certainly want to see what the balance is between better
security arrangements, if that is what the clauses deliver, and the
cost of implementing them. On the face of it, the programme motion
appears to provide adequate time for hon. Members to debate important
clauses in an important Bill, but I, for one, am not keen to truncate
or cut short any of our sittings, and I expect that they will all be
needed adequately to scrutinise the
Bill.
The
Chairman: Before I call Paul Holmes to speak on behalf of
the Liberal Democrats, may I make the same observation that I made
during the Programming Sub-Committee discussions? In its Tuesday and
Thursday afternoon sittings, the Committee has the opportunity to sit
rather longer than has become the custom. If there is a
problem—if we are behind and there are issues that the
Opposition parties want to debate at greater length—I remind
Members that those sittings provide the opportunity for
longer-than-normal debates. I urge Members to take advantage of that
provision.
Paul
Holmes (Chesterfield) (LD): May I welcome the way in which
the Committee has begun proceedings under your chairmanship, Sir
Nicholas, both this and last week, and the good signals sent out by the
way in which the Government and the Opposition parties consulted last
week, both informally and in the Programming Sub-Committee, to try to
expedite business? Hopefully, that is a good sign of things to come in
the forthcoming sittings. Following our debates and conversations last
week, I am happy with the programme motion. The only thing that I would
like to ask of the Minister is whether we managed to arrive at a
resolution of the issue raised last Thursday in the Programming
Sub-Committee about the clash between business in the Chamber and
business in our Committee next Tuesday, and whether a rearrangement has
been possible. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West
and Abingdon wishes to raise the issue of proceedings on Report, after
we have finished our consideration in Committee, but that is all that I
wish to say.
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