Mr.
Coaker: I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point
about local policing. However, I do not understand how the model that
he is proposing will allow regional and national priorities to be
addressed as well as local ones if the only electorate that provides
accountability is the one he has described. I would be grateful if he
explained that to me and the Committee. We will discuss that challenge
further under later clauses. If the only emphasis is that described by
the hon. Gentleman, there is a danger that the police may not deal with
things other than the local, even if they think it is
appropriate.
Paul
Holmes: The Minister is absolutely correct that that may
be an issue. It is addressed partly in new clause
4(4): “Each
police authority has a duty to consult with the Secretary of State, and
to take account of national policing
authorities.” That
would carry on as it is, but with less directed power from central
Government and with a responsibility to consult and take account of
national priorities. What chief constable or police authority would not
do
that? I
know from conversations with the chief constable of Derbyshire about
the concern over issues such as serious and organised crime. Derbyshire
is seen as a lovely shire county, but the Peak District national park
is within one hour’s drive of 20 per cent. of the UK’s
population, based in cities such as Nottingham, Derby, Sheffield and
Manchester. If it is within one hour’s drive of 20 per cent. of
the population, it is within one hour’s drive of organised
crime, such as drug pushers and organised gangs of car
thieves. I
was in the control room in Chesterfield at 2 am at the exact time when
CCTV cameras caught somebody breaking into a car. When the police
arrested them, it turned out that they were from a Sheffield gang that
regularly drove the 20 minutes down the bypass to carry out their
operations in what they regarded as the softer police authority of a
shire county. They turned out to be wrong because they were caught and
arrested. Perhaps they also went there because they were less well
known in that area. With the magic of the motor car they could get away
from their home patch to another
area. Such
problems exist, so what chief constable or police authority would not
want to collaborate with other authorities? Derbyshire and the east
midlands forces are starting to collaborate extremely well in a number
of areas. What chief constable or police authority would not work with
central Government on national issues such as terrorism? Again,
Derbyshire is a wonderful shire county and people may think that there
is no problem there. However, a number of terrorist alerts from the
security authorities come to Derbyshire, centring around Derby and
south Derbyshire. Of course forces will work together and with national
Government because it is sheer common
sense. It
is not as if this system would be brand new if introduced in Britain.
It exists in most other countries. Rather like the argument on
proportional representation that we will come to later, this is not
some wild, crazy idea that we have for England. It is the norm in most
of the democratic world. I have been in small towns and states in the
USA, Sweden and Norway and I have seen how their systems operate. The
system we are proposing is not the centralised top-down system that
this country tends to
have.
Mr.
Coaker: The hon. Gentleman will know that new clause 4(4),
which he quoted, says “to consult” and “to take
account of”. He will accept that that is considerably weaker
than the current power, which allows the Secretary of State to make
strategic direction when she considers it to be in the regional or
national interest. I accept that he can paint a picture in which
everybody will consult, but his proposal would be much weaker in
achieving what he has described. Not all regions are as good as his and
mine in the east midlands. Why does he want to weaken this power, which
would be a good reserve power to have should the picture he has painted
not
happen?
Paul
Holmes: There is a fundamental difference of approach.
Britain is the most centralised democracy in western Europe, especially
with regard to how it raises taxes. Some 90 per cent. comes into London
and is handed out to the regions by the various Departments with the
appropriate strings attached. That happens regardless of whether it is
health, local government, policing or social services.
We are a
highly centralised nation and, as such, untypical of democratic
countries. As Liberal Democrats, we believe that we should reverse
that. I know that localism has been in vogue as a buzz term for the
past two or three years, but devolution and decentralisation is
something that the Liberal Democrats have believed in for many decades.
By that I mean giving up some of the power and some of the grip from
the centre. There could be problems if, for example, police authorities
or health authorities go off in directions that the Government at the
centre are not sure about. None the less, in most democratic countries
that is they way it is.
The US was
founded on that very principle. If one goes into the US, many
Scandinavian countries, France, or Germany, there is not the same
degree of central direction on anything that is to do with domestic
policy, including the police. There are other ways around it. If these
more powerful, directly elected, locally accountable police authorities
were failing to co-operate—although I do not know why any
serious chief constable would do that in a world in which we are all
aware of international terrorism, drugs gangs and serious and organised
crime—would alternative solutions be considered? The US has the
FBI and certain national levels of policing as opposed to local levels.
That is one way of doing it. We have done a little bit of that in this
country. We have set up specialist squads to deal with matters such as
the proceeds of crime. Such squads try to overcome the purely localised
aspects of policing.
Moving to a
serious belief that locally elected communities can govern their own
affairs is a change of direction. They do not need a nursemaid or a
nanny, or to be controlled from the centre. We would apply that belief
to every area, including local government, education, police, health
and to all such domestic policy issues. Most countries—certainly
most western-style democracies that I have visited—take that as
read; that is the way it is. The idea that someone sitting in the
capital city—whichever one it is—tells them what to do
with their local police, schools or hospitals is anathema in most
democratic countries. Therefore, it requires some shift in
thinking.
In proposing
that greater independence and power, we are not accepting the status
quo; the way that the police authorities work at the moment. There has
been disquiet from councillors’ groups and the Local Government
Association, which have said that they do not want to change the
system. We could see the point of not rocking the boat if we were
talking about just the existing system. The Liberal Democrats propose a
substantially altered devolved, decentralised system.
If police
authorities are being given the power to levy their own precept without
rate-capping from the centre, their power is being significantly
enhanced. We are not talking about the status quo. If we give the
police authority—as we propose in new clause 3, which we will
discuss elsewhere—the power to appoint chief constables without
having to go cap in hand to get the approval of the Minister or the
Secretary of State in London, that is a significant step forward in
power for a police authority. It is not the status
quo.
Mr.
Ruffley: Just so I am clear about capping, does the hon.
Gentleman say that any new capping regime should be subject to a local
referendum along the California model? It would be useful to understand
the Liberal position. Is he talking about lifting the cap completely,
which would mean that exorbitant increases—there being no
cap—would be subject to disapproval at an election rather than
at a local referendum in between
elections? 12.30
pm
Paul
Holmes: We are lovers of the single transferable vote.
There are dozens of varieties of proportional representation. We picked
just about the worst one for the European elections. The single
transferable vote is
one of the more common ones that is used around the world. New Zealand
adopted it when it moved to proportional representation. One reason for
doing so is that if local authorities—in this case police
authorities, but this would apply equally to local authorities in
general or to health authorities—are given that power to raise
funds without capping from the centre, there could be a danger, as has
been pointed out, of local taxes soaring away.
At the
moment, under first past the post, there is no effective democratic
control, as was seen widely in the ’70s and early ’80s,
before capping was introduced. Under first past the post, there are
massive distortions in the way that people vote, and it is hard for any
party other than the one or two that are already dominant to break
through. That can be done, but it is difficult; in Chesterfield, we
have totally reversed the political structure in the past 20
years. First
past the post is an electoral system that has many inbuilt barriers to
reflecting properly the democratic views of a local population.
Proportional representation of various kinds—one of the best
being the single transferable vote—is a democratic
accountability mechanism that would make it much more difficult for a
council, police authority, health authority or other body to introduce
massive tax increases and not be accountable at the ballot box. That
accountability is one reason why we are so keen on proportional
representation, particularly STV. If over years of experience that were
found to not be working well enough, there would be the other routes.
One or two councils have already experimented with referendums such as
those proposed, and some countries have them automatically built into
their political systems. There are other ways of working, but having a
properly accountable reflective electoral process, such as STV, would
put that brake on what people
do. In
Greater Stockholm, an area with 2 million people, the authorities are
in charge of everything. They run the health service, the police, the
fire brigade and the schools, with no interference from the Government,
even though they are based in Stockholm. That is true of all nine areas
into which Sweden is divided. There is absolute local control over
local domestic political issues, and the fundraising to go with it.
When I visited Stockholm, we talked about Alzheimer’s drugs not
being available, because the funding was not available. They said,
“Yes, we had that problem, too, and in Stockholm at election
time, we had a referendum and asked people if they wanted to pay some
extra taxes and have the drugs. They said yes.” Somebody from a
more rural part of Sweden said, “We did that and they said
no.” That was a postcode lottery; through a democratic system
people in one bit of Sweden chose to do it one way, and people in
another bit chose to do it
another.
Mr.
Ruffley: I am interested in the hon. Gentleman’s
remarks. I understand that Liberal Democrat policy is to abolish the
police precept cap, but is it also the party’s policy that,
whenever a high precept is levied, any excessive increases should be
ratified in a one-off local referendum, before the elections under STV?
Are referendums part of Liberal Democrat
policy?
The
Chairman: Order. We are straying a little from the clause.
I have allowed certain discretion, so that various areas can be
explored. Perhaps the hon. Member for Chesterfield might briefly answer
the question from the Opposition and then make
progress.
Paul
Holmes: Thank you, Sir Nicholas. As the clause makes
clear, there is provision not for referendums, but for directly elected
police authorities through STV. Referendums and other mechanisms would
be either for future constitutional changes or for local authorities to
introduce, as some have already done
experimentally. I
will give again the example of Derbyshire police authority. We want
absolutely to give police authorities the power to raise precepts under
the clause. Derbyshire has been underfunded—it was one of the
F40 group that campaigned until 1997—so the Government changed
the formula and said, “Yes, you’ve been underfunded, but
you can’t have your money for about another 10 years.” So
we remain £5 million a year underfunded, and over the past three
or four years, the police authority has therefore put up the precept a
number of times by more than inflation, more than the county council
rates and more than the borough council rates. In my experience, voters
in my area have not objected to that, because they could see a clear
link between paying a higher precept to the police authority in
Derbyshire and getting more police on the beat there. They could see
that link as opposed to saying, “Let’s pay a bit more
income tax to the Government in London and we might get more
police.” No one believes that, whether or not it is true, but
people are willing to act in relation to a local
precept. In
response to a police statement in the Chamber, the then Minister with
responsibility for the police spoke in glowing terms about one
authority. I am not sure whether it was Surrey or Sussex—it was
somewhere near London—but the police precept was already
providing about 50 per cent. of local police funding, with
only 50 per cent. coming from the centre. The Minister said that that
was perhaps the way in which we needed to go. I can understand the case
for local people saying, “This is our police authority. We
elected it directly. It takes decisions for us. We can see the link,
and if we think that we need more police on the beat, we would be
willing to pay more money.”
Miss
Kirkbride: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for telling
us about his experience of Derbyshire. However, in my experience of
Worcestershire and Bromsgrove, I have never received a letter from a
constituent saying, “Yippee, they have put up the police precept
and I am really happy to pay an extra 10 per cent.” About five
years ago, we had massive increases. I received shed loads of letters
saying how dreadful that was. It was interesting to hear what the hon.
Gentleman said about Derbyshire, but I am not sure that it applies to
the rest of the
country.
Paul
Holmes: What mail is received could be a matter of
political party perspective, but the difference could also be due to
variations between urban, rural and affluent areas. The right hon.
Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin), who is also a
member of the Conservative party, made the point that some of his
constituents are not keen on the precept increasing,
because they never see a police car in their villages. However, in the
last few years, people in Chesterfield have seen the difference as a
result of PCSOs and police, in particular, being back on the beat in
areas from which they had disappeared for years. They can see the
connection. I have been a Member of Parliament for eight years and I
was a councillor before that, and I have heard nothing but good
comments from people in Chesterfield about that change. If people were
aware that direct elections were held for police authorities and that
they set their own precept and could levy more money—or not,
depending on whom we elect—they would better understand the
link, whereas most people do not really understand how the police are
financed at the
moment. The
thrust of new clauses 2 and 4—new clause 3 is part of the
package, but will be debated at a different time—is to give much
more power, independence and accountability through the ballot box to
local police authorities and to the chief constables that they would
appoint to run their local police force. That means considerable
changes in financing and in the amount of micro-management that we
receive from the
centre. As
for the councillor call for action under clause 1, which has been
discussed already, I do not see how it will make much difference. Let
us suppose that the local borough, district, county or city councillor
gets the call from people in their ward that they want more police to
deal with vandalism, shoplifting, groups of kids drinking in the park,
businesses that are being robbed and speeding traffic—all the
usual stuff. The councillor would then go to his committee and explain
the issues, as would all the other councillors in the area, and the
committee might say that it will have to pass them on to the police
authority. The police authority might say that the Government will not
let it have enough money to employ more police to do anything about
such matters. The danger is that things will then go round in a big
circle. The people who said at the start that they were using the
wonderful new power under the Police and Justice Act 2006 to get action
would have to say a year later that absolutely nothing had happened. A
directly elected policy authority, with its own precept-setting power,
would mean accountability with power, whereas the Bill will provide
accountability without the power to do anything about
it.
|
