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Lord Rooker: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his response, particularly in view of his background. I note what he said about the medal and the police complaints commission. On auxiliaries and the police family, I assure him that there is no intention for auxiliaries to be substitute police officers; they are an addition. The funds will also be separate. There is no intention to massage police figures by using auxiliaries and the extra police family. Auxiliaries will be an extra support to the police.
I take the noble Lord's point about chief constables. No manager or director of a company likes the idea of consultants who come in, take all of the best ideas from junior staff, tell people what they should be doing and disappear. I do not expect the standards unit to operate in that way.
Massaging figures is legendary in many areas, and the police service has in the past been no exception. The system will fall apart if that damages the integrity of the police.
Finally, I come to the noble Lord's first point. I have listened to my right honourable friend the Home Secretary and other Ministers. I appreciate that the rank and file might think, XOh no, more change and another review". However, they are not under threat. Rank and file police officers serve their community and are well rewarded and looked after. They do a dangerous job in unsocial conditions and should be highly respected. These proposals are an Xadd on" to that arrangement. They do not involve a diminution of the esteem with which we hold the police force. The issues involving the Police Negotiating Board are separate but they are intrinsically related to the final operation of the whole process. That is why consensus is important.
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate: My Lords, I welcome the Statement. As a former president of the Police Superintendents' Association, I declare an interest. Having lived through the years of the Sheehey proposals, it is clear that these proposals do not involve a Sheehey package; they are far more constructive.
Will the Minister confirm that league tables will not be produced, as is done with schools? I understand the need to examine best practice in different command units, but I would not like to see the production of league tables or superintendents competing and perhaps, as the noble Lord, Lord Condon, suggested, being driven by certain targets. That is not the right way forward.
Does the Minister agree that some of the problems of sickness and early retirement were caused from within, through the management of the service? I refer in particular to tenure, which was originally thought up to fight corruption. The idea was to move people on after two, three or perhaps five years regardless of how well they had been doing. That causes great disruption to experts, such as dog handlers or mounted officers, who may suddenly find themselves thrust into other duties and sometimes suffer stress. That may be a cause of the problem.
Once the security industry is regulatedI again declare an interest, as the president of the Joint Security Industry Councildoes the Minister agree that there are many opportunities for greater co-operation between such a properly regulated industry and the police service? I echo the welcome that the noble Lord, Lord Condon, gave to the independent police complaints authority. I do not want a repeat of Operation Lancet and the situation in Cleveland, for example, where a superintendent has been suspended on alleged discipline charges for more than four years, and remains suspended. That would be a disgrace in any occupation and it certainly should not happen to police officers. I hope that these reforms will correct those matters.
Finally, the police service is delighted by the decision about awarding the Queen's Jubilee medal. I applaud the Government on a constructive U-turn.
Lord Rooker: My Lords, having people suspended without reaching a decision for such a long period is a failure of human resource management. I regret what is happening. The police are not alone in this respect. Such failures have to be addressed.
We are not planning to have league tables. We have, by the way, cut performance indicators, but we also want to cut the bureaucracy that is associated with the police. The noble Lord's point about sickness being partly self-inflicted is valid. I do not know about tenuremy noble friend has raised that matter previously and I know that it causes problems. Officers with whom I dealt in my constituency were not too pleased about the arrangement but it was put in place for a reason. The Police Negotiating Board should examine the matter, and pay and rations. Perhaps a package is needed in that regard.
My noble friend's final point was absolutely right. Once the security industry authority is up and running and we have a regulated security industry, there will be much more acceptance of the fact that there is a role for the whole community, including the private sector.
Lord Fowler: My Lords, there is obviously much to welcome in the White Paper, and I congratulate the Government in that respect. However, I am particularly concerned about the proposal to introduce street wardens, who will deal directly with the public. Noble Lords will agree that relations between the police and the publicin this respect, I speak for the publicare crucial. Do we not risk going backwards in that regard? Was not the whole reason for having an organised police service in this country that civilian police patrols broke down? Do not the Government think that it would be better to introduce more uniformed police, who are effective and accountable to the public? Is not the case for that even stronger in view of the fact that police numbers reduced during the first four years of this Government's life?
Lord Rooker: My Lords, I do not accept the noble Lord's suggestion. Some of the roles and functions of what I call the extended police family would cover matters that the police are notwe should face up to thiscurrently doing. I refer to the power to issue fixed penalty notices for litter, dog fouling or drinking in designated places, the power to demand a person's name and address and the power to detain but not to arrest. There will be no power to use reasonable force. Those people should be a properly accredited part of the police service. It will be up to the chief constable to decide whether or not to go down that route. The proposal is an Xadd on" for the police. The argument is that more uniformed police should be doing such work. People will be uniformed in the sense that they can be identified. The proposal does not in any way undermine or substitute for uniformed police officers.
As I said, figures have gone down during the past four years, but they are on their way up and will be at record levels within the next 18 months.
Lord Bradshaw: My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the Association of Police Authorities and the Thames Valley Police Authority. The White Paper mentions Specials and says that the Government are considering paying them. I live in an area where, despite the best efforts of the Government and ourselves we do not have more policemen than we had two years ago. The reason is that they leave. They go to country areas where they can live more cheaply and they go to the metropolitan area where they receive much more money. We are caught in the middle and suffer grievously.
One way to help my area would be to pay Specials. I would like the Government to agree that properly trained Specials will be paid in the same way as we pay our retained firemen. That would cover the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for more policemen in uniform as well as the extended police family, which I fully support.
We are extremely suspicious of the powers of the Home Secretary. Under the Transport Police (Jurisdiction) Act we saw the power of the Home Secretary to appoint members of the police authority. We had what I can describe only as a run-in with Michael Howard about appointments to our authority. It is important that we maintain independent authorities that elect their own chairmen and vice-chairmen. They are becoming more and more business-like with best-value regimes and the input from the inspectors, but on these Benches we are suspicious about centralisation and the imposition of league tables.
Lord Rooker: My Lords, there must always be a natural, healthy scepticism of governments. That is part of a mature democracy. We have no intention of setting up a national police force. There are 43 chief constables who are responsible for operational matters in their areas. However, it would be irresponsible of the Government to sit back and do nothing when faced with the variation in performance of similar police forces. Therefore, it is legitimate to introduce the changes. There will be legislation. Nothing will be slipped in through the backdoor.
I am not fully qualified to speak about the Specials. I know that they have full police functions so there is no difference between a Special and a police officer. They have the full powers of arrest.
On the areas mentioned by the noble Lord, there will always be services that will be caught in the middle, from a geographical point of view, because we live in an economically unfairly-balanced country. My prejudice against the South East is showing. That unfairness stares everyone in the face. I do not know all the details and ramifications of the negotiations. Apparently officers in the Thames Valley receive, on top of basic pay, a #2,000 allowance. That was agreed in the Police Negotiating Board and approved by the Home Secretary earlier this year. I understand that the
Home Secretary pays 75 per cent of the cost of the allowance. I hope that that satisfies the noble Lord. If there is a further point I shall write to him.
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