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Lord Campbell of Alloway: I support my noble friend. It is a matter of important principle, for the reasons that he gave, that his suggestion should be adopted. The Secretary of State, in this Bill in particular, should not act without consulting all interested parties.
Looking ahead, I respectfully ask the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, to consider, for example, Clause 9 where the commission is appointed by the Secretary of State. Surely as we go through the passage of the Bill, as my noble friend suggested in principle, that ought to be in consultation with the same sort of people—not necessarily word for word—referred to in Amendment No. 11. I support the amendment and the principle for which my noble friend contends.
4 p.m.
Lord Bradshaw: I begin by declaring an interest as the vice-chairman of the Thames Valley Police Authority, of which I have been a member for some nine years. I am also on the committee of the Association of Police Authorities.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, for his letter, which I believe that he has circulated widely, responding to the briefing paper produced by the Association of Police Authorities.
The police authorities have, through their national body the APA, given strong support to the Government's aim of modernising the police service. We all want an efficient modern police service that, so far as possible, meets the needs of the public. We all want our local communities to benefit from improvements in policing. Police authorities inject that local voice into debates on the direction in which the service should be moving.
Police authorities and forces have generally welcomed the proposals for a national policing plan. We agree with the Government that a national plan should provide a useful vehicle for setting out clearly in one place the Government's expectations of the police service. Our amendments seek to improve the Government's proposals by including on the face of the Bill various provisions relating to the contents of the plan; how it is to be drawn up; and where it is to be published.
Amendment No. 6 standing in my name seeks specifically to ensure that the important role which the police play in policing our roads and in preventing accidents and casualties is taken into account. I remind the Minister that on our roads each year 3,500 people are killed and 38,000 are seriously injured and require hospital treatment. That role is not mentioned prominently in the Bill nor in the duties of the Secretary of State. The matter is overlooked because the media focus on crime rates and detections and have, shall we say, almost a love affair with the motorist, which blocks out the issue of road casualties. I should welcome a commitment from the Government that roads policing will feature in a national policing plan.
The amendment also requires the Home Secretary to publish the national policing plan by the end of October of the year before that to which it applies. It is critically important that we build a deadline into the legislation. The White Paper says that the Government will produce the national plan by the end of the calendar year. There is no such commitment in the Bill.
Hard experience suggests that this is not a sufficient safeguard. For example, in January this year—and I should like to impress this matter on the Minister—the Home Secretary announced his proposed ministerial priorities for policing and best value performance indicators. We are obliged as a police authority to consult with all kinds of people—the business community, the minority communities and people who are excluded in one way or another. We must consult locally. It is a long and laborious process in which I have been involved. To receive in January the Home Secretary's draft objectives after one has consulted everyone and when the document is almost ready for the printers—
Lord Dixon-Smith: I am sorry to intervene. But I think that the noble Lord has departed slightly and gone beyond the contents of Amendment No. 6, which is in this first group. He has moved on to a subsequent issue.
Lord Bradshaw: I apologise. Members of the Committee will have to put that down to inexperience.
Amendment No. 6 seeks to place on the face of the Bill a clear obligation on the Home Secretary to consult the Association of Police Authorities, ACPO, NCIS and NCS on the contents of the plan. We have tabled a number of similar amendments throughout Part 1 of the Bill.
There is a fundamental principle to which the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, referred, and to which I shall refer. We made clear at Second Reading our concerns that Part 1 of the Bill radically shifts the balance of the tripartite relationship in favour of the Home Secretary. It diminishes the say which local people, through their policing authorities, have over local policing. The amendment seeks to act as a counterweight. We are sure that the Minister and the Home Secretary want to see crime and the fear of crime reduced, but these proposals are too dramatic.
The Government have said that they will set up a national police forum. Again that is welcome. But there are two concerns that I want to raise. First, we understand that under current plans the APA and ACPO will each have one place on the forum so that the representatives of other interests can be accommodated. We agree that there should be an inclusive approach and that those with an interest in policing should have a voice on the forum. But we must also recognise the statutory role and responsibilities of police authorities and chief constables in the governance of policing. Their role is qualitatively different from that of—for example—local authorities or representatives of minority communities.
Secondly, the forum will have no statutory status. A future Home Secretary may decide that he does not want a forum and abolish it. There is nothing to stop him doing that.
Therefore, it is essential that the Home Secretary is required by law to consult the two other tripartite parties. I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith.
Lord Fowler: I strongly support the intention of these amendments with regard to a national policing plan. I agree with my noble friend Lord Dixon-Smith that there is a danger that the plan will be seen by the public as indicating some lack of confidence in the service itself. If we are to have such a plan, it must not be just some piece of public relations; it must be informed by the widest possible consultation, and particularly involve those actually in the police service. The officials at the Home Office will not have to implement the plan; nor do they have the experience on the ground to advise on what is involved. That point needs underlining. We are not dealing with an unsuccessful low-performing service, but with a service which has great respect from the public here and the admiration of overseas governments.
Obviously, I do not claim that everything is perfect. But generally, the rapport between the police and the public in this country is better than in any other
country of which I have experience, and certainly in Europe. That is not because numerically the strength of the police in this country is stronger: we are under-policed in this country. The noble Lord, Lord Condon, made a very strong point about that at Second Reading when he compared the strength of the Metropolitan Police and the strength of the New York Police Department.It is all very well talking about introducing policies of zero tolerance, but one needs the police to implement a policy of that kind. Frankly, with present strengths, that would be quite impossible. We should therefore listen to what the police service has to say. We should give respect to a service which has served us extremely well over past years. We should certainly consult police authorities; we should certainly consult chief constables and superintendents; but in many ways, the characteristic strength of the British police is the ordinary serving policeman, the policeman working on the streets around the country. We should consult him.
We should consult the Police Federation. The Government's attitude to the Police Federation concerns me. That is one reason that I rise to speak at this point. I was frankly amazed to hear the Home Secretary's attack on the Police Federation, when he said that the federation had,
- "been resisting change for decades".
As it happens, I have observed the Police Federation during several decades: in the late 1960s, when I was home affairs correspondent at The Times; in the 1970s, when I was a Home Office spokesman in another place; and in the 1990s, when I was shadow Home Secretary. It is ridiculous to brush aside its point of view as simply standing in the way of change for decade after decade. When I first knew it, it was campaigning to point out the dangerous wastage levels from the police—the number of police who were leaving the service prematurely. It was right, and on that the Home Office was wrong. To come up to date, it is campaigning against the use of civilian staff to patrol our streets. It is absolutely right on that. I regard that as one of the worst proposals to be made by the Home Office for a very long time. Frankly, the Government are wrong.
The federation that has been opposing change for a decade after decade and has stood in the way of progress has had in my time as its parliamentary advisers none less than the noble Lords, Lord Callaghan of Cardiff, and Lord Morris, from the Labour Benches. What the Home Secretary has said is profoundly wrong and—I hope that the Minister understands this—causes a great deal of anger among the police service because it shows a total ignorance of police history.
But that shows something else: why we should consult and consult widely. The country does not want a plan imposed from above by the Home Office without consultation. That is the point. If we are to have a plan—there are questions about that—there must be a requirement to consult. The Home Secretary
can obviously reject advice that he is given, but he must at least be made aware of that advice and of other points of view. We in Parliament must also be made aware of the advice given and be able to question the Home Secretary about why it has been rejected.My fear at present is that the Government are going down the wrong path in their relations with the police. To accept my noble friend's amendment would show a much better sign to the police service.
4.15 p.m.
Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market: I rise briefly to support the comments made by my noble friend Lord Fowler about consultation. While I was a Member of the other place for 27 years I received many representations from my police authority and the chief constable, usually about funding matters. Rarely have I received representations on constitutional issues, but in this case, the chairman of Norfolk police authority has written to me in strong terms about the danger of a fundamental shift in the balance of the tripartite arrangements between the Government, police authorities and chief constables that this and other provisions in Part 1 could involve. While no doubt the Minister will tell us that of course the Government intend to consult and that all the provisions will be carried out in a reasonable way, the concern is that under a different government or Home Secretary the powers could be used to override the views of local police authorities and—under later provisions—chief constables around the country.
I cannot understand why the Government are likely to resist this group of amendments. It seems to me sensible for the Government always to want to consult in advance of producing the national police plan. To link the amendment with Amendments Nos. 2 and 3, if those are not accepted there may easily be no consultation at all. Police authorities may go through all the processes of consultation and so on in drawing up their own arrangements for the year ahead and then find that they are completely overridden by the Home Secretary's diktat. That is just one instance in which there is a real concern that a future government could fundamentally change the balance. That is why it is perfectly reasonable for the Minister to accept this and the next group of amendments. Without them, the authoritarian attitude of the Home Office will be under suspicion.
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