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Lord Waddington: The Minister has given a clear exposition of the situation. I can well understand that one has to cater for the situation where a code of practice has to be brought up to date to take account of new legislation. Perhaps that is the proper answer to the concerns which were expressed by my noble friend. However, surely it is possible to devise an amendment to provide that a code of practice should not be superseded in less than 12 months unless it is necessary to issue a new code of practice to take account of new legislation.
Lord Elton: Before the noble Lord replies to that point, I have a difficulty with the language of the Bill which emerges when we start to try to amend it. I do not know what the term "revise" means. Does it mean beginning to consult, drafting or publishing? Plainly, it may be necessary to start the process of revision by means of consultation and drafting in less than 12 months in order to bring out a revised edition in 12 months. If that imprecision is of importance in any respect, it might be as well for the Government to consider the relevant subsection between now and Report to determine whether some more accurate term could be used. In the mean time, I commend to the Minister the practice in certain commands of the Metropolitan Police with regard to the smoking of cannabis. It is always possible to turn a blind eye to a bit of a code of practice which is not up to date.
Lord Rooker: I do not think that that is good practice. There are enough lawyers outside who would like to make a "buck" to ensure that that would not happen.
Perhaps I have given an inadequate explanation of the matter. There is a trigger here. I draw the Committee's attention to subsection (3) of new Section 39A. When the Home Secretary wants to issue or revise a code of practice under subsection (3), he must first require the Central Police Training and Development Authority to prepare a draft. The board of the authority has only just been appointed and was announced yesterday, 27th February. It consists of independent members, ACPO members and police authority members. Those people will be involved in the drafting. I genuinely believe that if the ACPO members, the police authority members and the independent members—that is a necessary mix—were asked constantly to revise the same code within some ridiculous time-scale, they would draw the matter to the attention of the Home Secretary before they proceeded with the drafting, which is their responsibility.
Lord Dixon-Smith: The Minister has given a helpful response. However, one has to weave one's way through it to a certain extent, if one may put it that way.
I have always accepted that the Central Police Training and Development Authority will be involved in any change. However, that authority will do what it is told. It might complain about that, but that is what it will do—that is what its job will be. A rather unfortunate situation could develop.
The Minister said that it is not his intention to keep churning out codes of practice, and I have every faith that that is the case. I am not sure that I can envisage a circumstance that would require such an urgent change of police practice—that cannot take place anyway because of the procedure that is necessary before a new code of practice is introduced—that meant that one was likely to want to revise a code of practice in less than 12 months. I therefore have some difficulty with the Minister's response, but I shall study it with care. His intention is correct, although I do not agree with all of the detail. For now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Bradshaw moved Amendment No. 13:
- Page 2, line 25, at end insert—
The noble Lord said: The question of a code of practice for chief officers—such codes are contained in Clause 2—touches on earlier discussions and on the extent to which the Minister's commitments about furthering consultation under Clause 1 also apply to this clause. The amendment, and Amendments Nos. 71 and 73, would insert the requirement also to consult the police authority or the service authority.
It is essential to reinforce the tripartite structure and not to go directly from the Home Secretary to chief officers; that involves bypassing en route the police authority and service authority. I hope that there will not be many such codes of practice. They form one of three legs—the others are strategic guidance and non-statutory guidance. I presume that the codes of practice will mainly be about operational policing, which is an area into which we should tread with great caution. Is the Minister prepared to accept the amendments or at least to consider them in light of the replies that he has already given in relation to Clause 1? I beg to move.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: I am not sure why my Amendment No. 14 should be sandwiched between the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. His amendments are related to each other but mine is rather different. I am of course very happy to be associated in any way with the noble Lord. I am again
Lord Rooker: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord but I seek to improve further the detail of his speech. The board of the Central Police Training and Development Authority, which I mentioned earlier, has two ACPO members: Jane Stichbury, the chief constable of Dorset police, and Peter Loughborough, the director of training and development at the Metropolitan Police, who I am sure is known to the noble Lord.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: I do not know Peter Loughborough personally but I certainly know of him. My point is that it would be good to have a written requirement. If the Minister is satisfied that those two very important people will always take it upon themselves to ensure that the views of chief officers are known and understood, I should be satisfied.
Lord Dixon-Smith: I rise to support the principle that my noble friend has enunciated. Will the Minister assure the Committee that the Central Police Training and Development Authority will consult fairly thoroughly before preparing a draft or revised draft code of practice? We have on numerous occasions debated from these Dispatch Boxes whether one should list all of the people who should properly be consulted. I will be relaxed on the point if the Minister gives the assurance that, in drafting any code or revised code, the intention is that consultation will be wide and thorough.
Lord Elton: I am not sure that I am as easily satisfied as my noble friend. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, spoke to an amendment that struck earlier in the process. The Minister can of course point to the consultation that will be carried out on his behalf by the Central Police Training and Development Authority, which may or may not be fortified in the way in which my noble friend suggested. The point is that however much it consults, it has to consult on a draft that it has prepared that,
Lord Rooker: I say to the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, that for the avoidance of further doubt a relevant press release is available in the Library. I do not want to list all of the people but there are also two members of the Association of Police Authorities on the new board. There was a Home Office board, but that is no longer the case. I refer to the vice-chairman of the Wiltshire Police Authority and the chairman of the Northamptonshire Police Authority. I completely deny the suggestion that there are not quality people around to ensure that a good job is done. There is also a list of independent members which contains people of worth.
I am prepared to look at the matter before Report—I have no problem with doing so—in order to concrete the matter in position, as it were. We genuinely want to consider the views of noble Lords. There is no question whatever of drafting codes of practice without consulting chief officers of police. I cannot spell that out more clearly. My right honourable friend John Denham, the Minister responsible for crime reduction, policing and community safety, made that clear in his letter of 3rd December to the president of ACPO, Sir David Phillips. I shall put on the record just one paragraph from that letter. My right honourable friend said:
Lord Elton: If the noble Lord is not going to withdraw the amendment immediately, perhaps I may add a footnote to that very welcome comment by the Minister. I have always believed that declarations by one government of what they intend to do under legislation which they pass have absolutely no force when another government come into power. Therefore, such declarations have a limited life.
"( ) Before issuing any code of practice under this section or revising the whole or any part of such a code the Secretary of State shall consult—
(a) persons whom he considers to represent the interests of police authorities in England and Wales; and
(b) persons whom he considers to represent the interests of chief officers of police of forces maintained by those authorities."
"Before preparing a draft code of practice under this section . . . the Central Police Training and Development Authority shall consult with such persons as it thinks fit".
I am sure that that authority is absolutely full to the gills with intelligence and perception and wants only to be fair. Nevertheless, one must always bear in mind the possibility of failure in human affairs. The possibility that worries me is that the authority may not consider it appropriate—indeed, the Home Secretary does not always consider it appropriate—to consult chief officers.
"must contain all such matters as the Secretary of State may specify".
Surely, however, consultations are needed before that list is produced and before such matters are included in the code of practice. We return to where we were in Clause 1, and I request the Minister to be as open to
suggestions as he was previously. I hope that he is open to the idea that the Secretary of State himself should consult before he sets the relevant matters in a form in which they cannot be excluded by the authority after consultation.
"ACPO will be involved with the formation of the drafting groups and will be at the heart of the drafting process. The Home Secretary will commission [the Central Police Training and Development Authority board] because we wish to combine consistency of approach with the flexibility to cover diverse areas of policy. ACPO are formally represented in [the Central Police Training and Development Authority board] and your operational expertise, as well as the need for professional support, will mean that it would be profoundly against anyone's interests for ACPO to be 'frozen out'. The White Paper makes it clear that ACPO will be centrally involved in the drafting group and we will be happy to give a commitment to that effect in committee".
I cannot make the matter any clearer. I hope that the noble Lord will accept my assurances, but I am more than happy to reflect on what has been said before we reach the Report stage.
6 p.m.
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