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Lord Mayhew of Twysden: I want to raise one point. I know that Amendment No. 28 is grouped separately, but, for my part, I should find it helpful if the noble Lord could give a hint or indication of how he would respond to it. If it were incorporated into the clause, it would set at rest the anxieties which have just been expressed by my noble friend Lord Waddington. It would provide at the end of line 38, page 3, of the Bill
that the Secretary of State could direct the police authority only to take such measures as would, in the opinion of the person making the report, be necessary. That would narrow the field considerably, and I should have thought that it would do for the Government everything that they apparently see as necessary now. I do not want to anticipate that amendment, but if the noble Lord could give an indication of his response to that point it would be helpful to me.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: The words which the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, has been talking about and to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew of Twysden, has just referred are in the existing Section 40 in precisely the same language. The point that I wish to make, if I may be so bold, is that the 1996 Act went a very long way in the direction of Home Office control. That is why, frankly, we on these Benches need to be convinced beyond peradventure that any further powers are absolutely necessary and required by solid evidence.
Lord Rooker: Perhaps I may briefly jump the gun to one of the bullet points that my noble friend will probably use in responding to Amendment No. 28. We want to be in a position where the Home Secretary can go beyond the scope of the recommendations from the Inspector of Constabulary. That would allow him to take advice from other bodies, such as the Association of Police Authorities, the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Audit Commission and the Police Standards Unit. He may disagree with the constabulary report for some reason and, therefore, it is a question relating to the person who would be accountable. The Home Secretary may want to go beyond the advice in an inspector's report because the Audit Commission and the Police Standards Unit are carrying out the functions and will report to the Home Secretary.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: This is becoming a little more serious because, under the provisions of the clause, the inspectorate is called upon to make the report as to whether or not the force in whole or in part will cease to be efficient or effective. Are matters now to be extended so that the Secretary of State can go far and wide and ask all kinds of other people who may have other matters in mind? If we are to have the mandatory provision, it should be limited to matters which are recommended by the inspector; otherwise—this is what I fear and I derive some support for this from what the Minister said earlier—we shall have the Secretary of State using the power to secure uniformity.
The noble Lord pointed out how certain forces have certain rates of success and other forces have others. In part, that derives from the exercise of democratic control in, for example, a particular county which has more attention paid to one facet of police activity than another. Therefore, if the Secretary of State is seeking to use the power in order to achieve uniformity, I believe that he is going much too far.
Lord Rooker: I disagree fundamentally with the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, in relation to democratic control. He speaks as though it is up to the population which, he suggests, may get the police force that it deserves. In other words, if there are incredible variations between, say, neighbouring police forces which police the same make-up of population, then are we to say, "Well, that's tough;" to the population—to the council tax payers—"that is democratic control. You pays your money and takes your choice"?
We are not talking about local government services here; this is policing. There may be large variations but no one is arguing about uniform procedures. As we have said, we are not looking to create a national police force. We are not looking for what I might almost describe as "military precision" figures. We are not saying that every police force is the same on every indicator at which we look. There are incredible variations. One relates to violence against the person. The best change in the crime rate is minus 25 per cent; the worst change is plus 48 per cent. That represents an incredible variation between two forces. Those figures come from a survey of 30 comparable forces in urban areas.
Therefore, I do not accept that we must put the variations down to democratic control and that the public must simply lump it. Councillors from those areas will ask questions of their local authority and Members of Parliament will ask questions in the other place of the Home Secretary, who will be in a position to say, "I am sorry, there is nothing that I can do about it. This is part of democratic control". That is a totally unacceptable position and one in which the Home Secretary is not prepared to place himself. He wants to be able to make a change or pull the levers to make a change. I hope that I can assist Members of the Committee. We shall deal with Amendment No. 28 in more detail in due course.
Returning to the letter that I wrote, the point in paragraphs 12 and 13 is not unimportant. By their nature, these mechanisms for addressing under-performance are almost last-resort efforts because other things will have happened beforehand. By definition, if existing performance management and monitoring systems have failed to deliver essential improvements, and if other efforts have been tried and have failed, the Home Secretary needs to have an ability to intervene to require action to be taken to address the under-performance.
We have already said, as the White Paper states, that we shall agree a protocol with the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Police Authorities that will establish agreed procedures for the operation of this process. That brings in some safeguards—I say that in a positive sense rather than a negative one—to ensure that the shortcomings that are manifest in a force are addressed under the umbrella of the tripartite arrangement, so that ACPO and the APA are involved. Therefore, the Home Secretary is not on his own, pulling a lever, irrespective of what other people say.
We shall agree a protocol for the use of these powers. When the variations are so large, I do not believe that we can simply say, "Sorry, tough, it is a democratic process; the country is not all the same; and you have to put up with it". To the best of my knowledge, we do not have a target for bringing them into a narrow band. Variations as great as we have are quite unacceptable and beyond existing management techniques. Therefore, some new techniques have to be tried.
Lord Dholakia: Perhaps I can ask the Minister to reflect on what he said. I believe that he said that the Minister may go beyond what the inspectors have recommended. That causes us considerable concern. Not only is it a matter of ignoring, or supplementing what the inspectors have reported, but decisions of that nature could often be political. I believe that there is a danger of the Home Office interfering, to that extent, beyond the measure. I hope that the Minister did not mean that.
Lord Borrie: I believe that those on the Liberal Democrat Benches and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, have gone too far in their criticism of this clause. As I understand it, the Minister's power to give directions, which is the subject of the clause, is dependent on the inspectors having made a finding, either in full or in part, in relation to the force that it is inefficient or ineffective. If that is the limitation, which is clearly in the clause on the Home Secretary's powers, as it stands, surely it makes some sense to say that before the Home Secretary makes the directions he may want to take into account matters other than what the inspectors have said. But it is their basic finding of inefficiency or ineffectiveness that is essential before the Minister can make directions at all. That appears to me quite appropriate.
Lord Elton: Perhaps I may draw the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, to the first line of Clause 5(1):
- "The section applies where the Secretary of State (whether in consequence of a report under section 54 or otherwise) is satisfied".
9.15 p.m.
Lord Dixon-Smith: I did not believe that we had arrived at the words "or otherwise" yet. I have a margin of sympathy with the Minister. I believe that we are in danger of becoming very hard on him, although with considerable good reason. Why I have a margin of sympathy concerns the development of computers, computer technology, computer information and, in this regard, computer management information, which increasingly is providing more and more detailed management information that simply did not exist five or 10 years ago.
The Government's approach to the increasing development of knowledge—very useful knowledge—is that there appears to be a presumption in the way that the Bill is drafted that the local managers—in other words, the chief constable and his senior officers—who cannot take any pleasure in having a force at the bottom of the performance league, are to do nothing about it unless the Secretary of State orders a special inspection. What are we talking about? People are paid high salaries for their great experience and their great knowledge, particularly of local circumstances. They know the men; they know details of the community; they have all the information. Are we saying that they will sit on their hands and do nothing? The idea is inconceivable.
I know that the Minister said that if nothing happens then the Secretary of State needs a reserve power. But the Secretary of State has enormous powers of influence. He does not need this power to get something to happen locally. He can talk to his inspectors. He can talk to the police authority. He can talk to the chief constable. That is how things happened in the past when everything was not as it should be. It always produced results.
A different problem arises in this regard, and it is one we must face; that is, as we obtain this additional information and as forces, as they will, act on it and improve their performance, there will still always be forces that could be held to be under-performing. There always has to be a bottom quartile. One of the most futile targets I saw produced—I cannot remember by which government department—was one where it was said that the performance of the bottom quartile would be raised so that it matched the performance of the top quartile. Think about it! It might conceivably have been done, but all it would have achieved was to put the third quartile into the business of being the bottom quartile and I am not sure that that would have pleased anybody.
We need to be extremely careful when we pursue statistical norms. Over the years I have had to work with the Audit Commission on performance reports and so forth, as have many other Members of the Committee. We should not deny—I would not wish to—the immense utility of inspection and reporting systems, the Audit Commission reports and so forth. They are great tools for providing incentives to people on the ground to improve their performance. And they work. But to find in the psychology of the Bill the feeling that only the Secretary of State can make them work is infinitely depressing.
Once again we have had a long and interesting debate—I have taken more notes on this debate than on anything else we have tabled this evening. Both sides of the Committee need to think carefully about this issue. The amendments concern points of detail. But we are back in the business of deciding whether or not this Bill is necessary. There are ways for the Secretary of State to achieve everything he wants to achieve without this legislation. The powers already exist. They existed without the 1996 Act which, as the
noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, said, in the opinion of some Members went too far, but I do not want to get into a debate about that.Water has gone under the bridge. We need to recognise that. The question is whether we need to pour any more water after it. I do not believe that we do. At this stage I am prepared to withdraw the amendment so that we can all take a shower, cool off and think about the subject. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 24 to 26 not moved.]
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