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Lord Dholakia: Perhaps I can help the noble Lord. No Home Secretary has ever used the power already vested in him under the 1996 Act. All this seems to be a red herring.
Lord Dixon-Smith: I must admit, as I was a Member of this place when the 1996 legislation completed its passage—although in those days I was not particularly interested in Home Office matters—to a sense of collective guilt about it. There is nothing I can do about that. If those powers have not been exercised under the existing legislation, that calls into question the need to stiffen up the powers under this Bill.
I believe that this small amendment, which has caused more than 20 minutes of interesting debate, has been worthwhile. There is little more to be said now. There is a clear difference of view which, on another occasion, one might feel inclined to do something about. I do not believe that the restriction in the amendment is unreasonable. It would maintain the proper focus on the management of these matters and it would tighten up the whole system rather than loosen it.
It is not a question of restricting the power of the Secretary of State. We are talking about making the totality of the system work well and maintaining a proper focus on the issues that matter. Not least among the difficulties is the fact that, if one starts permitting too many unqualified powers, one begins to lose that focus.
I have never yet seen an Audit Commission report on the efficiency and effectiveness of a Home Secretary. I have an awful feeling that, were we ever to see such a report, it might prove very revealing. With that rather anarchistic thought, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Harris of Haringey moved Amendment No. 29:
- Page 3, line 38, at end insert—
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 29 seeks to remove the need for Clause 5 by amending Clause 4. Clause 5 gives the Home Secretary the power to direct chief officers where a force, or part of it, is deemed to be failing. When we spend more time on Clause 5, no doubt we shall find that it is a controversial area.
The amendment seeks to build on the existing powers of the Home Secretary to give directions to police authorities under Section 40 of the Police Act 1996. It incorporates much of the content of Clause 5 while retaining local accountability for policing through the police authority, therefore making the direction one which passes through the police authority rather than directly to the chief officer.
We have spent a considerable time discussing this issue. It is clear that the Home Secretary is anxious to strengthen his capacity to act where a force or a basic command unit is deemed, whether by H M Inspectorate or the new police standards unit, to be failing. We in London have heard over recent weeks, by means of front page articles in the Evening Standard, how my right honourable friend the Home Secretary might see fit to use those new intervention powers. There was subsequent denial: it was all a misquotation.
It is important for us to reflect that there has been little mention of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia: that the extensive powers already available to the Home Secretary under Section 40 of the Police Act have not been used. Those powers empower him to direct a local police authority to take remedial action if he believes that things are going wrong. In one way or another, those powers have been available since 1964 but I believe that no Home Secretary has ever felt it necessary to use them. Some of the debate may have been a bit of froth about nothing.
Clause 4 updates the powers in Section 40 to cover parts of forces—in other words, basic command units—as well as the force as a whole. I have no difficulty with that. It seems a more flexible and sensible instrument rather than the blunderbuss approach which might have been applied against an entire force area. However, it is not yet clear to me why the powers available to the Home Secretary set out in Clause 4 are considered insufficient, or why we need the more far-reaching powers in Clause 5 which would result in the Home Secretary by-passing the local police authority to intervene directly in forces.
I have listened carefully to a number of statements in recent weeks in which the Government have said how much they value police authorities' role in providing local accountability for policing. We have been told that police authorities, such as my own, will be actively engaged before these powers are used and that protocols will be drawn up to ensure that they are used temperately. Those assurances are welcome. I have no doubt that the present Government would abide by them. But let us remember that no such assurances can bind future governments. The noble Lord, Lord Waddington, has spoken several times today on that
Police authorities are responsible for managing and monitoring local police performances. They must answer to their communities for the policing services provided. So at the heart of the amendment is this question: why do the Government need to intervene directly in forces rather than work with and through local police authorities? If police authorities do not have the powers contained in Clause 5 to intervene and make directions, the proposed amendment would provide them with the powers if it followed a direction from the Home Secretary.
My amendment to Clause 4 would replicate much of what is proposed in Clause 5 but it would avoid the need to micro-manage problems by imposing targets and timescales and scrutinising action plans in a local policing area, which I understand my right honourable friend the Home Secretary is seeking to avoid. Instead, that would be the responsibility of the local police authority.
The purpose of the amendment is to recognise the respective national and local accountability of the Home Secretary and the police authority by providing for the Home Secretary to work through and with the local police authority. It would do nothing to undermine the objectives that Ministers have outlined today. It would give the Home Secretary a mechanism by which he could intervene when he felt it necessary, given his national responsibilities. It would do nothing to undermine that. Nor would it in any way undermine the need for specificity in focusing on basic command units or particular functions within a force. However, the amendment recognises that it is primarily for the police authority to tackle the problems identified and work with the chief officer to put in place an action plan to remedy matters in a way that reflects the needs of local communities.
The amendment would also ensure that the Home Secretary, working through the police authority, was able to input his views about the action that he thought needed to be taken to remedy any deficiencies in performance.
As I have said, my amendment relates to Clause 4, but it would obviate the need for Clause 5. All of your Lordships agree on the need to preserve and strengthen the tripartite relationship and the shared responsibility and accountability for policing between the Home Secretary, the local police authority and the chief officer. The aim of the amendment is to ensure that if remedial action needs to be taken in any force or BCU, it is done in a way that reflects local community needs and enhances rather than undermines that tripartite relationship. I beg to move.
"(2) A direction under this section may require a police authority to require the chief officer of police of the police force to prepare and submit to that authority a plan ("an action plan") for taking remedial measures in relation to the matters identified in an inspection report mentioned in subsection (1).
(3) The provision which a police authority may require to be included in an action plan shall include—
(a) the steps it is proposed to take to remedy the matters identified in the inspection report mentioned in subsection (1) and the proposed performance targets to be aimed at in relation to those matters;
(b) the time limits to be applied to the taking of those steps and to the meeting of those targets;
(c) provision for the making of progress reports on the implementation of the plan to the police authority in such a manner and at such times as may be specified by the authority; and
(d) provision for the duration of the plan and for it to cease to apply in the circumstances determined by the police authority, with the approval of the Secretary of State.
(4) An action plan shall not relate to any matters other than those in relation to which functions fall to be discharged by the chief officer of police of the force in question.
(5) Before approving the action plan, the police authority may, after consultation with the chief officer, revise or amend it.
(6) The police authority shall forward a copy of the action plan to the Secretary of State and may further amend or revise the plan in the light of any representations made to it by the Secretary of State.
(7) Nothing in this section shall authorise the Secretary of State to direct, or the police authority to require, the inclusion in an action plan of any requirement to do, or not to do anything in a particular case identified for the purposes of the requirement, or in relation to a particular person so identified.
(8) A chief officer of police of any police force shall comply with any requirement made of him by the police authority maintaining that force in response to a direction of the Secretary of State made under this section."
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