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Lord Bradshaw: Perhaps I may intervene before the noble Lord speaks. This matter goes to the very heart of the issue of the tripartite nature of policing. In my view one cannot separate the chief officer from the police authority, which is what this clause seeks to do. Since Derbyshire was, I believe, the last police authority found to be inefficient or ineffective, police authorities have been thoroughly reformed. They include independent members and they have also gone through the process of best value. They have also gone through considerable processes of consultation. I honestly believe that if they are left out of the process one goes to the very heart of the way in which policing is conducted here.
The Minister has never made it clear why the Home Secretary wants these powers. He has all sorts of powers of direction, which are used informally such as when there is a petrol crisis and airliners fly into buildings in the United States. There are immediate directions from the Home Office which are issued by informal means. He does not secure legislation to do that. I am sure that he has enough powers now. The Minister has not made his case at all.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: I support what has just been said. I believe that we are moving towards understanding the Government's need to enable direction to be given in cases of proven incompetence. We will not go over the last debate again. But would it not undoubtedly salve some of the soreness that the exclusion of the police authority would occasion if this amendment were accepted? I can see the Government's anxiety in that they may believe that the police force would not have got into this mess if the police authority had been doing its job. But things would have moved on if matters had got to the stage where the Secretary of State had to issue a direction.
I invite the Minister to think carefully about the need to preserve the tripartite structure, which has just been alluded to, and the importance of keeping the police authority on side, if I may put it like that. It is worth more than a thought and I hope that the Minister will give it more than that.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: Since the issue of the tripartite arrangement has been raised, it is important to place on record our continued confidence and trust in that relationship. Perhaps without realising it, the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, made quite an astute observation. He makes lots of them! He made the point that changes have been made to the tripartite arrangement. Changes were made in the 1994 Police Act, which reconstituted police authorities and changed their composition. I have heard the other side of that argument—that those changes undermined the tripartite arrangements at the time. In practice, that
has not been the case. The arrangement was changed. It is organic; it has changed over time. We see some of our proposals for this piece of legislation as again reordering that balance but, nevertheless, recognising the fundamental importance of the tripartite arrangement, which has in the past served us extremely well. Although at present there is no specific proposal that the police authority should give particular approval to the plan resulting from the direction, we anticipate that, through debate, it will be involved in the evolutionary process of seeking to remedy something that is clearly not working.I am sure that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, will accept the point that it may on occasions be absolutely right for the Secretary of State to issue a direction to the chief officer and to expect some immediate remedial action to be taken, especially when the problem causing the direction needs immediate resolution. It would fall specifically to a chief police officer to put right any precise failure that had led to a lack of confidence in the police locally and to ensure a restoration of public confidence in the local police service to deal with particular problems that are identified. Given the nature of the police service and the difficult job that it has to do, there may in the future be circumstances in which that precise power of direction will need to be exercised, without necessarily having to refer the matter back to the police authority itself. However, by and large, we anticipate that the police authority will be involved in the development of an action plan following a direction.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: I do not wish to draft an amendment on my feet—it is not my business to do so—but will the Minister accept that the words "after consultation with the police authority" would chime exactly with what he has just said?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: The noble and learned Lord, of course, has great experience of such matters. Without commitment, I shall be quite happy to reflect on the important point that he has made.
4.45 p.m.
Lord Dixon-Smith: The noble Lord and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew of Twysden, has at least winkled something out of the Government. I accept the Minister's criticism that it could be argued that this amendment may give the relevant authority a power of veto. That, of course, is perhaps not the purpose of this debate. However, we face considerable difficulties in tabling amendments to this clause. My own inclination was simply to deal with the clause as a whole when we reach the Question whether it shall stand part of the Bill, rather than trying to dissect it.
We have had a worthwhile debate, if only to extract from the Government their absolute statement of confidence in support of the tripartite arrangements. That in itself has made the debate worthwhile. One might have suspected, if one simply read the Bill, that that confidence no longer existed. We have had a useful discussion. I do not intend to rehearse the issues
any further at this stage. We shall consider what the Minister has said. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 5 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Carlisle of Bucklow: I listened with great care to what was said earlier today by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. There is no doubt that his tone was very reasonable, as were his replies on the first day of Committee last week. One has the impression from the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, that the Government are willing to amend this clause. The noble Lord certainly gave the impression that its purposes are limited merely to what would probably be acceptable to both sides of the House. However, it appears to me that the difficulty arises in that, whereas that may be the Minister's intention, the wording of the clause is extremely wide and gives unnecessary powers to the Home Secretary, such that it affects the tripartite arrangement for the management of the police force in this country. I shall endeavour to illustrate how wide it is.
The noble Lords, Lord Borrie and Lord Rooker, said that this clause could not come into being unless there was, to use the phrase of the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, already a finding that the police force, or part of it, was in serious disregard. With great respect, I do not believe that that is so. A "finding" implies an independent finding by an independent body. Here one requires no finding, but merely that the Home Secretary, in order to make directions about how a police force shall behave, should satisfy himself, without stating the basis of the evidence, that a part of that force will cease to be efficient in particular respects.
The clause goes on to state that the chief of police, having responded to the directions of the Home Secretary and having put in a plan of action to remedy what the Home Secretary foresees as a possible defect in a particular respect in a part of that force, has the power to direct him again to change that plan so as to fit in with his directions. Sub-section (4) states that, on considering an action plan submitted to him in accordance with a direction, the Secretary of State may direct the chief officer to revise that plan. It has been said that he may continue to require him to revise it until it eventually accords with his own wishes and that finally, having done so, the chief officer of police of any police force is required by sub-section (11) to
- "comply with any direction given to him under this section"
It seems to me that those are much wider powers than those which the Government purport to say are the purpose behind this clause. It is very difficult to understand the difference between the powers granted to the Home Secretary under Clause 5 of this Bill and moving by stealth—I do not intend to be in any way derogatory to the Home Secretary—unnoticeably and slowly towards a national police force, without having open debate, if that is the way in which we wish to proceed. I therefore hope that the Government will
consider carefully the terms of Clause 5 and the amendments that the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, implied that he would consider.I do not understand the answer that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, gave to my noble friend Lord Waddington. He said that the Bill's powers could not be used in the way in which my noble friends Lord Waddington and Lord Elton suggested or to regulate the number of different parts of a police force. I give what some will say is an extreme example, but it may not be. The Home Secretary might be satisfied that in a force that has a motorway and other roads running through it, the intended decision of the chief police officer to reduce the number of police cars on the motorway and to employ the police in other ways could make that force inefficient in a particular respect; namely, in relation to the control of traffic on the motorway. There is nothing in the clause that could not require the Home Secretary to make the chief constable provide a plan that would show how he was going to dispose of his officers for the purpose of remedying the possible problems that the Home Secretary had perceived.
We should also consider the fact that Clause 32 will allow the chief police officer to take on such community officers as he wishes. I do not see how that could overrule the requirement that he,
- "shall comply with any direction given to him",
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