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Lord Renton: I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Carlisle for his comments. He suggested that the Government should amend the clause but I feel obliged to go further. The clause is unnecessary; it is a bad clause. If things were going wrong, Clause 4, which will give power to the Secretary of State to give directions to the police authority, is what is needed. As the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, pointed out, it is absurd to separate the responsibilities of the police authority from the chief police officer. Instead of maintaining order and preventing and fighting crime, chief officers would, under Clause 5, become involved in a mass of bureaucratic and detailed directions, which would come from Home Office officials and which would lead to arguments with them.
It is many years since I was responsible for police matters in the Home Office, where, for four and a half years, I was Under-Secretary and Minister of State. My noble friend Lord Carlisle and other noble friends have had those responsibilities in more recent years. In my time, we simply did not have the staff, expertise or experience to exercise such control over the police. I do not know—it is right that none of us knows—whether the Home Office now has officials with such responsibility and expertise. However, even if the situation has improved, such bureaucratic control over chief constables would not help them to do their work more effectively and put matters right. It would
be time-consuming and tiresome for them and direct their attention from their true responsibility of keeping order. I hope that the Government agree to withdraw the clause altogether.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: It is worth quickly reminding ourselves what the clause will do. First, a direction does not have to be laid before Parliament. Secondly, it can be issued by the Home Secretary on his or her initiative. Thirdly, it is not dependent on any third party or adverse finding. Fourthly, it is a direction with which the chief constable must comply. Fifthly, it completely bypasses the existing tripartite balance and leaves the police authority totally out of the calculation, except in so far as the Home Secretary has to tell the police authority that a direction has been issued when one is issued.
When examining these centralising powers, there is a danger that one does not see the overall context within which they will operate. We have surely seen enough centralising measures during the past few years. We have seen, for example, county probation committees converted into county probation boards, although closely comparable powers were put in the Home Secretary's hands. We also saw that with community health councils and in many other areas. We on these Benches object in principle to any further centralisation of powers at the expense of local power and local government that is not overwhelmingly and beyond peradventure justified by hard evidence. The one feature that has been signally lacking in our debate so far on this part of the Bill is any clear evidence from the Government that the present arrangements are failing.
I take considerable comfort from those Members of the Committee who have experience of police authorities. I refer in particular to the noble Lord, Lord Condon, who is to me a sort of Moses on the Mount in this debate. So long as he agrees with me, I shall continue to look on him as Moses on the Mount. It is notable that in one of his interventions in our debate last Thursday, he said—indeed, the Minister also said this—that the tripartite arrangements have stood the test of time. So what on earth are we doing driving a huge wedge into the existing balance between police authorities, the Home Secretary and the chief constable?
We are told that the powers will not be used except in the last resort. With respect to the Ministers, they are not entitled to say that. They can say, "I will use the power only in the last resort", but they can say no more than that. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, is following my argument—
Lord Rooker: I am always listening.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am glad of that. We are dealing with the relations between the state, the police and local communities, and in relation to that matter we need to proceed on an extremely cautious basis—perhaps more so than in relation to almost any other area. We should proceed not on the basis of complete mistrust but on one of extreme scepticism when we
hear statements from a Minister that seek to bind future Ministers. We have had experience of over-zealous—and, some of us may believe, misguided—Home Secretaries. It would be profoundly mistaken to agree to the clause, which completely subverts—let us not dilly-dally—the existing tripartite arrangements. It would be folly to allow that unless we had overwhelming evidence of the failure of the present arrangements.We are bound to return to the importance of local democracy and of consent in policing. The police force is under enough pressure. For example, there is enough evidence of people refusing to give evidence to make us feel strongly that nothing at all should be done to diminish local influence and control.
I shall read a letter that I received from Christine Laverock, who is the chair of the Suffolk police authority. She pithily summarises that authority's view of the clause and this part of the Bill. She said:
- "In our view, these proposals ride roughshod over the voice of local communities, and make Police Authorities administrative agents of central government. The operational independence of Chief Constables and the role of target setting, monitoring and planning by members of Police Authorities is in danger of being seriously undermined".
I have one further point to make on the issue of management. At present, chief constables know roughly where they stand: they are primarily responsible to their employing police authorities. Therefore, to allow the Home Secretary to dive in without consulting the police authority, as Clause 5 would permit, and issue directions with which the chief constable must comply would be devastating in terms of that chief constable knowing where he, or she, stands. The Old Testament was right to say that a man cannot serve two masters. The effect of Clause 5 would mean that the chief constable would have to do just that.
With the leave of the Committee, perhaps I may read from a letter that I have received from Martin Wargent, who is the chief executive of the Central Probation Council. Some noble Lords present in the Chamber today will have taken part in the debate on the proposal to strip the probation committees of their powers in almost precisely the way that is now proposed under this Bill. He has visited 32 of the 42 boards, and summarises their view of what that stripping of powers has done to the management arrangements, as follows:
- "Chief Officers are getting instructions from the Home Office that are not always made clear to the employing boards. Board members are increasingly concerned about the nature of their role. They were told it was of great importance and their skills and excellent background experience would make them central to good delivery of services, good staff care and good community liaison. They are discovering that they are bypassed by the National Probation Directorate [under the Home Secretary] which directs the Chief Officer . . . There is growing disaffection amongst probation Board members".
I sometimes think that this business of the Home Secretary having the power to intervene and to take decisions away and exercise them himself is a little like a father with a son who has come of age. He says to the son, "Well, good luck son; you are now in the world on your own. By the way, I shall have the right to ring your bank manager and tell him not to give you an overdraft, but I shall not exercise that other than in extreme circumstances". We all know that we need to consider the matter in the round and that the salami slicing of powers away from local authorities, local bodies, and, here, police authorities, can have a devastating effect over time on the calibre of people willing to serve on such boards, and, indeed, on the way that they perceive their authority and power. Noble Lords on this side of the Committee are adamant that this clause should not stand. It will be counter-productive. We believe that it should be removed from the Bill.
5 p.m.
Lord Condon: I believe that the Minister has argued his case both persuasively and genuinely. I admire his instinctive feel for where the balance should lie in the tripartite arrangements. He has argued convincingly as regards how the clause would be used; that is, if it were used in the way that he would like it to be used. However, the noble Lord has failed to persuade us that it could not be used in ways that do not match his aspirations. As drafted, the clause could be used in ways that were not in the public interest, which could damage the tripartite arrangements and, indeed, which would allow personality clashes to be played out through the Bill's provisions, whether such clashes arose because of an unreasonable Home Secretary, an unreasonable authority chairman, or an unreasonable commissioner or chief constable.
As presently worded, the clause provides worrying scope for unreasonable men and women to utilise the Bill. Therefore, in his defence of the clause, I encourage the Minister to give the Committee some reassurance that he would consider further drafting to close the credibility gap between what he says will happen and what might happen under the Bill, as currently drafted.
Before I sit down, perhaps I may thank the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, for his description of me a short while ago. I was called many things during my police career, but very few were as charitable or as kind as his comments.
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