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Lord Rooker: I am sorry if Ruth Henig has not had anything in writing. However, following the riots in Bradford, Burnley and Oldham last summer, the Government set up an urgent review of the Riot (Damages) Act. That review is going on at the moment. I suspect that that would have been announced before Ruth Henig wrote her letter—or possibly just after, I do not know. Either way, she deserves a reply, even if it is only an acknowledgement, because it is now March.
The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, mentioned 1986. It is worth pointing out that the police were not free-standing authorities at that time, but were parts of county councils and always had the council reserves to draw on. In 1985, there was a riot in Handsworth,
which affected my constituency and Small Heath, so I am familiar with the operation of the Riot (Damages) Act as it affects small businesses.I am reluctant to say anything about Yarl's Wood. I was almost going to say that a spiv insurance company is trying to get the police to pay for its liabilities, but that would be an unfair description. I am sure that the insurance company is a bona fide operation that is not seeking to boost its profits at the expense of the public purse—although that is how it looks to an ordinary person from outside.
There are three inquiries going on. I called in to Yarl's Wood unannounced on Saturday afternoon on my way to Home Office business in Bedford. It would be wrong of me to say anything about Yarl's Wood and the issues of Bedford police in advance of the reports that we shall receive from the various inquiries, because of the implications for those who are making claims and those who are seeking to rebut them.
Lord Bradshaw: Before I withdraw the amendment, I should like an assurance that the Minister will take the matter away and consider it and come back and tell us what will happen. We are dissatisfied and believe that something should be done.
Lord Rooker: The Government are pursuing an urgent review of the Riot (Damages) Act 1886. When we have pursued our urgent review, we shall report back to Parliament. However, I cannot guarantee that that will be in time for Report stage.
Lord Bradshaw: I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Thomas of Gresford moved Amendment No. 335U:
- After Clause 75, insert the following new clause—
POWERS OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY FOR WALES
(1) References to the Secretary of State in Part II of the Police Act 1996 and in Part I of this Act shall, in relation to the Police Areas in Wales, have effect as references to the National Assembly for Wales and references to England and Wales shall, where appropriate, have effect as references to England or Wales.
(2) Every power conferred upon the National Assembly for Wales by this Act shall be exercised in accordance with the Government of Wales Act 1998 (c. 38)."
The noble Lord said: I understand the resentment that may be felt by those of your Lordships who have spent four days debating various matters in Committee and then find that I have come to interfere at nearly ten o'clock at night. That is not because I do not have an interest in police reform. I spent the first five years of my life living in a police station, where my father was a sergeant in the small Denbighshire Constabulary. Coming from a police family, I have seen the situation from the roots up.
Scotland has eight territorial police forces under the jurisdiction of the Scottish Parliament. They have maintained their tripartite arrangement. It is alive and well in Scotland and supported by our Government—a combination of Labour and Liberal Democrat Members of the Scottish Parliament. The police authorities determine the budget and resources. The chief constable is concerned with operational decisions about police deployment. The Scottish Executive has policy responsibility for law and order in Scotland and is answerable to the Scottish Parliament for those responsibilities.
We in Wales think that it is time that the National Assembly for Wales took on those same responsibilities. It is fortunate that the Government of Wales Act gave power to transfer the existing functions of the Secretary of State for Wales to the Welsh Assembly but also gave power for functions to be transferred under any other Act. Therefore, I seek to amend the Long Title to make that possible in this Bill.
When the Government of Wales Bill went through Parliament, Mr Ron Davies said that devolution was a process and not an event. It is a continuing process. When I see the prescriptive powers that the Bill gives to the Secretary of State and how it distorts the tripartite arrangement which has operated so well over many years, I realise that the provisions of any Bill dealing with the police require to be focused and directed at the needs of a particular area. We in Wales do not want a national policing plan in which the Secretary of State sets out strategic policing priorities for all police forces. I refer to Clause 1.
I give another example. Clause 6 concerns the regulation of equipment and provides that,
I am trying to explain that different priorities and different issues arise in different parts of the United Kingdom. For the Secretary of State on his own—save for his political advisers and his civil servants in
We have devolved power to Wales in the National Assembly for Wales. We have put in place in Wales a system of secondary legislation which, unlike the system of secondary legislation at Westminster, is open to scrutiny. One of the total failures of this Chamber is that we are incapable of amending secondary legislation that is brought before us. That is not the case with secondary legislation that is brought forward in Wales. It can be properly debated and amended, and consensus can be achieved. It is a better system for dealing with the needs of Wales. I do not speak from a particularly nationalistic point of view. I do not say that everything has to be different in Wales. I say that, from a practical point of view, it would be sensible for the government of Wales in the National Assembly to take over the functions of the Secretary of State in relation to Part 1 of the Bill and to Part II of the Police Act 1996. I beg to move.
"The Secretary of State may by regulations make . . . provision requiring all police forces in England and Wales . . . to use only—
(i) the equipment which is specified in the regulations . . . approved by the Secretary of State".
Flak jackets and guns may be important for police forces on Merseyside, in Greater Manchester or in London. However, in Gwynedd we are much more concerned about the provision of proper mountaineering equipment. In other more pastoral parts of Wales, people are more concerned about the quality of the sheep dip which police forces have to examine. Different areas have different concerns. I speak from experience. I recall terrorism cases in Wales among elements of the population which do not occur elsewhere in the UK. The coastline is a feature of Wales. I remember the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Williams of Mostyn, prosecuting in a case involving drugs that were shipped on to a deserted beach in Wales. He said that the defendants had failed only in one respect in that they had underestimated the inquisitiveness of the native people of Pembrokeshire. I refer also to fraud. Most fraud cases in Wales seem to relate to livestock. Rustling is a big issue there. It used to be a hanging offence and is still so regarded.
10 p.m.
Lord Rooker: I welcome the noble Lord to our debate at the 11th hour of our fourth day. That is not a criticism. I have not seen him since the passage of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act before Christmas.
The noble Lord has obviously been in this House a lot longer than I have and he is learned in the law, but I have a feeling that he has no comprehension whatever of the momentousness of his proposal. I shall explain why.
Lord Thomas of Gresford: I was involved from these Benches at every stage of the passage of the Government of Wales Act. I have every appreciation of what it means to devolve the powers and functions of a particular part of government to the Welsh Assembly.
Lord Rooker: Well, I have a few questions for the noble Lord, but he need not answer them tonight.
The noble Lord proposes a major revision of the devolution settlement that was enacted by the Government of Wales Act 1998. He said that he was a leading participant in the passage of that Act. That statute and the current settlement, so recently won, were offered to the electorate in our manifesto of 1997. Those proposals were endorsed in a referendum, albeit very narrowly, I accept; I remember waiting, with everyone else, for the final result.
For good reason, the Government oppose the amendment. The Home Secretary's role in policing is predicated on a single criminal justice system. For example, while ministerial priorities for policing in England and Wales have their basis in Section 37 of the Police Act 1996, they are not drawn up in isolation from wider policies on crime reduction and prosecution. That is because the priorities and
indicators that are set require certain actions to be taken and results to be demonstrated that do not depend solely on the police.If the noble Lord is serious about devolution—he clearly is; I do not say that in a pejorative way—and the proposal to devolve the Secretary of State's responsibilities for policing to the National Assembly, frankly, he must, at the same time, be a little more thorough. He must devolve the criminal justice system. He should not forget that prisons and the probation service are Home Office matters. He must advocate splitting the Court Service and the Crown Prosecution Service. He should also ask himself how Wales would benefit from breaking up the Forensic Science Service. If you are going to do the job, you should do it properly and not at half cock.
The noble Lord mentioned Scotland. That is a fair point and I understand why he raised it. Colleagues of mine in both Houses make such comparisons. One has to look at the history. Responsibility for policing in Scotland is not for the Home Secretary but for the Secretary of State for Scotland. It has never been the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Wales. That is obviously part of Scotland's history of a separate criminal justice system. England and Wales have long shared a common criminal justice system. I have no doubt that the noble Lord could put a date on that; I cannot, but I know that it happened a long time ago. If anything, therefore, the example of Scotland supports the current arrangement south of the Border, by which I mean England and Wales.
The Bill contains a major programme of police reform, but we also need to consider the White Paper aspects—those parts of the reform that are not part of the legislation. It will do the hopes for the further reduction of crime in Wales no good to have Welsh policing taken out of the scope of the reform agenda. The amendment does not deal with the Police Act 1997. What would happen to the National Crime Squad, the National Criminal Intelligence Service, the Police Information Technology Organisation and the codes of practice in respect of interfering with property?
The noble Lord chose an example which arose in an earlier debate on the Bill concerning equipment. I believe that we raised that issue ourselves. We have the crazy situation in which some police forces cannot communicate with each other because they insist that they are not being given the equipment to do so. It is absolutely preposterous that they cannot share the intelligence that they gather. Therefore, the idea of Wales opting out concerns not only a question of language—far from it; they are entitled to that. The fact is that criminals do not recognise the English/Welsh border. They do not recognise the English/Scottish one either, before anyone gets up to say that—I am not going to get myself into any sheep dip over that one!
The noble Lord does not deal with the Secretary of State's role in respect of best value. I am not knocking that and saying that it is a technically deficient point. I am saying that, if there is a serious attempt, which
noble Lords and others are entitled to mount, to have full devolution in which Wales is separated from England in respect of the police and criminal justice system—we should bear in mind that in Scotland it was always separate; it was not part of the mainstream following the active settlement—then they are embarking on a momentous operation of massive proportions and, probably, dislocation for police services in Wales. I cannot prove that. However, it will be a massive upheaval.Therefore, our principal objections are that policing cannot be divorced from the administration of the criminal justice system. The costs of such radical surgery may be prohibitive, although I do not have a figure for it. The amendment does not take account of the other statutory enactments in respect of policing. And, perhaps most importantly, it cuts across the devolution settlement, which is literally only ink-dry on the paper in the grand scale of history. It is but a blip, from 1998 to 2002. That is not a criticism, but it has hardly had time to get started. Embarking on the major upheaval that this would cause would mean that the present system does not have time to bed down. One assumes that it was endorsed in last year's general election, by the referendum and by both Houses of Parliament.
If the noble Lord wants to return on Report with an amendment which covers all the issues that I have raised tonight then, frankly—I was going to say that he may not find me here—he will have to return with an amendment which is probably as big as the Police Reform Bill itself. It is that momentous. It is right that the matter has been raised. In the context of policing in England and Wales, this is the only occasion during our debates over the past four days of the Committee stage when the issue has been raised.
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