| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, I have always understood—perhaps it is a mistaken assumption—that when you are addressed by a colleague who prefaces virtually every paragraph with the phrase, "with all due respect", it often means, "I have complete contempt for the arguments that you have expressed". I have to say—with all due respect to my noble friend—that to talk about the issue being one of micro-management rather than oversight misses the point.
The amendment does not require the agreement of police authorities as to which members of staff are designated as community support officers. The requirement is that, on one occasion in advance of the introduction and use of these powers, a report should be brought forward by the chief officer concerned to the police authority setting out all the matters contained in the amendment. There is no requirement for an annual presentation and annual approval. The proposal relates to the initial occasion, and to subsequent occasions as and when required.
The key point is that, prior to the introduction of community support officers, a report examining the thinking processes as to why their introduction is a good thing, how it would work in practice, what the relationship would be with mainstream officers and so on, would be brought to the police authority for approval. I do not call that micro-management. I call it proper oversight and proper accountability.
I do not believe that the amendment involves any additional burden. It merely says that chief officers will be required to codify in a report the detailed considerations that I hope will take place before any decision is made. It implies an additional burden only if those thinking processes have not been gone through beforehand. If my noble friend is suggesting that community support officers will be introduced without proper thought in advance, fair enough; this imposes an additional burden. But I should have thought that your Lordships would want to make sure that those thinking processes would go forward before things happened.
I am tempted not to rise to the argument about police authorities not representing anyone and not being recognised. I nearly missed introducing this amendment because I was stopped in the street by a gentleman from Hounslow—whom I had not previously met, as I rarely visit Hounslow—who wanted to discuss the affairs of the police authority. I suspect that other police authority chairs will find that that is not an uncommon situation.
This proposal is not about duplication of the policing plan: it is about bringing forward proposals for major changes. The Government have presented the idea of community support officers and the accreditation of warden schemes as a major new plank in the policing and safety of local communities. If it is such an important and significant new plan in the policing arrangements for those areas, then it is appropriate that there should be proper consideration by the police authority before such a scheme is implemented.
I put this proposal forward from the point of view of someone who believes that such schemes are important and that they should go ahead. I do so from the point of view of a police authority which, by and large, thinks that such schemes are important and should go ahead. But we also recognise the importance of there being proper discussion about how this scheme would work, and about its implications and impact. I know from recent discussions with the Police Federation that it has strong feelings on these issues. For that reason they should be properly aired and discussed and approved by the police authority.
Therefore, I am very disappointed with my noble friend's respectful response to the amendments that I have proposed. I hope that he will consider the matter further in the light of the points made. In the expectation of such further consideration, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Dixon-Smith moved Amendment No. 134:
- Page 32, line 14, leave out paragraph (a).
The noble Lord said: My Lords, we come to the point in the Bill where our disagreements with the Government as to the nature of policing in this country become slightly sharper.
Clause 34 provides that a chief officer may designate civilian staff in certain capacities. The categories set out in the clause are: community support officer; investigating officer; detention officer; and escort officer. Three of those categories of civilian operators would not be mightily exposed to the public. An investigating officer may well meet members of the public during the course of an investigation, but he or she is not concerned with the maintenance of law and order on the streets. A detention officer will work within police stations and an escort officer will work between police stations. Under Schedule 4 they all have varying and appropriate police powers.
But a community support officer will be a policeman on the street. He or she will be the public face of the police force. That causes us very real concern. This is the place where the reputation of the police is made or damaged. We believe that it is wrong to put people on the streets who do not have full police powers, if they are to have police powers at all.
It is already possible for local authorities to have street wardens, community wardens and all kinds of people of that nature if they wish. They do not need the provisions in the Bill in order to do that. Many authorities already have people operating in this way. It is not at all unusual to see a major shopping centre being "policed" by one of the various well-known major security firms. Such people operate without police powers and they fulfil a very useful role.
However, the Government are suggesting something different: that people can go on the streets with a limited and not determined basket of police powers. We shall deal later with the schedule setting out the powers of community support officers. It is a basket of powers from which the chief officer may pick those that he wishes to apply. That is a recipe for public confusion over and above the devaluation of the police presence that we think that the public have a right to expect on the streets.
We think that it would be appropriate to delete the category of community support officer from this clause. Amendment No. 137 follows the same principle. This is a fundamental difference between us and the Government. We think that the Bill's proposals will diminish the stature and status of policing on the streets. There is a demand for increased support, but we do not think that this is the best way of providing it. We think that it could be done better.
There is plenty of work of a policing nature to which police civilians can reasonably be applied through the other three categories of support, if that is considered desirable to relieve the problems of policing, without exposing them to full contact with the public on the streets. In this limited way, we think that it is appropriate to delete the category of community
support officer from this part of the Bill and leave the other designations there for the chief officer to call on in aid of his police. We shall come to accreditation schemes later. There is an issue of principle that we wish to pursue in this limited category. I beg to move.3.30 p.m.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, I hate making the same point time and again, but the Minister has done nothing so far to meet the frequently expressed concerns that financial pressure might be brought on the police to designate people as community support officers when, all things being considered, they would not have taken that step. The Treasury is in a position to say that any increase in police budgets ought to be conditional on the police using the funds available to them in the most economical way and recruiting community support officers, who are cheaper than fully trained police officers.
So far, the Minister has merely asserted that that will never happen. Assertions are not good enough. The time has come when an argument must be put forward. We all know perfectly well that these are just the sort of arguments that are advanced by the Chief Secretary in a public expenditure round. When he looks at the money that the Home Office has asked for on behalf of the police, he will say that there are better ways of spending that money and making it go further. The most obvious way of making money go further is to use community support officers much more often.
Assertions will not do any longer. The noble Lord owes it to us to explain why it is not possible for the Government to table an amendment at Third Reading to make it plain that no pressure can be brought on the police in the way that we fear and that in no circumstances would funds be withheld because of a failure by a police authority or a police force to employ a given number of community support officers. If he is not prepared to do that, there is an argument for deleting from the Bill the power to designate community support officers.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, I strongly support every word that my noble friend has just said. This provision is at the root of a great deal of worry among members of police forces throughout the country, because they fear that the Government are trying to get police services on the cheap. That is a real worry. It would be a disaster if the provision were used to make do with lower standards.
Lord Fowler: My Lords, in many ways this is the most crucial part of the Bill. I remain very concerned about the Government's proposals. The obvious response to the rise in crime and lawlessness and the increase in muggings in some of our big cities is to increase the strength of the police service by having more police on the streets and on the beat. Every opinion poll seems to show that that is exactly what the public want. I know of no opinion poll that has indicated mass support for community support officers. People want policemen to be there.
As the noble Lord, Lord Condon, pointed out at Second Reading, London is under-policed compared with New York. There is no conceivable doubt or serious debate about that. The police service in London is under strength compared with overseas cities such as New York. New York was not the only city that increased the strength of its police force. Other cities in the United States have done the same and a similar comparison can be made with other cities in this country.
We are urging a stronger police service against the background of the Government having made virtually no addition to the police service in their first four years in office. They now talk about record numbers, but that simply means that they have just managed to edge ahead of the position that they inherited in 1997. It is worth remembering that zero tolerance was not introduced in New York until the city authorities had recruited 8,000 more policemen. As far as I know, civilian support officers were not promoted as the fulcrum of that drive.
I am not saying that everything that the New York police or other American police forces do is right. I had a wonderful example the other week when I was writing an article on zero tolerance. I rang up the New York police and asked for confirmation of the name of their chief officer. I was ringing on a Sunday and I was told that the office was closed and there was a public holiday on Monday, but by Tuesday someone might be able to tell me the name of the chief officer of the New York police. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Condon, never had such problems in the Metropolitan Police.
New York is not the only example. First and foremost, I am an enormous supporter of the British police service. The characteristic of the British police service is not that it has been equipped much better than others or that it has much more scientific support; it is the relationship between the public and the police. One of the reasons for that is that the public have seen the police as approachable people and as friends to whom they can go for help on the street. I fear that the Government's proposals will damage that. I want the police to carry out what I regard as one of the most basic functions of any police service.
As my noble friend Lord Waddington has just said, the only reason that the Government are seeking to introduce new people is that it will cost less than recruiting trained police officers. Those of us who have experienced a public spending round with the Treasury know perfectly well that that is precisely the type of argument that the Treasury would put forward.
One does not have to think too deeply about that. I am sure that the Treasury thinks that the provision is a vastly good idea and that it will put more people on the streets for the money being spent. However, that is not the question. The question is what kind of people the Government will get and whether they will get better people. I very much doubt that that will be the case.
Yesterday, I raised with the Minister the issue of the Police Federation and its total opposition, as he knows, to giving police powers to community support officers. I am sure that noble Lords will have seen the federation's very long and detailed submission on the issue. One of the federation's basic and, I think, very important points is that community support officers would be deployed in some of the potentially most difficult if not dangerous situations facing police officers generally. Providing public order support is one example.
In Committee, community support officers were compared to traffic wardens. That is a totally false comparison. We are not talking about traffic wardens or people dealing with parked vehicles. We are talking about community support officers who will have to deal with the typically difficult situations that occur daily. What powers will they have? They will be able to use reasonable force to detain a person for up to 30 minutes pending the arrival of a constable. That seems, again, to beg almost every imaginable question.
I realise the pressure that the Treasury must have applied to the Government on this issue. Indeed, it is not even a new proposal within this Government; the previous Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, proposed it in the previous Parliament. However, I do not believe that community support officers will bring to the country a better service than we have now. I tell the Minister that the public would overwhelmingly prefer to see more trained policemen on the streets fighting crime. The public recognise crime for what it is—a very major issue—and I do not think that they want community support officers. I think that they want trained policemen. They are the ones whom the public trust, and the public would like to place their trust in them.
Next Section
Back to Table of Contents
Lords Hansard Home Page