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Lord Condon: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for reminding me of my request for more police officers in London. I shall continue to champion the cause of more police officers across the country. However, I believe that some important principles are at stake in this proposal. Clause 34, as drafted, is an enabling clause. I have made it absolutely clear that I would not support it if I felt that it in any way diluted or undermined the office of constable. I believe that, with proper explanation and reassurance, it will not undermine the office of constable. I therefore find it difficult to support the amendment.
In recent days, I have checked again with former colleagues. The current position, after the earlier debates in your Lordships' House, is that about one quarter of the police services in the country would like actively to explore the provision. That number will grow. They have no intention of rushing into it or of regarding it as a cheap substitute for regular officers. However, about a dozen police services are now fairly keen to explore the notion of community support officers.
I therefore hope that the Minister will be able to provide sufficient reassurances that this will not be policing on the cheap, a substitute for regular officers or to the detriment of specials. I hope that he can
reassure us that this is an enabling provision to allow chief officers and local communities to explore other innovative ways of providing policing and police-related services in their areas.3.45 p.m.
Lord Elton: My Lords, in this debate I stand somewhat humbly before the noble Lord, Lord Condon, in view of the length of his experience and the closeness of his contacts. Nevertheless, I was a little surprised to hear him describe the support of about a quarter of police forces for the provision as almost enthusiastic. I understand from those among the Metropolitan Police who support the Bill that almost every expression of support has been accompanied by a caveat. One example is that the provision would be acceptable only if more fully trained policemen were not available. Another is that they would support the provision only if the funds to implement it were ring-fenced.
In support of the earlier comments of my noble friend Lord Waddington, I should like to quote from the chief constables, police authority chairmen and clerks of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Merseyside and North Wales. Among other things, they said that they were concerned that the local choice proposed in the legislation might be,
- "eroded by the application of centrally held, ring-fenced funding specifically for one or other of the several options available".
They also called for local discretion to be allowed. In Committee, my noble friend Lord Waddington and I tabled an amendment to Clause 5 to that effect. As the life of that clause seemed pretty tenuous, I did not move the amendment, and Clause 5 did indeed disappear. However, should the Minister persist on this course, it would seem proper to guard against the use of the Treasury's big guns in forcing chief officers of police to adjust their employment lists to reflect the cheapest option rather than the best option for policing their areas.
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, the Minister will recall that, in Committee, when winding up the debate on the principle which we are now discussing, he expressed pleasure that the final five speeches—all made by Peers with some London experience—had been rather more in favour of the Government's position than had those preceding them. I rise now because I am conscious that, of the five who spoke on that occasion, the others—except for my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes—are absent today. I also did not want the Minister to take my silence as an indication that I have been wholly convinced by the arguments of all my colleagues.
I am not, however, resiling from the position that I adopted in Committee. I have taken that view particularly because the legislation is permissive, discretionary and optional, and because it will be for individual forces in different parts of the country to decide whether they wish to make use of this power. I also support the general thrust of the Government's position because I am in favour of decentralisation.
On the other hand, a real point has been made by my noble friends Lord Waddington, Lord Peyton of Yeovil and Lord Fowler on the potential hazards in relation to Treasury interference. The Minister and I have taken, in other fields and in other worlds, a separate interest in higher education. Those who followed that particular narrative cannot help but recall that, once the Treasury had adopted the view that the unit of resource in polytechnics should be cut whereas the unit of resource in universities should not be cut, all was well until the polytechnics were turned into universities—not a decision of which I personally approved, but that is what happened. At that point, the Treasury moved against the unit of resource in universities, where the move was rather more formulaic as the principle had been established at the polytechnic level.
I therefore believe that it is in the Government's own interest to say, as my noble friends have urged the Minister to do, how they will handle this particular issue and particular fear. It is in the Government's interest to provide reassurance on the issue which arises out of this innovation. If my noble friend Lord Elton is right about the caution expressed by supporters of the concept in the Met—I am not surprised by that caution—and if the concept is to be carried forward and made a success, it is even more important that there are no misgivings about that concept.
Lord Elton: My Lords, will the noble Lord give way?
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, I am on my last sentence but of course I shall.
Lord Elton: My Lords, I seek to correct the record. As far as I understand the position, the Met is warmly enthusiastic about the measure; I quoted its account of its colleagues.
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, I do not think that that affects the basic point I seek to make. If the measure is to be carried forward, those forces that do so must be confident that it will not result in a diminution of police resources for the rest of the service throughout the country.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, as the noble Lord has just mentioned, we were two of the five who expressed a certain point of view on the matter in a previous debate. I listened carefully as the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, moved the amendment. I absolutely agree that we do not want the police force to be short-changed. I seek an assurance from the Minister on that.
I support the views of the noble Lord, Lord Condon, as I did in Committee. I could not vote against retaining the measure in the Bill as I believe that many areas would benefit from it. In Committee I said that people wanted borough constables. Since then, my husband's ward, which used to be considered the safest ward of any borough council in the whole of London, has been hit by a spate of muggings. Some people pay £1,000 per household to be able to
telephone a private security guard at night to tell him that they are on their way home. The private security guard meets them outside their house with a big dog and enables them to walk safely in the door. That is all very well if one has a spare £1,000 with which to pay for that. However, many people are not in that fortunate position. Unless we have some additional facility of the kind we are discussing there will be clear discrimination between those who can afford personal protection on a private basis and those who cannot. I refer to providing borough constables in conjunction with the Metropolitan Police.The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea considers that the people we are discussing will be recruited mainly from former police or former military personnel wherever possible; their training will be provided in collaboration with the Metropolitan Police and will be virtually police standard; they will be issued with protective clothing and will follow operational protocols. A number of precautions are envisaged. Obviously, the matter has been carefully thought through. For that reason, although I would not vote against the measure of the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, I do not agree with him and I certainly reserve my position on the matter. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us that there will be no reduction in the standard police force, or the funding thereof, in order to provide this facility as an additional service for the public.
Lord Rooker: My Lords, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, there is a fundamental disagreement between the two Front Benches as regards the two amendments we are discussing. However, that does not necessarily apply throughout the House. My remarks will be general as we shall discuss the specifics of the matter later. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, for reasserting her views. I hope that I shall be able to reassure noble Lords that the provision we are discussing does not constitute an attempt to short-change the police service, to cut police numbers, to have policing "on the cheap" or to diminish the quality of personnel on the streets. I hope that I shall succeed in reassuring noble Lords on that point.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, that in my experience as a Minister—that may be cut short due to the remarks I am about to make—the Treasury has virtually wrecked every good idea I have come across in the past five years due to the narrow, short-term view it takes. Sometimes it takes a Mr Gradgrind approach and does not seek value for the community simply because one cannot always say at the outset what sum of money will be involved in a measure although one knows that ultimately it will result in a saving and a better quality of life for people. I assure the noble Lord that the Home Secretary will not allow penny-pinching approaches to wreck the concept of community support officers as that government policy is accepted throughout the Government following the publication of the White Paper. There will be no acquiescence in any attempt to short-change the police service. That is not the policy of the Government.
I refer to what I thought were the rather grudging comments of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler. However, I accept that this Government's record in this regard is not so brilliant in that police numbers dropped after 1997. However, at the end of March this year the figure is projected to be 128,000—we do not have the final figure—and by March next year 130,000. It is interesting to note that these days the Home Secretary does not fix police numbers. I refer to the point made by the noble Lords, Lord Waddington and Lord Peyton. The Home Secretary does not fix police numbers as was the case in the past. Chief constables do that from within their budget. The idea, therefore, that we might impose a financial squeeze on police numbers—that was the impression noble Lords gave although it is obviously not my view—and try to force chief constables to act in a way they do not wish is nonsense because the Government do not set police numbers.
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