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Lord Rooker: My Lords, I must mention that community support officers will not replace the Diplomatic Protection Squad—far from it. That is not the issue. I did not mention it, but the fact that police officers were brought into London from outside after 11th September was mentioned in the House. We saw them every 50 yards, walking around in pairs, keeping eyes and ears open. That work had to be done, but it took fully trained police officers from other areas when the work could have been carried out by trained community support officers. That point was made at the time.

Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that clarification. I listened with care to what he said and it was open to another interpretation. I am immensely relieved to hear what he has said. We should be clear that the funding of the police will not change in any way as a result of the introduction of this policy. Whether a chief officer can make additional resources available for such people is a moot point indeed. We should be clear that although this proposal is in the Bill and was in the Government's White Paper last autumn, it was not in their election manifesto last year so we cannot be absolutely certain that the public completely support the proposal.

The fact is that we have an issue of principle. I completely understand the reaction of chief officers of police, who see this option coming, saying that they will want to consider it. If that is a condemnation of anything, it is a condemnation of the funding that is provided by the Home Office for the police service and nothing else. Local police forces, through their local communities, are calling on local taxpayers to pay for the police service over and above the normal funding and normal standards that the Government expect to be provided. That may be all well and good and it may be the Government's intention.

As a man who has always believed in local responsibility I cannot and do not object to the principle, but we must be quite clear about what will happen. Some areas that are prosperous and well off will feel that they can do that but some areas that are not so fortunate will not feel that they can. The idea of approved standards of policing and quality of policing in a relatively uniform manner across the country will fly out of the window.

I believe that we are justified in treating this point as an issue of principle. I am grateful to my noble friends Lord Waddington, Lord Peyton of Yeovil and Lord Fowler for their support. My noble friend Lord Elton raised the important issue of caveats to ensure that Treasury pressure cannot be exerted to bring in such people. I accept that my noble friends Lady Gardner of Parkes and Lord Brooke have some hesitations about that view, although I am sure that they will accept that there is an issue of principle. But we have the problem of trying to meet local demands.

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I do not believe that this is the time to decide this issue. We shall consider carefully all that has been said. In our view, these proposals devalue and will diminish the quality of policing on the street. We are not concerned with what takes place in the stations or once an investigation is under way; we are concerned with that most open and public aspect of policing, the bobby on the beat. While what is being proposed may have some beneficial side-effects, on balance it is regrettable. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendment No. 135 not moved.]

Lord Dixon-Smith moved Amendment No. 136:

Page 32, line 32, leave out from "duties" to "that" in line 34.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is a fairly simple amendment. I can see the Minister's ears pricking up for this one and at my lack of faith in local discretion. The Bill provides a basket of police powers from which the chief officer of police may choose. He can choose to give different individuals different ranges of powers from within that basket. I believe that that is a recipe for public confusion. A chief officer may decide within his policing area that all the staff will have the full basket of powers or a particular section of the basket of powers.

There is then the problem that a neighbouring police force may pick a different section of the basket of powers so that a police force on one side of a boundary may operate with one set of powers and a force on the other side may operate with another set. Not only do criminals not know or acknowledge police force boundaries, but the general public lives in precisely the same way. Someone living on one side of a boundary may work on the other side and he would have to learn two lessons instead of one.

We believe that if the basket of powers is relevant it should be used. We shall return to the argument about those powers later on. Either the basket is appropriate or it is not. We believe that that is a perfectly proper matter to be determined at this time. These amendments are designed to narrow the scope for confusion by removing discretion and to ensure that the basket remains complete so that only one basket of powers is applied around the country. We believe that that is a reasonable thing to do. I beg to move.

4.30 p.m.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, we have come full circle. I recognise the amendment as similar to one that was moved in Committee. As the noble Lord said, it would have the effect of removing flexibility and flexibility would be taken away from chief officers. Yesterday we had a debate about how this Government wanted to centralise matters and to determine everything from the centre. Here we are providing for local flexibility and a degree of local autonomy.

The other ironic aspect of the amendment is that it would also have the effect of requiring designated staff to have powers that in all probability they would never be required to use.

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We want to make the introduction of designated officers, including community support officers, a local decision. We want to give chief officers the flexibility to mould their introduction to meet the precise needs of the community rather than prescribing this from the centre.

The noble Lord appears to be fearful that this part of the clause, as it is drafted, could mean that all support staff have different powers and that that would confuse the public. In practice there may be two or three groups of powers for each category of support staff in each force area, developed for and identifiable by the communities in those areas.

In Committee we used the example of the Metropolitan Police who have indicated that they will establish just three categories of community support officers, each performing different functions, hence having different powers. Different forces could have different functions for their community support officers and hence different combinations of powers. Indeed, some variation is to be expected when a new concept such as this is being introduced, and that can be beneficial.

Similar arguments could apply to other categories of support staff. In order to suit local policing arrangements, chief officers may well choose to confer on support staff only some but not all of the powers available under Schedule 4. The clause enables chief officers to tailor precisely the designation of support staff to suit those local needs. We believe that local flexibility is worth having. The amendment would remove that.

By insisting that chief officers extend the full range of powers to each category of support staff, we argue that that would prejudge the roles that they are to fulfil. Throughout these clauses we have aimed to allow local flexibility, hence the clauses are enabling rather than being prescriptive.

The amendment would require, for example, that a detention officer who would only be dealing with handling people in custody would also have to be trained in interviewing suspects; that a community support officer working on community regeneration would have the same anti-terrorism powers as a colleague performing a security function. I question the need for that. If a designated officer had powers that he was not using, he would still be required to be fully trained and competent in the exercise of those powers. That is totally unnecessary and puts an additional financial burden on forces.

If a community support officer performing a security role will only be using three or so powers, what is to be gained by training him or her in the exercise of all the powers in Part 1 of Schedule 4? By the time they come to use those powers they may have become so rusty in understanding them that they have forgotten how to exercise them.

We are not saying that chief officers must select variations of powers from each menu; we are simply saying that that option should be available to them. That is not the same as automatically giving each designated person different powers. I do not believe

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that chief officers would want to do that. Leaving aside the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, on potential confusion for the public, it would be an unnecessarily complex situation and create extra bureaucratic and training burdens for the police. However, there may be some circumstances in which the flexibility provided by this clause will prove to be useful to chief officers.

That said, I suspect that over time we will see some convergence in the approach adopted by forces in the light of experience. That is to be expected. Through best practice forces will no doubt learn from each other to secure the best use of the flexibility given. The code of practice to be issued under Clause 40 will play an important part in encouraging that. If, over time, experience suggests that only limited variations in powers are appropriate, we can promote that good practice through the medium of the code of practice.

This is an area for local discussion. It is an area where local flexibility is to be welcomed. It will enable experimentation to take place and that will be a valuable role for community support officers and others to fulfil. It will be left to the discretion of the chief officer to determine how that is best done, though guidance will be issued through the code so that the roles are better understood. Having said that, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

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