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Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, this is an interesting area of debate and discussion. We are trying to focus on having members of the public acting as volunteers within the Special Constabulary while at the same time creating a "broader family" of uniform presence to achieve and secure public order and have people doing appropriate jobs. I can see where there is a debate between the two Opposition Front Benches as to how that is best achieved, but we are trying to get the balance right.
On a number of occasions, the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, and Members on the Liberal Democrat Front Benchhave made the point that there has been a falling away in the number of special constables. The noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, sees the potential for accredited community safety officers as a way of pumping up those numbers. I can see the attraction of that, but the problem is that we are talking about two different things.
The problem with the noble Lord's amendments is that there is a confusion in his mind about what an accredited community support officer would be doing and the roles, duties and functions of special constables. My speaking notes contain the following good example. Let us take an accredited neighbourhood warden appropriately attired in his usual neighbourhood warden outfit—in my area they wear rather nice orange jumpers and ride orange push-bikes and they feel comfortable with that—which is a casual livery. Let us say that the neighbourhood warden, who has the powers of a Special, is confronted with a situation in which he might want to use them as a Special. What does he, or she, do? Does he take off for the local telephone box, have a quick spin, change
and become a uniformed presence? Where does it begin and where does it end? That is the great difficulty.The noble Lord said that it was a radical measure and it certainly is that. It could also lead to considerable confusion. In our view, the amendments would not achieve the result that the noble Lord intends. When we debated the matter yesterday, I thought that we offered a high degree of reassurance as to our intention with regard to Specials, ensuring that their volunteering role was fully recognised, looking at ways in which we can strengthen and improve that and at providing them with extra support. We will also ensure that through an extensive publicity campaign run by the Home Office that we bring more back into play.
We all accept that there are difficulties in the specialist nature of their volunteering role and we must unlock the key which ensures that those numbers are increased and greatly enhanced and that those people provide an additional element of street presence for maintaining public order and so forth. The amendments have a potential to create another regular police force. I am not sure whether that is the noble Lord's intention but such a force would inevitably be less well paid, employed by an outside organisation not under the direction and control of the chief officer. In that sense, there is no difference between accrediting a special and a police constable. Ironically, the latter—the police employee—would be easier. Moreover, as volunteers, Specials embody active citizenship. By removing their volunteer status, they will no longer be members of the community working selflessly for that community. The combined result then is that Specials will no longer be "special"—in all senses of the word.
The other significant effect of the amendments will be to give accredited employees who are not supervised by the police the same range of powers as a police constable, including those of arrest and stop and search. We are having an extensive national debate about the powers of stop and search and how they should be used. Again, this would create difficulties in that context.
This proposal is also in stark contrast to the noble Lord's stance on community support officers. Even though these support staff would be employed by the police authority and deployed by the chief officer, the noble Lord appears to believe that they should not have any powers at all.
The role of Specials is also very different from that envisaged for the accredited individuals. Specials do not deal specifically with anti-social behaviour or issues which do not necessarily require the full powers and training of a police officer in the first instance. These clauses are intended to provide a proportionate response to community safety. They enable the extension of only those powers which are appropriate for tackling community safety and reassurance and, where extended, these powers would be exercised by accredited persons as part of their paid work by virtue of Clauses 35 and 36.
Perhaps I may turn to Amendments Nos. 191 to 195. I should remind noble Lords that Clause 36 is aimed at ensuring that if we are to extend police powers in the accreditation of civilians, even in a limited form, and that such powers would be available only to appropriate employees of appropriate employers, it is vital that checks are carried out before accrediting a person under this clause.
For example, we must specify the grounds on which the chief officers must be satisfied before the accreditation is awarded. This part of the Bill ensures that the employer is a fit and proper person to supervise the carrying out of functions by the employee, and that the person is suitable to carry out the relevant functions, capable of carrying them out and adequately trained. To remove those requirements from the face of the Bill, as the amendments suggest, would be to remove certain necessary safeguards that guard against the inappropriate use of police powers.
In the debate in Committee the noble Lord expressed concern over the appropriateness of a non-police employer supervising police functions. He stated that this amendment was aimed at ensuring that the supervision of police functions remained in the hands of the police. Once again, this is in stark contrast to his earlier amendment, which sought to accredit non-police employees as Specials and thus have the full powers of a constable. In any case, as I have already pointed out, Clause 36 is not aimed at the supervisory function of the employer; that is covered in Clause 35.
We believe that subsection (4) must remain in the Bill as it stands. The public will expect that inquiries have been made into the suitability and training of anyone in their community providing an official presence and exercising even limited official powers. The provisions in this part of the Bill are enabling rather than prescriptive. Neither employers nor employees have to become a part of the accreditation schemes. It is their choice to do so if they so wish. However, we must ensure that adequate safeguards are in place so that appropriate individuals are able to provide co-ordinated and efficient support to the police.
I shall turn to Amendments Nos. 196 and 197. Here I suspect that the noble Lord seeks to make it possible for chief officers to charge for training. That may be driven by an appreciation of the far greater costs involved in training an accredited person as a Special. Perhaps the noble Lord can assist us with that.
Ironically, the amendments will also mean that organisations which promote active citizenship in their staff—again a matter which has achieved common support in your Lordships' House—may well be required to pay all the costs of any member of staff wishing to become a Special in an accredited scheme, including the costs involved in accreditation and training. The argument here is easy; that is not much of an incentive for joining up to the Specials when other forms of volunteering are of minimal cost to the employer.
I agree that Amendment No. 202 is a logical extension of the noble Lord's position. It would be silly to have an accredited Special lose his status as a Special
if his employment in a given accredited scheme was to end. However, I am sure that, on reflection, the noble Lord will agree that this amendment is dependent on whether his earlier amendments for an accredited special constable scheme are accepted.Perhaps I may remind noble Lords once again that the accreditation of organisations such as neighbourhood wardens, street wardens and shopping centre security staff is a key aspect of the co-ordinated approach in the reassurance agenda, and thus is a key part of the Bill. On the one hand, volunteer Specials, although an essential and valuable part of the police service, are not the only solution to anti-social behaviour. Most have a normal job and, as such, are available only outside normal working hours such as evenings and weekends. By contrast, these organisations are staffed by those who have community safety and regeneration pretty much as their full-time job. They can provide a full-time community presence, in particular during school hours and school holidays. That is enhanced and complemented by the presence of Specials when they are available.
Of course, these accreditation schemes are not intended to replace Specials. It is important that that is widely appreciated and understood. The Government want to reverse the decline in Specials. Research suggests that improvements in the management, deployment, welfare and support given to Specials are essential to achieve that end. We are considering, with the relevant stakeholders, a number of options for achieving improvements in conditions of service and the management of special constables. We aim to ensure that Specials are used effectively so that they provide an increasingly visible presence in our communities.
I apologise for the length of my response, but I think that it was essential to go over very carefully the issues and to try to get at the core of the argument put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith. I hope that he will take careful cognisance of these points and then reflect on them. Ultimately I do not think that there is a great difference between what we are trying to achieve in ensuring a better and more effective uniformed presence on the streets, in the most appropriate form. I suggest to the noble Lord that he withdraw his amendment.
5.30 p.m.
Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, the Minister would say that, wouldn't he?
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, for drawing the attention of the House to the Home Office circular on special constables, in particular that part which relates to people such as traffic wardens, community wardens, parks police and so forth. The reason why those groups are not eligible to be chosen as Specials is very simple: apparently they might feel tempted to use their office as a special constable for their personal gain. The temptation for people to use an office for personal gain is universal and does not apply to these categories any more than
it applies to anyone else, anywhere else, doing any other job. If we think that that is a reason why people should not become special constables then, by golly, that is a good argument for why we should not have an accredited scheme at all.The Minister is right, to the extent that the amendments we have put forward form a package. They do not stand individually; they stand together. That is important because if these accredited people become accredited special constables, they will become a part of the police service. Then they would no longer be directly responsible to their employer for the part of their duties which involved police matters; they would be responsible to the chief officer of police.
To return to a point made by the Minister, the issue of whether one needs to approve their employer or not ceases to be relevant because once they are appointed as a result of the organisation having been approved, they are responsible to the chief constable or the chief officer of police rather than to their employer. We have tabled other amendments to ensure that the accredited community service officers should be responsible to the chief officer of police and not to their employers for that part of their duties related to the police function. We do not believe that it is right to make the third party employer responsible for people exercising police powers.
The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, adduced a number of other arguments. He made something of our amendments in regard to the cost of staff training, but the Bill provides that the cost of training staff under the accreditation scheme falls on the employer. Our amendment simply picks that up. Given that situation, I find it remarkable that the Minister had almost the effrontery to make an issue of it. We have talked a great deal about a chief officer's discretion—this is a matter of discretion, as it should be—and the chief officer would be most unlikely to demand that he should get back from the employer the cost of training.
We believe that it was worth while tabling the amendment. I am grateful to the Minister for assuring me that I was wrong in doing so. I shall be very happy to see the cost of training these people wholly borne by the police, as it properly should be. If we are training and expecting people to exercise police powers—whether they are Specials or accredited community safety officers is neither here nor there—it should be at police cost.
We heard many traditional arguments from the Minister which reveal that his mindset is stuck in the ruts that used to go down roads in the olden days and ensured that the traffic kept going along one line and one line only. He is not thinking with any flexibility about how we could use the proposals in the Bill to bring about much stronger and more lasting changes for the benefit of policing and to revivify the Special Constabulary.
There have been many interesting arguments, but they are specious, inconsistent and thin. I have not heard anything to convince me that the suggestion we are making, even if it is not fleshed out in full detail in
the amendments, is the wrong one. But this is not the occasion to press the amendment. I beg leave to withdraw it.Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 174 to 177 not moved.]
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