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Lord Filkin: My Lords, with regret, I beg to move that the House do adjourn during pleasure until 8.30 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended from 8.28 to 8.30 p.m.]
Police Reform Bill [HL]
Consideration of amendments on Report resumed.
Clause 75 [Supplementary provisions about police membership of NCIS]:
Lord Rooker moved Amendment No. 240:
- Page 67, line 37, after first "In" insert "subsection (1) of"
The noble Lord said: My Lords, there are other government amendments grouped with this. They are all technical amendments to make it clear that the provisions relating to the retirement of members of the National Criminal Intelligence Service or the National Crime Squad in the interest of efficiency or effectiveness relate only to police officers of the rank of assistant chief constable and above. That is in line with the provision applying to Home Office forces. Similar provisions relating to the directors general, who currently both hold the rank of chief constable, are already contained in the Police Act 1997. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Rooker moved Amendment No. 241:
- Page 67, line 39, at end insert—
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 76 [Supplementary provisions about police membership of NCS ]:
Lord Rooker moved Amendments Nos. 242 and 243:
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 77 [Police authorities to produce three-year strategy plans]:
Lord Rooker moved Amendment No. 244:
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this group contains government and opposition amendments. I shall try to cover them all in one go, although that does not mean that other noble Lords cannot make their points. If I need to come back and respond to those points, I shall do so.
We are determined that the standard of policing throughout England and Wales should be consistently high. The national policing plan is a key part of the process to achieve that. We are equally determined to support police authorities and chief police officers in their planning to achieve that goal. However, following the points made in Committee, we accept that placing a requirement on police authorities to ensure that their three-year plans are consistent with the national policing plan is pitching it a little too high. On reflection, we agree that a duty to have regard to the national plan will be sufficient. Government Amendments Nos. 244 and 247 make the appropriate alterations to Clause 77.
The noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, and the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, have tabled amendments that make a similar point. Their Amendments Nos. 245, 255, 256, 257, 258 and 261 offer two alternatives. The first is the same as the approach that we propose, so I shall not go over that. The second is that in preparing the three-year plans, chief officers and police authorities should take into account the national policing plan. I am not sure that there is a significant difference.
While I do not wish to diminish the Liberal Democrat amendments in any way, I shall skate over the detail and come back to them if need be.
The other government amendments in the group are Amendments Nos. 252 and 280. They follow the well established pattern of writing on to the face of the Bill our intention to consult. They are a further effort to meet the points legitimately made in Committee on consulting before issuing codes of practice, regulations or, in this case, guidance. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith and the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, agree that the government amendments more than meet the spirit of what they are seeking to achieve with many of their amendments. I accordingly invite them to support our amendments in preference to their own.
I have not touched on Amendments Nos. 248, 249 and 254, but I shall be happy to address them once the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, has spoken to them, if he wishes to do so. Similarly, I shall address the other Liberal Democrat amendments once the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, has spoken to them, so that we can have a more ordered debate. I beg to move.
Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, when I looked at the group of amendments, I felt that there were many minds with but a single thought. I am immensely grateful to the Minister for acknowledging the points raised in Committee. The Minister tabled his amendments so that they appeared first, even though ours went down chronologically first. He has captured the spirit of what we intended and that is all that is necessary. I am grateful to him for that and I do not think that I need to say anything more. Thank you very much.
Baroness Harris of Richmond: My Lords, I wish that I, too, could be so happy with the amendments. I beg your Lordships' indulgence as I go through a number of them. Amendments Nos. 246, 250, 251, 253, 254, 259 and 260 are tabled in our names.
On Amendment No. 246, we fully agree that the views of local people should be reflected in the three-year plan. The concerns and expectations of local communities should be critical in shaping that plan. Consultation with local communities is one of the key statutory duties of a police authority. The police authority is the bridge between the force and local people. The authority's independence from the force makes that consultation effective in the eyes of local people.
The Bill confuses the roles of the police authority and the chief officer. We do not believe that that is helpful and we urge the Government to think again about the drafting of the clause.
It may help the Minister if I say a brief word about the practicalities of producing such plans. I do so from many years' experience of having to produce them. It seems from our earlier debates that he believes our amendment would prevent timely or appropriate consultation. It is not a matter of the chief officer producing a draft and presenting it to the police
We raised the issue covered in Amendment No. 250 in Committee. We return to it in the hope of persuading the Government that they have gone too far. We are not persuaded of the need for the Secretary of State to issue statutory guidance, but we would be prepared to live with that if other changes, which we shall discuss later, were made to the clause. We welcome the Government's amendment, which would require consultation with the APA, ACPO and others on the contents of that guidance, but we believe that the proposal in subsection (6)(a) for statutory guidance setting out the form that three-year plans should take is a step too far.
Police authorities publish their plans in a way that meets the needs and expectations of local people. Indeed, police authorities consult widely with their communities about how they would like to receive such information, and develop their plans accordingly.
When Amendment No. 251 was discussed in Committee the Minister recognised the importance of guidance being issued in a timely fashion if the three-year plans were to be effective. The Government have certainly accepted the case for a deadline to be placed in the Bill in relation to publication of the national policing plan, and we are simply asking them to make a similar commitment in relation to publication of the statutory guidance. I hope that the Minister will feel able to accept the spirit of this amendment. We shall be happy to negotiate the exact date to be fixed in the legislation if he so wishes.
As for Amendments Nos. 253 and 254, we have previously made clear our strong objections to subsections (8) and (10) to (15), the effect of which is that police authorities will be required to submit their three-year plans to the Home Secretary to be checked. Our amendments would remove that requirement, although police authorities would still send a copy of their plan to the Home Secretary, as they do their annual plans now. When we discussed this in Committee, the Minister stressed that the clause does not give the Home Secretary a power of veto over the three-year plan.
We recognise that there is no veto in the legislation, and the Minister's assurances that that is not how the Home Secretary intends to operate are indeed very welcome. However, we believe that the Minister did not make a truly persuasive case for the Home Secretary to have the power to call in plans in draft form to be checked over, presumably by his officials, and to make comments to the authority if he or his
I hope that the Minister can produce some grounds for going down this path. As he must appreciate, these provisions are offensive to police authorities. Police authorities do not see this as enhancing or innovating their role, as the Minister suggested in Committee; on the contrary, they see it as undermining their role in a way which suggests that they are not to be trusted. I urge the Minister to give further serious thought to whether these provisions are really necessary and are worth causing serious damage to the tripartite relationship. I am sure that we shall wish to return to these amendments in future.
I can take Amendments Nos. 259 and 260 very briefly. We have previously made clear our concerns about the requirement for police authorities to submit their three-year plans to the Home Secretary for scrutiny. Our amendments seek to remove subsections (14) and (15), under which the Home Secretary will make regulations prescribing how police authorities should submit their plans to him for scrutiny. We believe that such prescription is unnecessary. I hope that the Minister will be prepared to take this away and reconsider. If not, we shall no doubt return to the subject again.
Lord Rooker: My Lords, I know that it might come as a shock to the police authority squad in this place, but the Government are seeking to raise the profile of police authorities. We are seeking to do them a favour and raise their public profile. This part of the Bill shows how serious we are about that. The Secretary of State's overall responsibility means that it is appropriate that he should be able to issue guidance on the content as well as the form of the three-year plan. There is nothing exceptional in that.
Amendment No. 254 seeks to remove subsections (10) and (11) of the proposed new Section 6A. These provisions would enable the Home Secretary to comment—to put it no higher—on whether the three-year plan was consistent with the national plan. I fail to see the problem with that. As I said, it is not a veto for the Home Secretary; I put that on the record now. I also should have thought that there is some mileage in ensuring that the Home Secretary and the police authorities are working broadly to the same agenda, to drive down crime and the fear of crime and to raise the standards of performance across the country.
The Police Act 1996 already places a responsibility for arrangements to seek the views of the local community on the police authority in consultation with the chief officer. So these arrangements would apply equally to preparation of these three-year plans. Therefore, Amendment No. 246 adds literally nothing.
I realise that the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, thinks that no one in the Home Office lives in the real world of the police authorities and that we do not understand their trials and tribulations. We are, however, doing our best to meet them half way. Guidance will be available on preparation of the plans in good time to enable police authorities to meet the timetable for their submission to the Home Secretary. The guidance itself will be subject to consultation in the usual way. Amendment No. 251 would commit the Home Secretary to a specific deadline in the Bill that is too far in advance of the three-year period covered by the plans to be useful.
I hope that the noble Baroness will accept my reassurance on the availability of guidance. I know that I will be hauled back to this place if it is not available, and I do not want that to happen when I have made a commitment on behalf of the Government. We intend to use our best endeavours to make that guidance available.
I also cannot support Amendments Nos. 253, 259 and 260. The Home Secretary is entitled to be able to require the three-year plans to be submitted to him and to make regulations for the procedure governing that submission. That is in keeping with his role in the tripartite relationship as he desperately endeavours to raise police authorities' profile and importance in the public mind.
We do not believe that these requirements undermine the tripartite relationship—far from it, that is not our intention at all. As I said, our intention is the exact opposite. I therefore hope that noble Lords will not press their amendments in this group. I also hope that they will agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, that our proposals have met the spirit of the comments in Committee. I am also genuinely serious about ensuring that we provide our side of the procedure in good time to enable police authorities to fulfil their part.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
"( ) Subsection (2) of that section shall cease to have effect."
Page 68, line 15, after first "In" insert "subsection (1) of"
Page 68, line 18, at end insert—
"( ) Subsection (2) of that section shall cease to have effect."
Page 68, leave out lines 35 to 39.
8.45 p.m.
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