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Lord Dholakia: My Lords, the amendment is grouped with a number of other amendments. I want particularly to speak to Amendments 2, 2A and 75A to D.
There have been a number of changes to the Bill in another place. I am delighted that much of what has now been achieved reflects the concern that we expressed in your Lordships' House. I am delighted with the contribution of my honourable friends Norman Baker and Simon Hughes, who were able to bring much pressure on the Government to achieve these changes. I welcome the amendment, but I intend to speak also in relation to CSO's later on during the relevant amendment.
In the meantime, I confirm that our approach on Report in your Lordship's House was justified. We strenuously opposed Clause 5 then because we believed and still believe that the police authority should be at the heart of all changes proposed. To tamper with this well-established structure will not bring improvement in the way we deal with crime. Moreover there is a clear demonstration in a number of previous Bills before your Lordships' House that the Government have an insatiable appetite to control matters centrally. They took little notice of what we said on the Education Bill and on other Home Office matters, where central controls replaced many of the local initiatives.
At the heart of police reforms must be an acceptance that police authorities are an essential element of the tripod that sustains local accountability and independence. More importantly, they are the guardians of the independence of police operational methods. Any interference in those aspects would erode the confidence of the public. I am glad that the Government have made a concession to uphold that principle. It is reflected in the way the amendment has been framed.
The Bill now stops short of establishing the Home Secretary's position as the de facto head of policing. The Government failed to realise that the Bill as first drafted seemed to accord to the Home Secretary powers that go far beyond those traditionally accepted within our constitutional convention.
The most obvious issue is that the Bill altered the historical constitutional balance of the relationship between central government, the local governance of policing and the so-called operational independence of chief constables. There has always been a recognisable separation—albeit now somewhat blurred—between the power, the responsibility and the accountability of each of the three institutions. Since the inception of the new model police from the late 1820s onwards, constitutional convention has stressed the importance of local accountability for the delivery of policing. That is one good reason why the amendment ought to be supported.
Locally appointed police authorities—as they became—have jealously guarded against central interference. It must be recognised that the traditional "triumervate" relationship was manipulated into a more lineal one following the Conservative sponsored Police and Magistrates' Court Act 1994. Ministers may well reflect the controversy surrounding those provisions and especially as they related to the perceived centralising of power. The current Bill,
however, went far further. Its net effect would have established the Home Secretary as the determining institution in and of policing.The original Bill all but eradicated the position of police authorities as the locally accountable governing body. It could well reduce their role to that of mere functionaries of interpretation. It also altered the relationship between the Home Secretary and Chief Constables. The Home Secretary accrues to himself the power to dismiss chief officers, having already the power to determine the suitability for appointment. Taken together with the other powers, it could be perceived that chief officers of police could be wholly dependent on and at the whim of the Home Secretary.
That interference is wholly unacceptable. It is a dangerous development. It is not an exaggeration to suggest that if the Bill was passed in its original format, it would entrench more power and control in central government. I am glad to an extent that we have moved away from that. Save perhaps for the Armed Forces, the Police Service is the most powerful operational institution in any polity. We might not have a police state in the literal sense of the term, but we would be a long way towards establishing one. We would certainly have a ministry of policing in everything other than in name.
The central question still remains: Why does the present Home Secretary see the need for such measures? I find it difficult to understand his publicly-announced reasoning that because he is responsible to Parliament for policing he should have the power as well as the responsibility. While I do not want to rehearse the points already made in previous debates in your Lordships' House about the role of central government, it seems to me to be a complete misunderstanding of the role of a Minister within a liberal democracy for the Home Secretary to assume such powers. It is, I believe, a sign of immature governance to presume that accruing such powers will positively assist the delivery of policing services.
However, we know now that the buck stops with him. He has no escape route left. I am therefore a little happier that our concern is reflected—not totally but partially—in the Commons amendment and the amendment moved by the noble and Learned Lord, Lord Falconer.
I turn to Commons Amendment No. 75. The argument that I have advanced about police authorities applies equally to the NCIS authority. The Government have gone some way in redefining their relationship in trying to tackle remedial measures realised by an inspection under Section 54 of the Act.
For the time being we shall support these measures. But we shall watch developments with great care. So, although the powers of the Home Secretary to intervene in the actions of chief officers of police and police authorities have been greatly reduced—thanks to the combined opposition in both Houses of Parliament—I have no doubt that if we smell that the
local authority is eroded by centralised control we shall be back to propose suitable amendments in future legislation.
Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, I rise briefly to say how pleased I am with the amendments put forward by my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton. It is important that the Government have listened to the arguments put by noble Lords, by police authorities externally and by chief police officers about the importance of the tripartite relationship between the Home Secretary, local police authorities and local chief officers of police.
Essentially, the amendments in this group restore that balance. It is entirely legitimate for the Home Secretary to have concerns about the performance and delivery of policing services in local areas. However, it would not be legitimate for him to follow up that concern with the proposals that were originally in the Bill. The arrangements that have now been put before the House set the balance right. The local police authority will be required to ensure that an appropriate action plan is drawn up and that that action plan meets the concerns of local communities and the wider population, to whom the Home Secretary is responsible.
So the balance has now been struck right. I would say that, having tabled an amendment on similar lines at an earlier stage, this is an important recognition that the Government have listened to the concerns that have been expressed and have now got the balance right, preserving the important principle of the tripartite relationship.
7 p.m.
Baroness Harris of Richmond: My Lords, I, too, agree that we have come a long way from the original draft. I welcome much of what we have worked on in this House and what they have worked on in another place. But, like my noble friend Lord Dholakia, I ask why the Home Secretary still feels that he needs the powers, and what evidence he has that police authorities will not have regard to the national policing plan. They have a statutory duty to do so; if they do, there should be no need for the Home Secretary to issue an action plan. That could still be seen by police authorities to be undermining their role.
On Amendment No. 75A, it is again the directions to the service authorities of the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the National Crime Squad that are difficult for us to accept. They are relatively new bodies and, to my knowledge, have thoroughly complied with their statutory responsibilities. As is the case with the police authorities for England and Wales, there can be no sensible reason for the Home Secretary to take to himself those powers. He has sufficient power to make police authorities and forces perform better. The intervention powers under Clause 4 achieve that. I still have considerable concerns about
the matter, as does my noble friend Lord Dholakia, but we agree that we have come a long way from the Bill as drafted.
Lord Corbett of Castle Vale: My Lords, perhaps I may thank my noble and learned friend for not simply listening to concerns expressed in this House and another place about the Bill's provisions but, more importantly, responding to them. It is slightly churlish to start to throw around phrases such as U-turns, defeats and the rest of it. One of the reasons that this place is here is to review legislation with which we are presented and propose ways in which we collectively feel that it may be improved. It is then up to the Government of the day, who have a majority in the other place, to decide whether they will simply listen and reject those proposals or, as one hopes—and more sensibly, in my view—to listen and respond to what has been said?
I do not want to reopen the argument, but although I understand many of the concerns expressed, they are exaggerated and overstated. But that is by the by, in a sense, because the whole debate at both ends of the Corridor has underlined the continuing importance of our tripartite arrangements for policing on behalf of communities up and down this island. That is what matters.
What matters is that, as far as possible, we should try to proceed together on the path of reform. I have not heard any argument that policing is incapable of being reformed—least of all, let me immediately say, from the police themselves. There are arguments about the detail, but we are all signed up to the need to persuade, encourage and enable the police, with the proper provision of the resources that they need in terms of manpower, equipment and all the rest of it, to get better results in not just detecting but deterring crime, where possible. There is no argument between us about that. The amendments proposed by my noble and learned friend will help us to achieve that.
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