Police and Justice Bill

I shall first deal briefly with the Government amendments. Government amendment No. 75 is consequential to new clause 4. As hon. Members know, police authorities can delegate powers to construct committees but only those that are organised across the entire geography of a region. New clause 4 and the associated amendment No. 75 will enable police authorities to delegate their functions either to a member of the authority or to an area committee of the authority. They would therefore provide police authorities with the flexibility to establish area committees and delegate some of their functions to such committees. That is important in the context of combined working with local authorities. Government amendment No. 64 and the associated consequential amendments will enable police authorities to appoint more than one individual to the office of deputy chief constable when there is a compelling operational case for that. I have tabled the amendments to enable police authorities to delegate to area committees in response to strong representations by my hon. Friends the Members for Wrexham (Ian Lucas), for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami), for Clwyd, South (Mr. Jones), for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) and for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen). They have made the powerful case that, in the light of the special circumstances in Wales—including its geography and its transport infrastructure—an all-Wales police force could require more than one deputy chief constable and more than one police authority area committee. Amendments Nos. 54 and 59 are technical. They reproduce the existing order-making power in schedule 3 to the Police Act 1996 that enables the Secretary of State to make regulations on the procedures to be followed by selection panels charged with identifying candidates for appointment as independent members of police authorities. Amendments Nos. 55 to 58 and 60 to 63 correct a drafting error in the Bill to provide for the appointment of a chairman and one or more vice-chairmen from the membership of a police authority, as is presently set out in the Police Act 1996. Amendments Nos. 2 to 13, tabled by the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), relate to the election of police authority chairmen and vice-chairmen. I can assure the House that we have no intention of exercising the regulation-making power in schedule 2 to provide for the Home Secretary to appoint chairs or vice-chairs of police authorities. Our aim is simply to give a greater measure of flexibility in the legislation in relation to the appointment of police authorities as a whole. Our proposal is therefore very straightforward: we propose to exercise the regulation-making power so as to provide that the chair and vice-chair of police authorities outside London will, as now, be appointed by the members of the authority. In the case of the Metropolitan Police Authority, we have consulted on a proposal that the Mayor of London should appoint the chairman. We are considering the responses to the consultation and will announce our conclusions in the summer. My right hon. Friend the Member for Salford (Hazel Blears), now the Minister without Portfolio, said in Committee that candidates for chairmanships should have the right skills for the job. That was outlined clearly in the White Paper, ““Building Communities, Beating Crime””. We intend that candidates for the role of chair should be subject to a competency-based selection process. As in other areas, we will consult on the detailed provisions to be included in the regulations. In the light of my assurances on this issue, I hope that the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green will agree not to press her amendments. I turn now to amendments Nos. 14 to 20. I believe that the House is united in its ambition to ensure that recent improvements in police performance continue, and even accelerate. We all know that, in the real world, the prospect of outside intervention can be a great motivator for change.