Police and Justice Bill

I support all the amendments to which I have added my name and, after the superb speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, I add my support to her amendments also. The Bill would give Ministers greater powers to interfere in operational policing matters. I agree entirely with what the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, has just said: it is not right for the Secretary of State to micromanage. It is not where his powers should lie, it is not where his ability lies and it should not be the main thrust of his part in the tripartite relationship. That is the case simply because policing should not be politicised. I feel sure that the Minister would agree with that. The police must be able to remain free from that. They must be able to investigate crime independently and apply the laws passed by Parliament free from party-political pressure. The amendments are a sensible and constructive response. The noble Baroness, Lady Henig, talked about her constructive approach, and that is exactly what she has underlined. The amendments reflect the deep concern expressed about the powers to be conferred on the Secretary of State to direct the chief officers of the police. ACPO puts it concisely:"““This is an unprecedented and seismic shift in the balance of roles and responsibilities within the tri-partite relationship and must be withdrawn””." The Home Secretary should not have the power to intervene on his own initiative in a way that interferes in failing police forces and police authorities. That is where the difficulty lies. It looks as though the Government are trying to get through the back door the provisions that they failed to get through the front door in our debates on the Police Reform Act 2002. I recall those debates as a member of another team at the time. I was lucky enough to be given this job just as the Police Reform Act was being passed from House to House in what we fondly call ping-pong. On the occasion when I was invited to take up this job, I was told, ““In 10 days’ time you have the Second Reading of the asylum Bill and, by the way, next week there is the ping-pong of the Police Reform Bill””. Fortunately for me, my colleagues who had been involved in that dealt with the majority of the ping-pong. What was important at that stage was that the Government rode back from the position that they had taken on the intervention powers of the Secretary of State in policing matters, and they were right to do so. I say as softly as I can that the Home Secretary is mistaken in seeking to go forward now. Schedule 2 could create direct accountability between the chief officer and the Secretary of State, which could thereby interfere with the operational independence of the chief officer and undermine that valuable tripartite relationship. The creation of fewer chief officers, which we may well see, runs the extra risk that they are increasingly answerable not to the local police authorities but to the Home Secretary. If power is exercised in that way, I expect that the trend will be enforced. We also must consider whether the test to be applied is adequate. The proposal relates to the serious principle that a police force is failing to such an extent that it justifies direct executive action by the Government. The problem is that the way in which the Bill is drafted makes the decision effectively a subjective one, because it states:"““Where the Secretary of State is satisfied that the whole or a part of a police force will fail to discharge . . . its functions . . . he may direct . . . the chief officer . . . the police authority . . . or . . . both of them””," to remedy the failure. That leaves the Home Secretary as judge and jury in his own case. It is not simply enough to say that the powers will be reserved. Paragraph 101 of the Explanatory Notes states:"““Subsection (4)(a) to (d) of new section 40 is intended to ensure that the power to give directions is only used as a last resort””." That is simply not what the Bill says. Nothing in the Bill restricts the use of such a strong power of intervention. The power can be used entirely according to the Home Secretary’s judgment about whether a force is acting effectively. The Minister may well repeat the assurances given by her colleagues in another place and say that the wide power will be used with great restraint, as a last resort. I gently have to say that that will not be good enough for me. Her assurance is always taken by me as a serious matter and binds her as an honourable person, as I know, but it does not bind future Home Secretaries or Governments. If it were mine, we would be so bound on this matter, but we know not what will happen. We should not leave in the Bill powers that could be misused. My preference is that they should be removed entirely. If that is not possible, I have been strongly persuaded by the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Henig. She has done a great service to this House in every respect. Between her, the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, we have three people here who know more about the workings of the police authorities than, I suspect, the whole of the rest of the House and perhaps another place put together. I listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, with great care. She made some extremely powerful arguments, particularly with regard to this being a power of last resort and the danger that we have with the drafting of the Bill. She is right that it should be a very narrow ground on which the Home Secretary might intervene. I had thought that we could not have anything in the Bill but if she could work with the Minister to find a definition of that narrow ground, that would be productive. I say so without having consulted my colleagues in another place because they have not had the benefit of hearing the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, so I may find myself not doing this job tomorrow, with more free time and more work/life balance—who knows? It would be very constructive if we could find a way of defining the scope so that cases are few and far between and are specified. The noble Baroness, Lady Henig, is right to say that intervention is not effective without consultation and co-operation with the national bodies, the police authorities and the chief officers. She cited practical examples of how that can work, provided that you work through the local bodies that should deliver the quality of service. We have come to one of the most important parts of the Bill. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, says that this is the most important part. I can sympathise and say, yes, I agree with her, regarding this part of the Bill. However, I also have to look at the rest of the Bill—a portmanteau Bill into which the Government have shoved a heck of a lot of other things. My colleagues are interested in extradition, and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons would not be pleased with me if I agreed with the noble Baroness and said that this is the most important part of the Bill. However, she is right to identify this part of the Bill. We need to get this right if the Bill is to serve this country well.