Police and Justice Bill

moved Amendment No. 80: Page 2, line 14, leave out subsection (3). The noble Baroness said: In moving the amendment, I do not wish to appear ungrateful. Clause 3 removes an existing anomaly in the law whereby police authorities, unlike local authorities, cannot at present delegate any of their functions to an area committee or to members; nor can they co-opt members to assist them. I know that the Association of Police Authorities, of which I currently have the honour to be president, and many of my authority colleagues, particularly in Wales but elsewhere too, have been calling for some time for the anomaly to be removed. The prospect of strategic authorities and forces has strengthened the case for that, because it will be important that any strategic authorities are not seen as remote from the communities that they serve. Mechanisms such as this, which will enable very local decisions to be made locally, will be the key to that. This is obviously of some importance to those of us in Lancashire, given that we are currently going ahead with a voluntary merger with Cumbria. During our first day in Committee we had much discussion about the growing importance of basic command units as the delivery engines for local policing. Equally, the service is now rolling out neighbourhood policing, which is welcomed and supported by all. It is therefore right that police authorities should be able to delegate to an area committee at BCU level, or in some cases even neighbourhood level, decisions local to that area. I have in mind, for example, decisions about how best to communicate with local people about their policing, about the arrangements for consultation or about signing off the local community safety strategy for the area. The substance of Clause 3 is therefore very welcome. However, having given police authorities the same flexibility as other local authorities, the Home Secretary then seeks to tie their hands through regulation. In its first sitting, all sides of the Committee stressed the fundamental importance of the tripartite relationship. But that relationship will be strong and healthy only if there is mutual respect among the partners for each others’ roles and responsibilities. Taking extensive powers under subsection (3) to regulate how police authorities exercise their delegation functions seems to show little faith in the capacity of police authorities to manage their own affairs responsibly. Police authorities already have extensive powers to delegate action to the chief constable or their own officers, and to my knowledge there have never been any questions raised about how authorities use those powers at present. Indeed, I know my police authority colleagues take very seriously decisions about what and when to delegate. I am fairly confident that my noble friend will tell me that this is simply a reserve power—a power of last resort to be used only as the nuclear option. But there are other powers elsewhere in the Bill for police authorities to be inspected and for the Home Secretary to intervene if things are going awry. Why are further powers needed here to regulate how authorities manage their own work? This strikes me as unnecessary and unwarranted interference. Police authorities are mature bodies and should be treatedas such. As I said, the main thrust of Clause 3 is welcome, and in the spirit of mutual exchange I would like to return the favour. My amendment is therefore designed to assist this and future Home Secretaries. As we all know, once one has a power, it is very difficult to resist using it. My amendment would put the Home Secretary out of harm’s way by removing the temptation for him to interfere with how police authorities go about their day-to-day business. I beg to move.