Police and Justice Bill

My Lords, I very much regret that these Benches cannot support Amendment No. 24 as it would remove the part of the Bill that refers to a key police authority function—that of holding the chief officer to account for the exercise of his or her functions, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, said. I simply do not know what a police authority does if it does not do that. What is a police authority for? It should therefore be in primary legislation. I am aware, of course, that ACPO is concerned about this and refers to the creation of the linear relationship, but in some senses it has that already, in that the police authority appoints those of ACPO rank. However, I assume that it is concerned about its operational independence, but we do not believe that the amendment interferes with that at all. Holding a chief officer to account for the delivery of his or her functions is about asking for an account after those functions have been carried out. It is not a mechanism that would allow anyone to direct a chief officer before something happened on how, where, why, or against whom he or she should take action. That is a misunderstanding of the meaning of holding to account. I regret that we could not support Amendment No. 24. However, we support entirely Amendment No. 25, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Harris. It places a duty on police authorities in primary legislation to ensure that their forces co-operate with other forces and partners. This is very important in the post-merger landscape, where the focus is now going to be on increased collaboration between forces to deal with protective services—the area that we are all very concerned about. Section 23 of the 1996 Act allows chief constables to act jointly in more effectively carrying out force functions, but it seems to allow police authorities to act jointly only in terms of back-office functions. In addition, the over-arching function of a police authority is to secure an effective and efficient police service for its area, which seems to place a limitation on considering the wider good to policing to be had from co-operation. For those reasons it is extremely important to put something in primary legislation that places a duty on police authorities to consider the wider landscape and enables police authorities to ensure that wider collaboration happens. It is also important that authorities are given specific governance powers to exercise oversight of force activity for those protective services. If not, it is easy for chief officers to circumvent authorities and come to their own arrangements with other forces. This means that they cannot be held properly to account for those functions by the police authority. That makes it sufficiently important to be in primary legislation.