Police and Justice Bill

My Lords, I return to this issue feeling rather perplexed and not a little confused as to what Liberal Democrat politicians are really about when it comes to best value. I thought that I would feel rather more enlightened after listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, but as she went on I became, if not confused, more concerned about the illogical thread on which the argument was based. It is right that Clause 5 removes the bureaucracy associated with best value reviews. I thought I heard the noble Baroness agree that the best value regime needed to be less bureaucratic. Having heard that statement, I thought that the noble Baroness would then have agreed with the Government’s position. It may be worth reminding the House what the overarching duty amounts to. It is a duty on police authorities to make arrangements to secure continuous improvement in the way in which police functions are exercised. Amendment No. 53 would remove that duty from police authorities, at least in the context of the Local Government Act 1999. In the debate on Amendment No. 26, the noble Baroness sought to re-enact the overarching duty in the Police Act 1996. She argues that it is unreasonable to leave police authorities with the best value duty without the tools to discharge it. That is not an argument I can accept. Police authorities will have the necessary tools at their disposal—they have them now. They will still be able to conduct reviews and call on the chief constable to submit reports. I do not recall hearing the noble Baroness say that police authorities do not have the wherewithal, knowledge or ability to discharge their other statutory functions without having express powers to go with each and every one of them. If we did, we would have a very cumbersome statutory process indeed. It has also been argued that the residual best value duty is redundant as it overlaps with the police authorities’ duty under the Police Act to maintain an efficient and effective police force. I can accept that there is some overlap, but a duty to secure continuous improvement in the delivery of service goes a step further and, as such, is well worth retaining in its own terms. I genuinely believe that there is little in practice between what the Government are seeking to do and what the noble Baroness wishes to achieve. I think that we both believe in continuous improvement and that police forces should be run in an effective and efficient manner, but we have tried to lighten the bureaucratic burden. Having listened to Liberal Democrat politicians, I thought for a long time that they adhered to that part of the Government’s philosophy. Perhaps that is no longer the case. Perhaps over the summer the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, decided that she would rather have more bureaucracy and more precision in the way in which a statutory objective is deemed to work. If that is so, I regret it, because I do not think that that is what police authorities want or that it is necessarily in the best interests of the service. I hope that having heard what I have had to say and reflected more on some of the illogicality of her argument, the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the amendment, which would actually change very little.