Police and Justice Bill

My Lords, the Minister has explained why she feels it appropriate for this House not to insist upon its original amendment. My amendment would have ensured that the Secretary of State could not lay a statutory instrument containing an order regarding the alteration or merging of police areas unless that course was requested by the police authorities that would be affected by any changes. The other proviso was that the Secretary of State believed it was right and in the interests of the efficiency and effectiveness of policing. We objected to the Government’s plans to press ahead with forced mergers. When we argued the merits of our case in Committee, the House agreed with us by a margin of 198 votes to 130, so I should put on the record, however briefly, the reasons why we appear to be backing off from that strong position. During the summer the Government signalled that enforced mergers were going deeper and deeper into the long grass. We remained concerned that they might bring back their plans when the fuss had died down and public attention had perhaps been drawn to other, more objectionable policies. On Report I tabled an amendment on the importance of a cost benefit analysis to ask the Minister to put on the record an assurance about the Government’s plans with regard to forced police mergers. The Minister set out her assurances in detail on 9 October at cols. 61-62. We then had the opportunity to consider her words very carefully. We believe that the words she uttered before the House then, together with the assurances put clearly on the record by her honourable friend Mr McNulty in another place, provide sufficient reassurances for this House to rely upon. That is why we have not tabled an amendment today to object to the Government’s Motion, which overturns the decision of the House made in June. We remain convinced that mergers should proceed at some future date if, and only if, they are with the consent of all the police authorities concerned in that merger or alteration, and if the Government have demonstrated persuasively that the key principles set out by the Minister are met. In the interests of time I will not repeat those principles today. With regard to the financial implications referred to by the Minister, it is right that I put on record my own concern about the announcement made by the Home Office on Monday—that it would pay police forces just £4 million to reimburse them for the money they were forced to spend on the abandoned police mergers programme, when the real costs incurred were £6.5 million. My own police force in Surrey is one of those that is, as a consequence, unfairly treated, because of the capping of payments to a maximum of £100,000 per force. Surrey had to incur expenditure of £649,311. As Bob Jones, chairman of the Association of Police Authorities, pointed out, the failure to reimburse all the money was not just regrettable; the money police authorities spent was money that would otherwise have been spent on improving local policing for local communities. We rely on the assurances given by the Minister and by Mr McNulty. We therefore believe that if the Government were to bring forward proposals for forced mergers at some future date, this House would be justified in relying upon those assurances and in taking a view on whether it should take the somewhat unusual step of objecting to a statutory instrument being made. In the mean time, for the reasons I have set out today, I do not object to the Government’s Motion.