My Lords, I thank my noble friend for the opportunity to address this important safety mechanism in the functioning of the Police Remuneration Review Body. The provisions that my noble friend’s amendment would delete from the Bill are intended to be used in only two instances. The first is if a matter is so urgent there is not enough time for the Secretary of State or the Northern Ireland Minister of Justice to consult the review body, which is of course not in constant session. To illustrate that, the Government have in mind a time of national emergency—for instance, ongoing, widespread rioting, or co-ordinated terrorist attacks across the country, or even, because we must always plan for every eventuality, at a time of war. There might be, for example, an alternative process for arranging officers’ shift patterns, or officers might be called to take on special duties that we could not foresee but which might be critical to the national response to an emergency, and for which we would want them, rightly, to be compensated.
Secondly, the provisions that my noble friend has drawn to our attention are intended to be used in situations where it would be unnecessary to consult the review body on a matter. For example, if a minor drafting error in the regulations needed to be corrected it would be inefficient and unnecessary to have to consult the Police Remuneration Review Body before correcting the error. Similarly, if there was an uncontroversial change to employment law that did not automatically apply to police officers by virtue of their unique employment status, of which noble Lords will be aware, we would want to amend regulations to reflect this change in the law without reference to the review body.
We added this power specifically in response to comments by policing partners, including the Police Federation and the Police Superintendents’ Association, that they would be concerned that not being able to make police regulations without reference to the body, in certain circumstances, could actually make the system more cumbersome. We believe that this provision addresses that concern.
I should conclude my comments on this proposed amendment by noting that in all cases, regardless of whether the review body is consulted or not, a draft of the proposed changes must be supplied to all interested parties before any changes are made, and this includes the opportunity for interested parties to make any representations. Therefore, neither the Secretary of State nor the Northern Ireland Minister of Justice would ever make changes to police officer remuneration in a vacuum, and would always have the input of representatives of police officers and those responsible for maintaining police forces. I hope in the light of my explanations that my noble friend will be able to withdraw her amendment.