In the light of a document suggesting that he had moved to pastures new, I am very pleased to see the noble and learned Lord still at the government Dispatch Box on a Home Office Bill, though whether that is a pleasure he shares only he can say.
In their manifesto for the 2015 general election, the Government said they would,
“finish the job of police reform … enable fire and police services to work more closely together and develop the role of our elected and accountable Police and Crime Commissioners”,
and,
“overhaul the police complaints system”.
The Policing and Crime Bill sets out a number of measures which the Government say are designed to deliver the manifesto commitments on which they were elected.
In their Explanatory Notes to the Bill, the Government say that its purpose is to,
“further improve the efficiency and effectiveness of police forces, including through closer collaboration with other emergency services; enhance the … accountability of police forces and fire and rescue services; build public confidence in policing; strengthen
the protections for persons under investigation by, or who come into contact with, the police; ensure that the police and other law enforcement agencies have the powers they need to prevent, detect and investigate crime; and further safeguard children and young people from sexual exploitation”.
There are parts of the Bill with which we agree, including support for whistleblowers; changes to firearms and alcohol licensing; the introduction of police super-complaints to allow groups and charities to raise concerns over systemic policing issues; changes to police bail; no longer considering police cells a mental health “safe place”; the banning of police cells for children in crisis; and the strengthening of the Independent Police Complaints Commission and the regulation of the police in general.
We also support the closing of the loophole whereby officers can escape disciplinary proceedings by resigning or retiring. The Bill originally provided that disciplinary proceedings could be initiated up to 12 months after somebody had left the force. However, we know from recent experience that it may take much longer for wrongdoing to be uncovered, as, for example, it did over Hillsborough, and the Government have now been persuaded to extend the 12-month limit in exceptional circumstances. As the Minister said, the Government are due to bring forward an amendment on this point in this House. We will want to look carefully at the definition of “exceptional circumstances”.
Other changes to the Bill were secured during its passage through the Commons, following Labour pressure. These included strengthened inspection powers in respect of fire and rescue services; a new offence of breach of pre-charge bail conditions relating to travel; conferring lifelong anonymity on the victims of forced marriage; strengthening the safeguarding and protection against exploitation of vulnerable people, including children and young people, through the introduction of statutory guidance in respect of the licensing of taxis and private hire vehicles; increasing cross-border powers of arrest and police powers to seize cancelled travel documents; reforming the governance of the Independent Police Complaints Commission; and enhancing the powers of the police to retain the DNA and fingerprints of persons previously convicted of an offence outside England and Wales. Some of these matters still require further consideration, including certain aspects of the future governance of the IPCC and its change of name, and the completeness of the measures in the Bill to combat child sexual exploitation.
However, there are two significant measures in the Bill for which the Government have not made a compelling case. The first is that, although the Bill introduces a statutory duty on police, fire and ambulance services to collaborate, it also allows police and crime commissioners to assume greater involvement in and control over the provision of fire and rescue services where there is local demand. Police and crime commissioners are responsible for the governance of the police, fire and rescue authorities are responsible for the fire and rescue services, and NHS trusts, or NHS foundation trusts, are responsible for ambulance services. If my figures are right, there are 37 PCCs in England, excluding London, while there are 45 fire and rescue authorities in England, comprising six metropolitan authorities, 24 combined authorities, 15 county authorities, and
the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. Twenty-eight FRAs have coterminous boundaries with police forces and five police areas have coterminous boundaries with the FRAs in their area when taken together. There are 10 regional ambulance trusts in England, five of which have foundation status and are overseen by a council of governors, and one in Wales.
The proposals in the Bill that would enable the fire and rescue services to be brought under police and crime commissioners fail to set out any long-term vision for the fire service; do not underpin the independence of the fire service as a statutory body; provide no protection for fire service budgets; and do not address what will be the democratic accountability of the fire service if under the control of the police and crime commissioner. As I understand it, there has been no government Green Paper or White Paper examining the pros and cons of such a change in the governance of our emergency services. The consultation that has taken place has been purely on the process by which a PCC would take over fire and rescue services, and not on the principle of whether they should do so at all. The Bill will allow a hostile takeover of a fire service by a PCC, if authorised by the Home Secretary, but over the heads of local people and without their consent. That will not strengthen the fire service, which has an important role as a separate statutory service
The Bill will enable a police and crime commissioner to integrate the senior management teams of the police force and the fire and rescue service under a single chief officer. The Government’s argument appears to be that doing this will allow the quicker consolidation of back-office functions such as HR, ICT, finance, procurement and fleet management, for example. It is far from clear, though, how chief officers from very different services, who have to tackle their own distinct problems, can oversee the duties of another agency of which they have very little experience. There are good reasons why the fire service has traditionally been separate from the police. In some inner-city areas with a history of tension with the police, the independence of the fire service is important because it means that the service can continue to operate even if there are difficulties or a stand-off with the police. That will be put at risk if the fire and rescue service is increasingly seen as part and parcel of the police service.
We support the increased collaboration provided for in the Bill, and there are already some very innovative and effective examples of emergency service collaboration across the country. In Greater Manchester, local authority leaders have worked with fire, ambulance and health services to oversee excellent examples of joint working and more meaningful integration. Irlam fire station in Salford is one of the first in the country to host fire services, police and paramedics under one roof, which means that front-line officers are working together every day to improve the service to the public. The station also provides vital community health services. Greater collaboration must be led by local need and with local agreement from all parties concerned. A takeover by a PCC supported by the Home Secretary, regardless of what local people want, cannot be right. There are already suggestions that Conservative Party
PCCs are being and will be leaned on hard to take over the fire and rescue services in their area.
Forced mergers must not be a smokescreen for further deep cuts to the fire service or the police, particularly at a time when the country faces an unprecedented terror threat. There is a real danger of the fire service being relegated to a Cinderella service to the police, increasing the likelihood and scale of further cuts. There must, at the very least, be a statutory underpinning for the fire service as a service in its own right, and the protection of budgets.
The Bill also gives a major role to police and crime commissioners in the handling of police complaints. This and other measures in the Bill will no doubt provide an opportunity to probe further what the Government think PCCs should be doing in their current role and the extent to which PCCs are, and are not, interpreting their existing role in the same way—a not unimportant consideration if PCCs are to be given the power to take over fire and rescue services. The Government will also apparently come forward with an amendment to give PCCs a different name, presumably where they take over fire and rescue services.
The second issue of concern about measures in the Bill is the proposal to expand the use of volunteers in the police service. The Government do not appear to be proposing to expand the use of special constables or to increase the use of civilian staff, but rather to replace police with volunteers. Issues of concern around training, management and access to data in relation to volunteers have not been addressed. There is clearly a significant difference between using volunteers to add resource capacity to the police and using them to replace some of the 18,000 police personnel axed since 2010. We believe that the greater use of volunteers in the police service is potentially dangerous in the context of cuts being made to police budgets, contrary to what the Government promised in the spending review. Police services in England and Wales are facing real-terms cuts to their budgets in the current year, which will not be made up by the local precept. In this setting in particular, there needs to be much greater clarity on the precise boundaries to what volunteers can and cannot do. The Bill allows chief officers to designate any police powers to civilian volunteers for the first time, except those from a reserved list.
Public safety requires a properly trained, resourced and accountable police service. Rates of serious and violent crime are rising and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary recently expressed concern about what it described as the “erosion” of neighbourhood policing in the UK. The police and crime commissioner for Northumbria has rightly said that volunteers have an important role to play in supporting policing, but are not to place themselves in potentially dangerous situations. When the then Home Secretary consulted her on her proposals to increase volunteers’ powers, the Northumbria PCC said that she was trying to provide policing on the cheap. Moreover, the public demand it as absolutely vital that essential police functions are discharged by police officers. Many volunteers want to support the work of police officers but do not want to do their jobs for them. For example, the use of CS and pepper spray should be undertaken
only by full-time officers who are regularly trained in their usage and importance.
The inclusion of cybercrime figures in the Crime Survey for England and Wales, which I think is due out on Thursday, is set to add 5 million-plus fraud and cyber incidents to the overall level of crime in the UK—an increase of up to 40%. We are now in an era where you are more likely to be mugged online than on the street. Crime is not falling; it is changing. Police funding has been reduced by some 25% since 2010 and police staff numbers reduced by 12,000 front-line officers over the same period. A volunteer army is no substitute for the properly trained workforce that police forces both need to combat crime and know can be turned out in an emergency.
Last January, the Guardian reported that the police are spending 40% of their time on incidents related to mental health. We support the Government’s recognition that police cells are no place for those suffering from a mental health crisis, but banning inappropriate places of safety alone will not solve the problem of why police cells are used in the first place: namely, a lack of beds and alternative places of safety. We need a firm commitment from the Government that there will be a commissioning strategy in the NHS that ensures that alternative places of safety are available for people in this position.
There are also matters that should be in the Bill but are not. One, which the Hillsborough verdict highlighted, is the need for a principle of equality in legal funding for bereaved families at inquests where the police are represented. It is not right that police forces should be spending considerable amounts of public money on hiring lawyers to challenge aggressively at inquests families who are already in grief and who do not have the resources available to ensure effective representation. It is about fairness. The long fight for justice over Hillsborough shows what happens when such fairness is not a key part of the justice system, but this issue extends way beyond Hillsborough. Could the Government confirm that, as they indicated in the Commons, they support the principle of parity of funding and will act accordingly?
The other issue not addressed in the Bill is the previous Prime Minister’s promise to the victims of press abuse and intrusion that there would be a second-stage Leveson inquiry, into the relationship between the police and the press. Now the Government say there might be an inquiry once outstanding legal matters are concluded. Previously, they said there would be an inquiry. This is backtracking, and backtracking without any attempt to give a credible explanation as to why.
Although there is much that we agree with in the Bill, as well as significant areas of concern which I have highlighted, the key reality is that our emergency services cannot keep us safe and be quickly on hand at times of real need and crisis if we continue to have funding cuts. What the services need more than anything, and which the Bill does not address, is a convincing, funded plan for the future which our emergency services feel they can back and get behind. Proposed structural reforms of doubtful merit and the increased use of volunteers are just not answers to this key point.
3.57 pm