My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, has explained, these amendments seek to test the ability of police forces to complete investigations within the initial 28-day pre-charge bail time limit.
Amendment 187ZA would require police and crime commissioners to make an annual assessment of their force’s capability of investigating crimes within this initial pre-charge bail time limit. The Government consider that requiring such an annual assessment will only add an unnecessary bureaucratic burden on PCCs and forces. First, the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 requires PCCs to produce new police and crime plans only in the year of an election, so the amendment does not build on an existing process; it requires PCCs to produce something entirely new.
The Government acknowledge that the reforms to pre-charge bail will create a new system and that forces will need to build capacity at first and incorporate changes within their business processes. However, the changes will encourage and enable police forces to resolve cases within a time limit, resulting in a more efficient system for the long term.
Although bail will be limited initially to a period of 28 days, it is important to remember that the Bill’s provisions will enable an extension to a total of three months, which can be authorised by a senior police officer in complex cases. Furthermore, the police will also be able to apply to the courts for an extension beyond three months, which will have to be approved by a magistrate. While the police will, of course, aim to resolve cases in fewer than 28 days, they will be able to extend the bail period where it is necessary to do so. The requirement for senior scrutiny of extensions will avoid the issue of the past, where bail has been extended for months, or even years, without scrutiny outside the investigation team.
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Another reason why this amendment is unnecessary is that the efficiency of the performance of all police forces is monitored annually by HMIC’s annual PEEL inspection programme, which considers the police’s effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy. Such external scrutiny is, we think, more effective than any assessment such as that envisaged by this amendment. Overall, we consider that the proposed assessments would simply create an unnecessary level of bureaucracy that would not add to the effective scrutiny of police work.
I turn now to Amendment 187ZB. The issue of interagency co-operation in the investigation of crimes was considered in the government consultation on pre-charge bail, published in December 2014, and in this Government’s response to that consultation, published in March 2015. The Government recognise, as did many of the consultation responses, that many of the delays in investigations are due to the time taken to secure evidence—particularly witness statements—from other agencies. Two-thirds of the responses to the consultation were in favour of establishing memorandums of understanding between the police and public sector agencies, rather than a regulatory system as proposed by this amendment. Officials at the Home Office are currently working with the police and agencies such as NHS England and the Local Government Association to create the memorandums, as endorsed by the consultation. We recognise that these organisations need to co-operate with the police to conduct investigations in an effective fashion, but there are other ways to set deadlines than by way of regulations.
For example, banking confidentiality means that the police generally need to use production orders to access information held by banks and financial institutions, and the law requires material to be produced within seven days of a production order being made. As another example, police forces have contractual arrangements with their providers of forensic services, so they are able to specify in those contracts the timescales for the provision of evidence.
While I appreciate the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, to assist the police in delivering these reforms, we do not believe that these amendments are necessary. I therefore invite him to withdraw Amendment 187A.