Mr.
Coaker: We could go on and on about this and replay the
record again and again, it is such an important issue. Mr.
Bayley, I know that this morning, Sir Nicholas felt that we had not
made much progress, but the quality and importance of the debate is
such that it deserves the Committee spending a considerable amount of
time on it. Nobody has abused
that.
Mr.
Ruffley: Does the Minister agree that although in
spatio-temporal terms we may have not made as much progress as Sir
Nicholas wished, in terms of the quality of the arguments and the way
in which they have been teased out, we
have?
Mr.
Coaker: I normally understand what the hon. Gentleman
means, but I am not sure that I do on this occasion. I normally
understand his questions, even if I am not totally sure of the answer.
However, I think I understand him and I agree with him on that
point.
My hon.
Friend the Member for Northampton, North makes my point exactly.
Sometimes what sounds good and in the short term makes someone popular
is actually the wrong thing to do. As politicians, we almost accept
that, but what about a police officer or an elected commissioner who
stands for election at a particular time? We can all cite issues that
incite populist rage—for example, setting up a paedophile hostel
or housing for drug addicts and ex-offenders. The police say,
“Actually this is a good thing to do,” but someone might
say, “No, it’s a terrible thing to do,” and get
elected. It is a difficult issue.
As my hon.
Friend said, sometimes the police have to stand up for minority opinion
and minorities. That is why in this country for years—police
officers will say this—police officers have been agents of the
Crown. That is why police officers will say it is so important to them
that the allegiance they swear and the oath they take are to the Crown.
In effect, the police are saying that it is for them to police
according to the law, without fear or favour. As my hon. Friend said,
that means protecting and policing difficult situations in a way that
is sometimes hugely unpopular. We should consider changing that balance
only with great care, because if we get it wrong, we could have all
sorts of
problems. I
am reminded of the question of accountability. I am sure that we have
all seen young girls or boys play football: they chase the ball and
when it goes over one side, everyone chases it and there is nobody on
the rest
of the pitch; all of sudden, somebody boots it over the other side and
everyone runs over the other side. If we are not careful, we are in
danger of creating a situation in which everyone just chases the ball.
That does not make good football and it would not necessarily make good
policing. We have to consider that. The hon. Member for Bury St.
Edmunds rightly challenges me, asking, “Why did you drop that
proposal?” Whether or not he agrees with why we dropped it, that
is why we did. That is why we changed
it. The
hon. Gentleman asked me about the role of my right hon. Friend the
Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) in what we
do. We dropped the matter—although perhaps dropped is not the
right word. We have put the question to one side so that we can reflect
on direct elections and see whether we can move forward in a way that
takes account of the various problems that have been raised. We must
proceed with caution, but we cannot do that and take account of the
various problems that people have raised in the Committee and beyond if
clause 1 of the Bill is about direct elections. It would be
irresponsibility of the highest
order.
Mr.
Ruffley: The Minister has given a perfectly fair reply to
one of my questions: why, between the Green Paper and publication of
the Bill, were the Green Paper measures dropped? For the benefit of the
Committee, will he explain again what exactly the right hon. Member for
Sheffield, Brightside is working on? What is his remit? Will his work
be published anywhere in a way that this Committee can look at? I am
not being argumentative or seeking to make a political point. I just
want to know what he has been asked to do by the Home
Secretary.
Mr.
Coaker: The Home Secretary has asked my right hon. Friend
to conduct a review in relation to the Labour party. I think that I
have mentioned this to the hon. Gentleman before. A review is being
conducted of whether we can come up with a model that meets all
concerns and that can be included in our manifesto for the next general
election. To do that, my right hon. Friend will talk to various
people.
Mr.
Burns: What is the time
scale?
Mr.
Coaker: Before the next general election. Clearly, there
will need to be something for the
manifesto. I
have read and reread the complicated new clauses tabled by hon. Member
for Chesterfield. They would put in place different systems in
different parts of the country: police authorities in Cumbria,
Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Suffolk and
Warwickshire would be brought entirely under the auspices of the county
councils, but the other 35 authorities would have a different system.
That seems strange. Furthermore, the proposal to have no statutory
requirement for independent members is a mistake, because they bring an
awful lot to police authorities. I am surprised by that aspect of his
proposals. He has devised an incredibly complicated system that most
people would find difficult to
understand. Paul
Holmes (Chesterfield) (LD): On the latter point, as we
have discussed at some length, single transferable vote elections elect
much more representative bodies of people, as has been shown in all the
countries of the world where they are used. Most of the independent
appointees currently in place would therefore not be needed. However,
there would be scope in the new clause to appoint people such as
magistrates. On the Minister’s point about the proposals being
complicated, the Government’s proposals in the Green Paper,
which have now been dropped, would have imposed another layer of
complication on top of the existing complicated layers of local
government in this country. Unless we start from scratch and rewrite
the whole local government system in England and Wales, we will have no
option but to lay down a complicated system over an already complicated
system, as the Government themselves proposed to
do.
Mr.
Coaker: We dropped the proposals in part because they were
complicated. We wanted to try to come up with something simpler. If we
want people to participate, we must make the system one that they can
understand. I
have spent some time replying to questions about why we removed our
proposals in the Bill for direct elections. We have talked about the
need to proceed with caution and some of the difficulties that we are
all having in trying to devise an acceptable model that will enable us
to move forward. None the less, clause 1 will help to make a
difference. Much emphasis has rightly been placed on subsection (1),
which strengthens the requirements in the Police Act 1996. As I have
said, police authorities will have to “have regard” to
the views of the public, rather than merely obtain those
views.
Subsection
(2), which sits alongside that provision, will require Her
Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary to inspect police
authorities, and that will be done much more vigorously from April. We
will require the inspectorate to look specifically at police
authorities to see how well they have done on subsection (1). I say to
the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire that if what she says about the
police authority in Bedfordshire is correct, and I have no reason to
believe that it is or is not, under the terms of the clause, it will be
appropriate for people to request that the inspectorate look at what
has happened. That will be one way forward.
4.45
pm I
could go on at great length about other things, but I have tried to
answer the kernel of the debate. Hon. Members will have to decide
themselves about direct elections and how we can take that forward.
Serious problems would emerge from directly electing people to policing
positions, whether as an elected commissioner, a lay commissioner or
along the lines that we proposed and that the Liberal Democrats now
propose. Surely, while we work to resolve the problems of extremists or
single-issue people being elected and all the other questions that we
are concerned about, it is much more sensible to step back, to reflect
and to try to build a consensus than to just drive forward, ignoring
all the warnings that we have been given and all the views that have
been put to us by everybody, except some people in every
party.
At the
Association of Police Authorities conference, which the hon. Member for
Arundel and South Downs, the hon. Member for Chesterfield and I
attended, someone put it to me that the only people who agree with each
other on direct elections are a few people at the front of every major
political party—that a few people at the
top of the Labour, Conservative and Liberal parties were the only people
who agreed with direct elections. All the other local government
members of every party, all the police forces and all the bodies that
represent local government in all its guises oppose it. I have said
this before, but I shall repeat it because it is crucial: sometimes
leadership is about saying, “Let’s stop and
reflect.” Leadership is not only about saying, “Everybody
disagrees with me, so the only way I can show that I’m a leader
is by charging them and taking them on.” Sometimes it is about
reflecting on what they tell us, and with that, I beg to move that the
clause stand part of the Bill. Question
put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The
Committee divided: Ayes 9, Noes
6.
Division
No.
2] Blackman-Woods,
Dr.
Roberta Question
accordingly agreed to.
Clause 1
ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause
2Police
senior appointments
panel
Mr.
Ruffley: I beg to move amendment 50, in
clause 2, page 2, line 12, after
‘of’, insert ‘up to ten persons
nominated by the Secretary of State after consultation with the
Association of Police Authorities and the Association of Chief Police
Officers.’.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss
amendment 49, in clause 2, page 2, leave
out lines 13 to
16
Mr.
Ruffley: The amendments relate to a clause whose general
purpose we support. As many hon. Members will be aware, under the
current appointments system, senior chief officer roles, covering the
posts of chief constable, assistant chief constable and deputy chief
constable and their equivalents in London, are advertised by police
authorities. Eligible candidates then choose for which posts they wish
to apply and the successful candidate is appointed by the relevant
police authority, subject to approval by the Home Secretary.
That
ministerial approval follows advice from the senior appointments panel,
which currently operates on a non-statutory basis. It is made up of
people drawn from the Association of Chief Police Officers, the
Association of Police Authorities, the Metropolitan Police Service and
the Home Office. In addition, there is one independent member. Until
December last, the chairman was Sir Ronnie Flanagan in his
role as Her
Majesty’s chief inspector of constabulary, although my
understanding is that the Home Office has indicated that he has agreed
to continue chairing the SAP in an independent capacity since stepping
down from that post. The thrust of
the clause that we are seeking to amend, and the reason why we like it,
is that the current system needs reform. That is argued for across the
police community on the grounds that, under the current regime, there
is insufficient career management and succession management to get the
right individuals with the right skills into the right jobs in the
right forces at the right time. The system also lacks true
transparency, which most of the public service reform debate is tasked
to deliver.
HMIC and some
police authorities argue that reform needs to ensure a better supply of
chief officers to match the posts to be filled. I do not agree with all
that ACPO says on this subject, but its response to the Green Paper
states that
the “chief
officer appointments system needs to be looked
at”, especially
in relation to
“succession
planning, especially for the most important posts”,
and talks
about “building
a national cadre of top
police” officers. The
APA makes a separate point, which I believe is correct, that
“police
authorities do not always set the best possible lists of candidates
for the posts
that authorities are advertising, that
“many good
superintendents are not selected as eligible to become chief
officers”, and
that
“there is wide
agreement that we need better talent
management.” That
was in the APA’s response to the Green Paper published in the
autumn. To
bring this alive with real-world examples, one has only to look at a
report in The Times of 19 June 2007 on the difficulties that
police authorities said they encountered under the existing SAP regime,
which the clause seeks to reform, when trying to fill senior vacancies.
It
states: “The
vacancy for Chief Constable of Lincolnshire attracted just one
candidate, despite being advertised twice. In Dyfed-Powys, where the
police chief
resigned” in
interesting
circumstances, “only
two people applied for the
job”. The
article also observed that only four people applied for the post of
chief constable of the Greater Manchester force. The understanding was
that the police authority had hoped for a longer shortlist for what is
a key strategic role.
I hasten to
add that, in my experience—I have met and spoken to
them—the individuals who took up the roles were very good
candidates, but the point is that there is insufficient competition
when there are so few applications for vacancies, as the report made
clear. To give another example: although the current chief constable,
Sara Thornton, is excellent, when the post of chief constable of Thames
Valley police was advertised while she was acting chief constable, she
was unopposed for that full-time role. Those are observations of police
authority members to whom one speaks and to whom ACPO
speaks—they think that there is a problem with how SAP operates
at the moment.
Tacking
towards amendments 50 and 49, the first amendment, in seeking to limit
the number of members of the SAP to “up to 10 persons” is
designed to tease out from the Minister how he sees the new, improved,
reformed SAP operating in practice. In a minute I shall get to some of
things that the new SAP will need to do and what his views are on the
new roles, but let us stick with the amendments for the time being,
working out the cost and how top-heavy the management will
be. The
regulatory impact assessment published in conjunction with the Bill
says of the
clause: “The
Home Office will require four staff which is expected to cost
£0.8m per annum. These staff will support the
panel”. We
are talking not about the panel itself, but about the Home Office
secretariat. It
continues: “The
independent chair and independents will receive allowances totalling
approximately £0.1m per
annum.” In
other words, the four members of staff are expected to cost
£800,000. Is that figure to be reviewed in the light of any
public expenditure survey round or efficiency savings that the Home
Secretary will be conducting across her Department? I am rather
interested in those figures in the impact assessment and in the
arrangements for the new panel and for the secretariat that, we are
told in the notes, is necessary to support
it. The
second amendment in the group relates to something entirely different:
the status of those whom the clause seeks to include on a statutory
basis as members of the panel, both the APA and, in particular, ACPO.
Amendment 49, which would delete a statutory membership for
ACPO and others on the new reformed panel, is a probing
amendment. That
goes to the heart of something that my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom
and Ewell (Chris Grayling), the vigorous and hugely impressive new
shadow Home Secretary, said. I do not say that because I am a
lickspittle jobsworth, but because in his very first outing, within
hours of being made shadow Home Secretary on 19
January—the Minister will remember—and in his opening
speech on Second Reading, my hon. Friend said something that bears
repetition in relation to the clause, which seeks to put ACPO’s
membership of the new, reformed SAP on a statutory basis. Asking who
should be on this new panel on a statutory basis, he
said: “The
principle of an appointments panel is sensible, but it is strange that
it gives the Association of Chief Police Officers a statutory position
in advising on appointments when the status of ACPO itself remains
undefined.” Liberty
made the same point to the Committee in the evidence session last week
and in its written evidence. I hasten to add that I think that it is a
question for us to reflect on and for the Minister to give us his views
on; I still ponder myself what the definition of ACPO is. As my hon.
Friend went on to
say: “Is
it an external reference group for Home Office Ministers, or a
professional association protecting senior officers’ interests?
Is it a national policing agency, or is it a pressure group arguing for
greater police powers?”—[Official Report, 19
January 2009; Vol. 486, c.
528.] 5
pm For
those of us who have looked at it and those of us who are boring
ex-lawyers, I was also struck by the fact that ACPO is not governed by
any statute. It is instead a company limited by guarantee, which is a
little known
but interesting fact. In addition, the Freedom of Information Act 2000
does not apply to that interesting, important
body. I wish to
place it clearly on the record that the current head of ACPO, Sir Ken
Jones, is someone for whom I have a great deal of respect. The ACPO
leads with whom I have occasion to come into contact weekly and
continually are men and women of calibre. I do not seek to criticise
much of the excellent work done by ACPO to improve advice not just to
Ministers but to members of the Opposition, including me, but we must
go to first principles and look at the structure of what ACPO is. As my
hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell pointed out, there are
interesting questions.
My hon.
Friend went on to
say: “Unless
ACPO’s status is sorted out, we shall have some doubts over
whether it should have this
role”— that
is, sitting on the
SAP— “on
a statutory basis. I hope that Ministers will be able to provide more
information about that in Committee, and that we shall have more
opportunities to debate it then.”—[Official
Report, 19 January 2009; Vol. 486, c. 529.]
Amendment 49
should be taken in the spirit of probing and honest inquiry eloquently
set out by my hon. Friend on Second Reading. As I pointed out, similar
questions about the constitutional position of ACPO were raised by
Liberty, to take just one
example. Before
I conclude, because we might not have the opportunity for a debate on
clause stand part, the Conservatives have one or two questions for the
Minister. Having granted that the SAP needs reform and that we give
general support to the thrust of the clause, we need to understand what
the SAP, in its reformed guise, will do that is new. My amendments make
serious reservations about the composition of the panel. The Government
and ACPO believe that not enough emphasis is always placed on chief
officers contributing to national work, so the SAP will certainly have
a weather eye on that.
The
Government acknowledge that the Association of Police Authorities has a
point when it says that it is essential to retain the centrality of the
police authority role in chief officer appointments, but it will not be
quite as central as formerly, will it, if the new SAP will exercise a
more strategic view for certain posts? There will be an inherent
tension between the greater—I use the word
advisedly—centralised powers that the clause will bring forth
and the pure or relative autonomy enjoyed now by police
authorities. We
also need to pay advertence to something mentioned in the Green Paper.
It is not in the Bill, but it is an interesting idea, and I should be
grateful if the Minister shed some light on it: the creation of a
national college of police leadership. Presumably, it would build on
the police college at Bramshill. How might that operate in conjunction
with the SAP? It would be interesting to hear what the timeline is for
creating the new national college, branding it and consulting on how it
might work. This is an apposite moment to hear from the
Minister. We
also need to pay advertence to what Sir Norman Bettison said in
evidence to the Committee last week when responding to one of my
questions, because it is really important if we are to get a handle on
the SAP’s new activities. Sir Norman said that
“unless the
intention is to mimic the military approach of moving
people”— senior
officers— “to
posts around the country against their
will”, he
was sceptical about whether the clause would have the effect that we in
Committee hope it will, which is to improve the flow and numbers of
applicants to the top jobs in policing. He went on to say
that
“unless talent
management is taken to the extent of directing who applies for which
jobs—there are personal and domestic barriers against doing
so—it is not clear that the senior appointments panel
arrangements” in
the
clause “will
affect the number of people applying for particular
posts.” And,
he concluded his response to me by
saying: “It
will not deal with the problem that we are all interested in
solving.”——[Official Report, Policing
and Crime Public Bill Committee, 27 January 2009; c. 9,
Q5-6.] I
wondered what the Minister thought the SAP might do on directing
individuals, because Sir Norman used the words
“direction” and “military approach”. Is
that on the end of spectrum at which the new SAP will operate? I do not
know the answer, and I am not even sure that I agree with it, but,
conceptually, we need the Minister to be clear about it. Will the SAP
have anything like that power to direct?
I conclude my
remarks by citing the Home Office’s impact assessment of the SAP
reforms:
“Currently,
the system is one in which police authorities exercise one of their
relatively few powers—of chief officer appointment—in a
context which is in practice very lightly managed from the centre. Many
police authorities are likely to see the changes to a much more managed
system”— that
is what the clause will
do— “as
encroaching heavily on a core role and protest
accordingly.”
It went on to
state:
“Likewise,
currently individual aspiring chief officers are fairly lightly
managed. The new system would be more directive—but also more
supportive and
transparent.” The
new arrangements should be more directive, which is why we support the
clause, and the amendments, which would be supportive, certainly would
not undermine the purport and force of the clause in any way. However,
the impact assessment is also correct to state that the new
arrangements will be more supportive and transparent. The critical
issue is not whether the new system will be more directive, but the
extent to which it will be so, and on that I seek the Minister’s
views.
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