Paul
Holmes: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment. Amendment,
by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 4
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
5Police
collaboration
Mr.
Coaker: I beg to move amendment 2, in clause 5,
page 6, line 3, at end
insert— ‘( ) A police
authority may not make an agreement which includes provision about
employees who are under the direction and control of a chief
officer.’. Our
clauses allow for separate collaboration agreements for police forces
and authorities, an arrangement carried over from current legislation
that preserves the important distinction between the functions of
police forces and police authorities. The amendment further clarifies
the position by ensuring that when police authorities make
collaboration agreements, the agreements will not capture staff under
the direction and control of a chief officer. To do otherwise would
lead to an intrusion from the police authority on a chief
constable’s operational independence: in other words, the
independent control that he exercises over his staff. The amendment
seeks to make that distinction clear.
Amendment
2 agreed
to.
Paul
Holmes: I beg to move amendment 56, in
clause 5, page 6, leave out lines 32 and
33.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following amendments: amendment 57, in
clause 5, page 7, leave out from line 31 to
line 8 on page
8. Amendment
58, in clause 5, page 8, leave out lines 9
to
13. Amendment
55, in
clause 5, page 8, line 11, at
end insert ‘, the period of notice shall be
such as the Secretary of State sees
fit.’.
Paul
Holmes: The logic and rationale for amendments
56 to 58 can be taken as read from the detail of this morning’s
debate. They are all part of the same principle. On amendment 56, for
example, we do not see why the Secretary of State should have to be
consulted if more
than six police forces decide to collaborate. I am not quite sure why
the arbitrary figure of six was chosen. Why not four or eight? Why is
it felt to be necessary that the Home Secretary should have the power
to say, “Yes, we can have six police forces, or seven, or eight,
collaborating.” It seems to be a completely unnecessary degree
of central control in a system that we would prefer to be devolved
completely to directly elected, responsible and powerful local police
authorities. The
same point arises in amendment 57. We do not see why the Secretary of
State should have the power to direct the police authorities in
collaboration arrangements. It is the same for amendment
58. In
response to amendment 57, the Minister might talk about the need to get
authorities to collaborate on terrorism issues. However, in July 2007,
when there was the terrorism issue, the Metropolitan Police Service
worked very closely with the police force in Leeds, for example,
without the need for prescribed direction from the centre. At the time
of the tube bombings, police forces all over the country worked very
closely with the Metropolitan police—regular and ad hoc
collaboration—because of that emergency. The following year, a
friend of mine, whose is a detective in Chesterfield, spent a lot of
time in London on a semi-permanent basis working with the Metropolitan
police to swell the ranks of the Criminal Investigation Department and
to investigate that major act of terrorism.
Collaboration,
therefore, can and does take place, without the need for the Secretary
of State to make directions—to say yes, to say no and so on.
That is all part of this morning’s debate on new clauses 2 and 4
and, more recently, new clause 3. I do not see the rationale for
central Government having that degree of control over every decision
and action taken by police authorities around the
country.
The
Chairman: Before I call the next speaker, I should say
that I have received indications that colleagues want to move fairly
quickly through the remaining three groups of amendments to clause 5,
which are largely technical in nature, in order to have a stand part
debate to discuss the general principles of
collaboration.
Mr.
Ruffley: Thank you for that clarification, Mr.
Bayley, of the order of business. I rise briefly to speak to amendment
55 in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch. It
would spell out that, in circumstances where the Secretary of State
might wish to terminate a collaboration agreement, the length
of
“the period of
notice shall be such as the Secretary of State sees
fit”. In
some circumstances—perhaps not a national
emergency —a collaboration agreement might be wholly
inadequate. I am thinking perhaps of pressing serious organised crime
problems or concerns. If the Secretary of State wished to terminate an
agreement, one would not want it to drag on for an unnecessarily long
time. The Opposition would not want the Secretary of State to be tied
to onerously long notice periods, which would fetter his ability to
take action in the face of an immediate problem, perhaps of a regional
or even a national kind. The wording in the amendment is for the
avoidance of doubt.
Proposed new
section 23H(1)
reads: “The
Secretary of State may terminate a collaboration agreement by notice to
the parties to the
agreement.” One
could construe those words to mean that the notice period should be
determined by the Secretary of State. In the circumstances that I have
outlined, that would seem to provide for the proper discretion that
Ministers will seek in responding to short-term and pressing problems.
I hope that those do not occur, but the unforeseen sometimes
does—if that is not self-contradictory. In that spirit of
clarification and enhancing the drafting of the clause, I offer my
amendment. 6.30
pm
Mr.
Coaker: I shall run quickly through the amendments,
bearing it in mind that people have asked to get to the clause stand
part debate. Amendment 55 adds detail to the Secretary of
State’s power to terminate an agreement. That detail, should the
scenario arise, would help to ensure that the Secretary of State makes
clear to those collaborating the time frame within which the joint
arrangements should cease. There is something in that amendment, but I
ask for it to be withdrawn. I will have a look at the issue and come
back to it on Report, if necessary. It is a reasonable amendment to
have made, however, and it might add something to the clause.
Amendment 56
would remove the requirement for a chief constable or police authority
to consult the Secretary of State when making a collaboration agreement
involving six or more forces. Six is the biggest number in a police
force region. We are not saying that such an agreement should not
happen; but if a limit is not established, we could be talking about
something almost the size of the north of England. We therefore think
it necessary for there to be a limit above which the Secretary of State
should be consulted. That does not mean that such a thing should not
happen or that we would say no, but if it starts to get beyond that
size, it is appropriate that the Secretary of State should have a role
and be consulted.
I oppose the
idea of removing all the Secretary of State’s direction-making
powers or her ability to terminate an agreement; that is not the right
way to proceed. The ability to direct agreements or to terminate those
that have gone wrong is not something that one necessarily wants, but
we cannot have a situation in which the Secretary of State does not
have that power.
Mr.
Coaker: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, but I know
the point that he is going to make. When he is Home Secretary, I will
get someone to sit on the Committee of the relevant Bill and ask him
whether he thinks he should give up that power. I honestly do not
believe that he would.
Paul
Holmes: I appreciate that we are talking about a whole
culture change. It would be a huge culture shock for any
Minister—be it policing, education, or health—to give up
micro-managing all these aspects of life. The Minister said that it
could not happen and it could not work, but it does in most western
democratic countries, where central Governments do not have power over
decisions on local health provision, the police force, education and so
forth. It is a culture shock that one day, hopefully, the British
Government will get to grips
with.
Mr.
Coaker: I am interested in the hon. Gentleman’s
local decision making. If I may digress slightly, the next time he has
a debate and he goes on about postcode provision, I shall come back to
him about local delivery of services. Again, when he is Home Secretary,
he will get not only what I have just said, but the demand for the
local services that I have just asked for. When it comes to postcode
provision, with one thing being available in one area and not available
in the next, he will then get a demand for him not to give local
democracy out, but to take it back, because people do not always like
difference. Perhaps that is also something for him to think
about.
Mr.
Burns: The Minister said that amendment 55 could possibly
have merit and gave the Committee the commitment that he would look at
it again to see whether it should be incorporated into the Bill,
without giving any commitment that that would happen. Given that he is
a decent and honourable man, if, on reflection, he comes to the
conclusion that amendment 55 has merit and should be included, will he
be kind enough on Report to table the amendment, standing in the name
of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds, who dreamt it
up?
Mr.
Coaker: I am not sure that I can go that far, if I am
really honest. It is a kind offer and I know that the hon. Member for
West Chelmsford is only trying to save me a good deal of work. Should
that not be possible—I have reservations about whether it will
be—but should I, on reflection, find it appropriate for the
Government to table an amendment similar if not identical to amendment
55, I shall be profuse in my praise. Perhaps that would
help.
Mr.
Burns: It would be a good step
forward.
Mr.
Coaker: Especially if the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell
was present in the Chamber—would that be
helpful?
Mr.
Burns: I am very
grateful.
Mr.
Coaker: I am sorry, Mr. Bayley. We have been at
it a long time and I know that we are due to finish. The serious point
is that amendment 55 is something we need to look at; it is an
important point. I do not see how we could remove any requirement for
the Secretary of State to be consulted. There is a need for the
Secretary of State to be consulted above six forces or more, which is
the size of the biggest region. It is important for the Secretary of
State to retain powers to direct where necessary and to terminate an
agreement where
necessary. With
those comments, I ask that the amendment be withdrawn. If it is not
withdrawn, I am afraid we shall have to vote against
it.
Paul
Holmes: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment. Amendment,
by leave, withdrawn.
Mr.
Ruffley: I beg to move amendment 53, in clause 5,
page 6, line 41, at end
insert ‘and such agreement shall include
procedures for achieving a settlement of all outstanding financial and
legal liabilities between parties upon a party terminating its
contractual obligations under a collaboration
agreement.’. I
am conscious that we need to whip through the amendments, but I would
like to take a little more than a minute to speak to my amendment,
which is of a technical nature. I want to spend a bit of time saying
why it is important. I hope that the Minister will humour me with this
amendment as much as he did with the last. If he takes my earlier
amendment on board, and gives me credit for it, it will be his personal
contribution to my personal development review process. I would be
hugely
grateful. Amendment
53 is important because we all believe, whichever political party we
represent, in the critical importance of partnership working in
tackling and fighting crime. As we have said before, and as everyone
knows and understands, the police cannot solve, prevent and detect
crime on their own, but require co-operative efforts with parts of the
health service, local government and so on. Delivering greater
partnership working—this would be true no matter which
Government were in office—requires a certain amount of pooling
of budgets. The issue of pooling of budgets is the same with police
authorities and police
forces. Alongside
the concept of putting money into a pot, as Sir Norman Bettison last
week and many others have indicated, is the issue of what he called the
net donor problem. When different forces and authorities in policing
come together in a collaboration agreement, there will be winners and
losers—different authorities have different cost bases, and his
net donor point was well set out in his
evidence. Let
us look at how pooling arrangements operate outside a police
collaboration set-up—I am arguing by analogy here. Crime
fighting partners might be a drug action team, a local authority or a
parish council that has earmarked money for crime fighting from its
parish council precept. There are now pooling arrangements or
agreements under which different partners come together and put their
money into the crime fighting pot to achieve an
objective. However,
anyone who has looked at the pooling of crime fighting budgets—I
know that the Minister has—will understand that it is pretty
much a hit-and-miss affair. It can be shambolic if the pooling
arrangements are not set down clearly in a contract and,
crucially—this is what the amendment is about—unless
there are clear procedures for what happens on exit. If any one partner
that brings x to the pot wants to go away with that money halfway
through the arrangement, it can be a mess. That is the experience of
those in local government and those involved with crime and disorder
reduction partnership arrangements to whom I have spoken. There will be
legal arguments about who owes what to whom and so
on. This
is an argument by analogy: in the Children Act 2004, there are clear
arrangements that encourage and support local authorities and their
partners to pool budgets when that will improve delivery, especially of
health care. However, the arrangements pursuant to that Act have shown
us that it is absolutely critical to write down the arrangements for
pooling up front.
People in the
Local Government Association have advised me that best practice would
involve a written, up-front agreement. The agreement should say to all
signatory partners that there should be a clear objective, a clear set
of service standards, an agreed performance framework and a clear
statement of the expected life of the pooling
arrangements. The
agreement should also say how any underspend or overspend in the pool
will be dealt with, how accountability and responsibility will operate
in relation to the pool and how to work with the differing VAT and
charging arrangements and different budgetary cycles that might apply
to each partner. It should deal with the use and disposal of fixed
assets that are brought to the pool by partners who wish to co-operate
in a pooling arrangement. Those arrangements should all be written
down. The
agreement should also include the delegation of financial
responsibility and say whose standing orders should be used. It should
set out in advance human resources arrangements for transferring staff
and whether TUPE—the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of
Employment) Regulations 1981 and 2006—applies. It should say how
to build staff time and capacity into spending the pooled
budget. James
Brokenshire (Hornchurch) (Con): My hon. Friend makes a
clear case for certainty, but does he agree that we should consider not
only the legal challenge, but the performance target challenge? Various
organisations seek to pool services and budgets at local level have
told me that they find it quite difficult because, in essence, a budget
that one partner agency—for example, a primary care
trust—might wish to use could be used externally to satisfy a
different performance target. It is almost as if a partner is brought
into the pool in a hidden way: even if it wants to join to achieve a
wider end, it is a question of ticking the right box to achieve
it.
| 
