Police and Justice Bill

Public Bill Committee, 21 March 2006.

Police and Justice Bill - Standing Committee D

Schedule 2 - Amendments to the Police Act 1996

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

I beg to move amendment No. 30, in schedule 2, page 64, leave out line 17.

Derek Conway (Conservative, Old Bexley and Sidcup)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 31, in schedule 2, page 64, line 36, leave out paragraph 11.

No. 32, in schedule 2, page 65, line 36, leave out paragraph 12.

No. 33, in schedule 2, page 65, line 41, leave out paragraph 13.

No. 34, in schedule 2, page 66, line 3, leave out paragraph 14.

No. 35, in schedule 2, page 66, line 11, leave out paragraph 15.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

The purpose of this group of amendments is to tackle the level of power given to the Secretary of State to direct the activities of police authorities—in particular, policing objectives, policing plans and policing reports. The central amendment is amendment No. 31, which would omit paragraph 11. During our last sitting, the Minister accused Opposition parties of having a conspiracy theory about Government interference in local decision making. It is difficult to reject the idea of such a theory, however, given the extraordinary interference allowed by paragraph 11. Proposed new section 6ZB(3) states:

“An order under this section requiring plans to be issued”—

on the direction of the Secretary of State—

“may contain provision as to ... the periods to be covered by plans ... the matters to be dealt with in plans ... persons who are to be consulted ... persons to whom copies of plans are to be sent.”

That may not go so far as to direct the page numbers or type-faces in which the plans and reports are to be designated—not yet—but it is clearly going in that direction. I do not know who in the Home Office will be given the responsibility to vet the plans and objectives, the consultation, and the circulation lists of all the reports and plans to be issued by local police authorities, but it will clearly be a job for life.

That provision gives the Secretary of State extraordinary powers of interference in the activities of police authorities. Legislators in countries such as the United States or Australia have more seriously devolved government, where federal governments traditionally mind their own business. If we told them that legislation would give Ministers the right not only to interfere in local policing priorities but even to determine the circulation lists of the reports that are produced, they would be speechless.

It is important to note that policing priorities are a matter of local knowledge and local expertise. There are major differences between Arundel and South Downs, Cheltenham, and Hornsey and Wood Green, and the constituencies represented by Labour Members, and policing priorities will vary from place to place. For instance, in Cheltenham there are differences between areas such as Hatherley, Springbank, Whaddon and Hester’s Way, but I doubt whether the Secretary of State even knows where those places are. It is extraordinary that that level of interference can be allowed.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

The amendments seek to remove the flexible arrangements that the Bill will introduce in relation to police authorities’ responsibilities for setting local police objectives and issuing policing plans. The core functions of police authorities—to maintain an efficient and effective force and to hold the chief constable to account—will continue to be those set out in the Police Act 1996. However, I genuinely believe that second-order functions such as determining objectives, and issuing plans and reports should be set out in secondary legislation, because it will allow flexibility.

There have been too many cases in which it has been necessary to amend primary legislation because the world has changed. If we cover everything in primary legislation, we remove the flexibility that the use of regulations allows us. The hon. Gentleman has taken issue with some of the detail of the regulations, but it is right in principle to cover such matters in secondary legislation.

I have to reassure the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), as I have before, that this is not part of a sinister plot to centralise power in the Home Office. Responsibility for determining local policing objectives and issuing a force-wide business plan will rightly remain with police authorities; we are not removing those functions. The provisions in schedule 2 simply recognise that modern policing is a rapidly changing sphere, and that we need the flexibility to amend legislation if we are to streamline the planning process rather than making it more bureaucratic.

In particular, the provisions will enable us to merge the existing annual policing plan and the three-year strategy plan to produce a single rolling three-year plan, which can be renewed every 12 months to take into account—as the hon. Gentleman said—the changing policing priorities that are apparent in different communities. Different communities will have different needs, so rolling three-year plans will be important.

The Bill also gives us an opportunity to take another look at whether it is necessary for police authorities to continue to produce old-style annual reports. Many of them do at the moment, and some are very good. However, I am not convinced that a thick annual report is the best means of getting information across to local communities. The local policing summaries that we are introducing will be much more user-friendly and direct and will give people information such as who their local officers are. The Bill will enable us to consider whether it is better to ask police authorities to continue to produce big annual reports every year or to enhance the local policing summaries. That is what I want to be able to do.

James Brokenshire (Conservative, Hornchurch)

I am interested in the Minister’s line of argument. Last week, she emphasised that the Secretary of State would give high-level, strategic direction. There is a distinction between that and the wording of the schedule, which refers to objectives rather than strategic objectives, which appear elsewhere in the Bill. Can the Minister explain the difference between a strategic objective and an objective? This wording suggests that the objectives mentioned here are at a much lower level than the strategic objectives that she mentioned previously.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should look at paragraph 11, which would insert, in proposed section 6ZB(1):

“The Secretary of State may by order require police authorities ... to determine objectives”.

The strategic objectives are those of the Home Secretary, who will set national policing priorities. Clearly, police authorities will want to set objectives that relate to their local circumstances, which is exactly the point that I was making. This is not about Ministers setting objectives; it provides a framework within which police authorities will set their own objectives for their communities and ensures that that framework is consistent, so that people in each area go through a similar process in drawing up their local policing objectives. It is not a substitute for the Home Secretary’s decision making; it is part of the tripartite organisation of policing. That gives the lie to contention of the hon. Member for Cheltenham that this is somehow a move to the centre. We are trying to put in place a consistent framework within which there is a rigorous and effective partnership approach to deciding the future of policing. On that basis, I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

I am afraid that I am not persuaded by the Minister’s argument that this does not give the Secretary of State extra powers, because the Bill sets out a raft of extra powers. However, I am content at this stage to beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I beg to move amendment No. 133, in schedule 2, page 67, line 5, at end insert—

‘Requirement to conduct cost benefit analysis of alterations 28In section 32 (power to alter police areas by order), after subsection (3) there is inserted—

“(3A)Before exercising his power under this section the Secretary of State shall commission from an independent body a cost benefit analysis, including the financial costs and benefits of the proposed alterations.

(3B)The Secretary of State shall publish the cost benefit analysis commissioned under subsection (3A).

(3C)The Secretary of State shall not exercise his power under this section unless the cost benefit analysis conducted under subsection (3A) above concludes that the benefits of the proposed alteration significantly outweigh the costs.

(3D)In this section “independent body” means a body which is wholly separate from central Government, police forces or police authorities.”’

Derek Conway (Conservative, Old Bexley and Sidcup)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 82, in schedule 2, page 72, line 5, at end insert—

‘Objections to alterations proposed by Secretary of State 28In section 33 (objections to alterations proposed by Secretary of State), after subsection (3) there is inserted—

“(3A)Police Authorities shall, before the end of the period of four months specified in subsection (3) above, make provision to obtain the views of every registered elector in the area which their authority covers by way of a referendum.

(3B)Where a majority of electors vote against the proposed alterations in a referendum initiated under subsection (3A) above, the Secretary of State shall not proceed with such alterations.”’.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

The amendments relate to the Government’s powers under the Police Act 1996 to amalgamate police forces. They are, therefore, very relevant to current debate and to yesterday’s announcement, yet again by way of a written statement, that there will be a further round of police force mergers in the south-east and east midlands. Amendment No. 133 would require that a proper cost-benefit analysis be conducted to assess whether the benefits of amalgamation outweigh the costs, before that amalgamation takes place. Amendment No. 82 would require that a local referendum be conducted, and that unless a majority of the public voted “Yes”, the amalgamation would not take place.

I shall speak first to amendment No. 133 and the cost-benefit analysis. We know, because we have had sight of a document published in July 2004 by the Home Office and the Downing street strategy unit, that both warned of the dangers of restructuring, and in particular, of amalgamations. The final report of the joint project proposed that,

“major reform emphasis should be devoted to achieving best practice at current scale”—

in other words, without amalgamations—

“and that any proposal to merge forces is based on proper analysis of costs, benefits and risks recognising consequential costs for the rest of the criminal justice system.”

As I said on the Floor of the House yesterday, the report continued:

“Evidence from other sectors suggests that merger can be a costly, protracted exercise which does not always deliver expected benefits and inevitably causes distraction for management and staff.”

The section concluded:

“Any case for merger would need to show that the likely benefits outweigh these risks.”

My amendments seek to put into statutory force what the Downing street strategy unit and the Home Office themselves have said—the simple proposition that the costs of a merger should be outweighed by the benefits.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

Was my hon. Friend as surprised as I was during Home Office questions yesterday to hear so many Government Back Benchers attack the Home Secretary and Home Office Ministers? Was he also surprised at their frustration when the Home Secretary said that he would not allow any local referendum and would rule that idea completely out of hand because local democracy was unimportant?

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. Concern has been expressed on both sides about the Government’s amalgamations, including by Labour Members, who expressed concern yesterday. Shortly, I will turn to referendums and the Home Secretary’s inadequate reply to the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) at Home Office questions yesterday.

I turn to whether it is necessary to have a measure that puts into statutory force the Government’s own proposal that there should be a proper cost-benefit analysis of the amalgamation procedures. I have no doubt that the Minister will say that Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary has undertaken such an analysis. Is that really the case? None of the financial assessments that the Government say they have done on the costs of amalgamation have been made available to this Committee or to those of us affected by the Government’s proposed amalgamations. Yesterday, the Home Secretary’s statement said:

“I now have the professional policing and financial assessments to enable me to identify which options will be of the greatest benefit to three more regions”.—[Official Report, 20 March 2006; Vol. 444, c. Column Number 6WS.]

The Home Secretary has professional policing and financial assessments, but we, Members of the House of Commons, do not. We have not been given those financial assessments.

Mark Pritchard (Conservative, The Wrekin)

Is there not a fundamental inconsistency in the Government’s position? On the one hand, when the police ask for more powers and give professional advice about terror legislation, the Government are happy to give way to the professionals. When it is a matter of local policing in Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Shropshire, however, they choose to ignore professional advice. Is not that inconsistent?

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

Of course it is inconsistent. The Government rest their case on the fact that they have received advice from Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary. My point about that advice is, as I said on Second Reading, that the analysis in the inspectorate’s report of the costs and benefits of amalgamation, particularly in relation to the financial costs, which is the subject of the amendment, is very weak.

Only nine of the 113 pages of the O’Connor report, plus two slender appendices, are devoted to finance. That report estimated that mergers would facilitate long-term economies of scale of about £70 million a year, but there was no study and no supporting evidence to show where those economies would be found. Police authorities have, as we know, undertaken their own costings of the proposed amalgamations and arrived at a figure of more than £0.5 billion for the costs of restructuring.

The Government keep telling us that those figures are wrong. If so, they should publish the costings. They cannot simply rubbish the police authorities’ professional costings and claim that they have carried out their own financial assessments unless they are willing to publish their own costings of those amalgamations, so that we and the public can judge whether it makes financial sense for the amalgamations to proceed, and whether costs will fall to the local taxpayer.

The fear, of course, is that the money that the Government have so far made available to cover the costs of amalgamation is far less than the costs that have been estimated. The Government have said that police authorities will have to borrow. Inevitably, that borrowing will fall to local taxpayers, with implications for rising council tax.

There have been numerous criticisms of the quality of the “Closing the Gap” report and, in particular, its statistical analysis. I remind the Committee that the report was not peer reviewed. It has been criticised by Professor Darlington, a professor of statistics at the university of Warwick, and by Professor Seifert, who described it as

“poorly written and riddled with inconsistent and unclear use of critically important terms”,

and criticised the use of

“randomly selected benchmark activities”

and of false extrapolation

“from the atypical to the typical.”

Indeed, the North Wales Police Federation went so far as to describe the report as a “dodgy dossier”.

The Minister will need to persuade us that the O’Connor report, or the Government’s own work, have produced a robust cost-benefit analysis of the proposals and, even if that is true, she will need to show us what is wrong with a provision requiring that an independent body should produce the costings before amalgamations can proceed. What confidence can we have in the Government’s proposals unless such independent costings are undertaken or the Government are willing to publish their own?

James Brokenshire (Conservative, Hornchurch)

Much of the debate has centred on whether proposals in the Bill would have a centralising effect. The Minister argues forcefully that it is not a matter of centralising and is all about localism, whereas Conservative Members have reservations about that line of argument. Does my hon. Friend agree that a proposal of the kind that he suggests could help the Minister, by producing an objective justification for changes? The impression from the outside is that the grouping has more to do with centralisation than localism. The amendment might help the Minister.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I agree. If the Government want to demonstrate that the Bill is not a centralising measure, the obvious thing to do is agree to provisions that will clearly inject some local input into the consideration of police force amalgamations. I strongly suspect that the Government do not wish to subject themselves to any test of British public opinion in addition to those they will face in the near future, but we shall see.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

Does my hon. Friend recall that during an earlier debate on amalgamation, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale, East (Paul Goggins), estimated from the figures available that the cost of amalgamations would be between £600 million and £800 million? It was also made clear that only £150 million would be available centrally to fund it. As my hon. Friend rightly pointed out, that £400 million deficit will have to be picked up by the council tax payer.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

My hon. Friend is entirely right. The deficit will have to be picked up by local council tax payers. In some areas, the situation will be worse because of unequal precepts. When my own police authority merges with Surrey, which has a higher police precept, there will be a problem in West Sussex unless some mechanism is introduced to equalise the precepts.

That is a separate issue, however. The real question is whether, overall, the costs of proceeding with police amalgamations will be justified by the benefits. As amendment No. 133 makes clear, I do not mean just the financial costs but the overall costs and benefits of amalgamating police forces. In my view, they have not been properly assessed.

Amendment No. 82 would introduce a requirement that local referendums should be held when amalgamations are put through by the Home Secretary without the consent of police authorities. Let us remind ourselves that at the moment, only two police authorities, Cumbria and Lancashire, have agreed to amalgamation. All the other police force mergers are being contested. It remains to be seen whether the ones announced yesterday will be contested, but I suspect that many will be. My amendment proposes that where amalgamations are contested, local referendums should be held. I am certainly open to the argument that local referendums should be held whether or not police authorities have agreed to the amalgamations.

Mark Pritchard (Conservative, The Wrekin)

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is rather wrong that the Government will ask local communities what they would like new amalgamated police forces to be called, yet will not seek local people’s opinion through referendums on whether they want amalgamations in the first place?

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I shall deal with all those matters a little later, if my hon. Friend will bear with me.

In July 1994, in a debate on the Police Bill that now provides the statutory basis for driving forward amalgamations, the Prime Minister, who was then the shadow Home Secretary, pointed out:

“When the previous settlements were formed in the Police Act 1964, it was preceded by a royal commission. It was discussed, debated and properly consulted on. Where amalgamations occurred, they occurred as a result of public agreement.”—[Official Report, 5 July 1994; Vol. 246, c. 273.]

He suggested, and he was surely right, that public agreement is important on fundamental constitutional changes, and the O’Connor report admits that the proposals are of constitutional significance.

The question, therefore, is why the public should not be properly consulted about the arrangements. So far, they have not been. One might think that the Government would be sympathetic to that suggestion, but it is clear from the Home Secretary’s response yesterday that they are not. After all, when the Government consulted on their proposal for elected regional assemblies, they published a document called “A New Voice for England’s Regions”, which said:

“For 17 years the Conservatives have governed in a rigid, centralised and topdown manner. A constant stream of legislation has been imposed from above with little real consultation or local involvement ... Labour has no wish to govern in this way. It is in no-one’s interest that we impose unwanted new structures of government on areas of the country that have no great wish to change. We are determined to work in partnership with the people—with their active support and understanding”

and continued:

“Our advocacy of referendums to measure popular support for elected assemblies is not intended to be a blocking device to prevent progress, but rather is a means of ensuring that these assemblies have their own legitimacy amongst local people.”

That statement was of course wrong in one material respect: it was the most unfortunate blocking device to the Government’s intentions because, on 4 November 2004, 78 per cent. of those polled voted no in the north-east referendum.

The Government have proposed referendums on many other matters, none of which has been held. They proposed them on proportional representation, the euro and the European constitution. However, the substantive issue before us is whether it is right that local communities should be formally and properly consulted before amalgamations can happen.

In the foreword to the precursor to the Police and Justice Bill, the 2003 Green Paper, “Policing: Building Safer Communities Together”, the then Home Secretary said:

“But we want to see a deeper, stronger connection between the police and communities ... We want to strengthen that local connection and we are clear that communities must be at the heart of reform ... We understand that public services, including the police, can no longer be seen as services ‘done unto’ people; they can only be successful if they are conducted with people.”

If that rhetoric is to mean anything, it is surely perfectly reasonable to consult people about changes of real significance to their local police forces.

The Home Secretary appeared to suggest in the House yesterday that he did not want to consult people because they might come up with the wrong answer and might not properly understand policing needs in their area. However, if the case that the Government are putting for amalgamation is so robust and convincing, why cannot we trust local people to make the right judgment about what is in the interest of dealing with serious crime, terrorism and other matters in their area? Why are the Government so frightened of trusting people to make the right judgment?

I think that I know one of the reasons. In every local opinion poll conducted so far on police amalgamations, people have shown that they do not want change. In Cleveland and in Essex 70 per cent. of the public said so. In Lincolnshire 79 per cent. expressed fears and concerns about the merger proposals. In West Mercia, 88 per cent. of people expressed their hostility towards or concerns about amalgamation. The roll call goes on. That, surely, is the real reason for the Home Secretary’s rejection of the proposal yesterday.

I suggest that there is no respectable argument at all for rejecting the idea that local people should at the very least be formally and properly consulted about the changes. In my view they should be given a block on amalgamations, unless a majority of local people are happy with them. If the Minister intends to reject the proposal, in line with the Home Secretary’s response yesterday, please will she at least spare us any future hyperbole about the localism that is at the heart of the Bill, about the way in which it empowers local communities and about making policing more responsive to local needs. That is the doublespeak that I mentioned in the Committee last week.

The Government should by all means reject the proposal, but only if the Minister recognises in doing so that the reason is that the Government have a view about the structure of policing that is out of tune with the view of local communities, but the Government think that they know best.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

Amendment No. 133 falls into the category of amendments we wish we had thought of. It is welcome. As the hon. Gentleman says, a rigorous cost-benefit analysis of the current merger proposals would have been extremely beneficial. We face enormous potential bills—it is estimated that the cost of merger for the south-west is some £60 million—which may be paid for through debt, increases in council tax or central Government taxation, or the new funding formula of endless deficits, which is being pioneered in the national health service. Whichever process is adopted, we will incur huge costs but will not gain a single extra police officer. There is a great risk of enormous cost without much benefit. If the effect of the amendment will be to apply the brakes to the Government hastily forcing through the mergers, that will be welcome, and we will be happy to support it.

Amendment No. 82 is also worthy of consideration. Again, there is a risk that there is no active consent to the process that is being gone through. The Minister is well aware of the strength of feeling in the south-west, both from the meetings that I have had with her and from my early-day motion, which has wide support across all parties in Gloucestershire—I think that I was the first Member of this House to table a motion expressing concern about the merger process. Across the south-west, there is a large measure of all-party support for questioning the mergers, and the same is true in other parts of the country. The hon. Gentleman’s figures showing popular opposition to the mergers reinforce my point. Therefore, if the Bill can force the Government to take account of popular opinion, if they are not willing to listen, that will be welcome.

There is a slight practical issue with the idea of referendums in this context. It is one thing to have a referendum on the devolution or decentralisation of power to one authority, to which the answer is yes or no. It is slightly more difficult if the question is about the configuration of authorities. What would happen in my area if, for example, Avon and Wiltshire were to vote yes and Gloucestershire no to a merger? Would Gloucestershire have a veto against the other two authorities? In such circumstances, it will be difficult for any Minister to plan any kind of reform.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

Did not exactly the same situation apply in the case of the European constitution? It was agreed by many countries, including ours, that there should be referendums and that the vote of a single country could—in the event, it did—put a block on the progress of the constitution. Surely the hon. Gentleman agrees that in those circumstances any country was entitled to do that. My understanding is that the Government’s position was that any country was so entitled. This vote would be on the potential loss of a local force. Is it not right that local people should be able to apply the brake, unless they are persuaded of the benefits of being part of a wider group?

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

That is an interesting example, because it raises the question of what would have happened had every European country voted in favour of a reformed European constitution, but Malta voted no. Would the Conservative party be happy with Malta having a veto over the whole of the rest of Europe? The hon. Member for Harwich (Mr. Carswell) is nodding. That is an interesting variation on democracy. The practical problems with referendums deserve more thought, but for now we are happy to support amendment No. 133 in the initial vote.

Douglas Carswell (Conservative, Harwich)

I support the amendments proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert). It is important that we should have some form of cost-benefit analysis. We are constantly told that the amalgamations will have benefits and that, particularly on cross-border policing issues and level 2 policing, there will be advantages and economies of scale. However, I would like an attempt to be made to gauge the costs of losing local accountability, particularly in terms of level 1 crime and disorder. Since the enactment of the Police Act 1964, local accountability and the tripartite system have been continually eroded under Governments of both major parties. A gap has steadily grown between the police and the communities that they are meant to police. If you are not willing to accept the amendments that we have suggested for directly elected police chiefs, which I see that a national newspaper advocated yesterday, and you are not willing to propose that sort of localism to close the gap between—

Derek Conway (Conservative, Old Bexley and Sidcup)

Order. The hon. Gentleman must not keep referring to the Chairman in that context.

Douglas Carswell (Conservative, Harwich)

Forgive me, Mr. Conway.

If the Government are not willing to consider those amendments, they should at least be willing to consult about the changes locally, in the way suggested in amendment No. 82.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

I support amendment No. 133. There is considerable concern in Staffordshire about the regionalisation programme that the Government seem to be obsessed with at the moment. There is great fear in Staffordshire that the risk to life and limb—literally to life—will increase with the forced merger of the Staffordshire ambulance service with what in theory will be the West Midlands ambulance service. We believe that the same will happen as a result of merging the Staffordshire police and the larger West Midlands police force. We are not at all sure that a cost-benefit analysis, if it were ever done, would show a net benefit to the people.

Let me say at the outset that I would have no objection to a police merger if it were voluntary. I was a member of the Committee that considered the Police and Magistrates’ Courts Bill in 1994. It was a Conservative Government who said that if one, two or even three police forces wanted to merge voluntarily for the betterment of policing in the area, they should be able to do so. There is nothing wrong with that, but I object to it being enforced. It is all very well for the Home Secretary to say, as he did yesterday, that he opposes referendums but that he will listen sensibly to what people might say. However, he chooses to ignore the representations and still insists that a merger must go ahead. It is that to which I object.

If the Staffordshire police were to merge with another rural constabulary or two—perhaps with the West Mercia force of my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard)—it would make sense, but to force us to merge with an urban constabulary such the West Midlands would be plain stark bonkers. I admire the independence and honesty of the chief constable of West Mercia, who, in a far more articulate and informed manner than I can display today, gave the reasons why urban and rural constabularies should not merge.

It seems that unless an independent cost-benefit analysis is undertaken, there can be no real openness. The Government talk about the need for localism, but it is lip service. They argue that what they are doing is for the net benefit of the people, but they are not prepared to undertake an independent analysis. One has to question their motives. I tie that in with an emerging pattern that seems to have nothing to do with socialism—and I do not understand what it has to do with new Labour. It is an obsession with regionalism. What has regionalism got to do with new Labour or the price of eggs—or the price of anything else?

The Government seem obsessed with the idea of forming police forces into large groups that take away powers from those whom the police are meant to serve. If the Minister is so convinced that what the Home Secretary is doing is right, why is she not prepared to say yes to an independent cost-benefit analysis, which would prove that what he is doing is right? I rather suspect that she will reject our reasonable amendments out of hand. When she does, we will all know why.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I certainly do not intend to reject the amendments out of hand. I may recommend that the Committee resist the arguments of the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) after a logical and rational discussion of such an important matter. However, given that the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives party are united in their opposition, I am even more convinced that we are absolutely right in the course that we are pursuing.

Listening to the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs speaking about what happened 10 years ago was a little like “Groundhog Day”. If his policy review, which is considering the whole range of Conservative party policies, is going to be at least 10 years out of date, we look forward to its conclusions.

Amendment No. 133 seems to ignore the fact that Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary is an independent body of professional policing experts, which is there to reach conclusions independently and to advise the Home Secretary on the appropriate steps to be taken. The amendment refers to a

“body which is wholly separate from central Government, police forces or police authorities.”

That is exactly what HMIC is. All those proposals have been subject to HMIC assessments of protective services, cost and benefit. We have engaged a range of independent bodies to help us with that. The business cases are being scrutinised by a team involving a variety of consultancy firms such as PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst and Young. The Office of Government Commerce has managed the consultancy team. A huge range of independent bodies are involved in scrutinising the various cases.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

Do those bodies support the costs quoted in an earlier debate by the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), of between £600 and £800 million for the funding of the mergers?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

Clearly, since 23 December, when the business cases were submitted, a huge amount of work has been done and some of the figures that were originally submitted have been changed and refined. I am pleased to be able to tell the Committee that the costs have come down significantly from the early estimates put forward by police authorities. As decisions have been made on the way forward on each of the proposals, business cases and financial analyses have been published. Those are on the Home Office website. The cases on the first decisions made, about Wales, the north-east, Greater Manchester and the west midlands, were published on either 1 or 6 March.

The papers in relation to the decisions made yesterday about the south-east, the east midlands and the eastern region were put on the Home Office website yesterday, and I can undertake to circulate those papers to members of the Committee. A lot of information on the costs and the protective service analysis is in the public domain. Clearly, there is a proper intellectual basis to our decision making. We would not have it any other way.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

I am extremely puzzled by the chronology. Surely, normally, a cost-benefit analysis is carried out before a decision is taken. In this case, that analysis seems to have been published at the last stage when we have already been through the decision-making process. Certainly, no cost-benefit analysis was published with the O’Connor report.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

Clearly, the hon. Gentleman was not entirely listening to what I said. We received the business cases on 23 December, following which came a period of intense engagement between the forces, the police authorities and the various consultants, who went through the business cases to see what the initial set-up costs were, what the likely savings would be, two, three, four and five years down the line and how those likely savings could be reinvested to enhance protective services for each of those areas. Clearly, those details have been covered.

Those discussions with the forces and authorities concerned have been ongoing, which is why I said that those figures have changed during that process. The direction in which they have changed means that the set-up costs in many cases are lower, although in some cases they are slightly higher, and the long-term savings show that the exercise is worth while, in terms not just of costs, but of the ability to achieve savings that can be reinvested to ensure that we can meet the threat of serious and organised crime and counter-terrorism. That is what the amalgamations are designed to achieve.

Mark Pritchard (Conservative, The Wrekin)

What consideration has been given to the existing regional task force in the West Mercia police force, the co-operation between special branches in west midlands police forces generally, and the advent of the Serious Organised Crime Agency? Surely, a lot of the roles that those organisations have already undertaken do not have to be replicated by a new super police force with the excuse that terrorism is going to be better dealt with under that new structure.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

The hon. Gentleman raises serious issues about the fitness for purpose of our police service to tackle counter-terrorism, public order and serious and organised crime. It is important that we do not duplicate resources. We want to ensure that we get the maximum out of the significant extra investment that we have put into policing in recent years, and that police forces work together. We are amalgamating forces to ensure that we have proper specialist teams to deal with those things.

The hon. Member for Lichfield said that a merger between two rural forces, for example, would make sense. Actually, that is not the case. In many amalgamations, an urban force with significant capacity to deal with serious murder, major incidents and counter-terrorism can act as an anchor and hub for the smaller forces around it. That can give those forces the ability to get up to good capacity more quickly than if they were simply merged with a range of rural forces that have perhaps underinvested in level 2 services and are not able to carry out those functions. I take issue with his suggestion that communities of interest should be the basis for amalgamation. We must look at the forces’ resilience and capacity to introduce it.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

The Minister referred to a number of business case documents as though they were the same as a prior cost-benefit analysis, and as though all those business case documents support the process that the Government are going through, but that is not the case. In Gloucestershire, the business case supported a stand-alone force. Does she intend to pay attention to those business cases when they have a different view from that of her own Government?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

Absolutely. We are not just paying attention to the business cases but examining them line by line. As much as anybody else in the Committee, I want amalgamation decisions to be right and to last for the next 15 to 20 years. I am not entirely sure that I will be a Member of the House then, but I shall certainly take an interest in ensuring that those decisions are robust and sustainable, and that the benefits outweigh the costs. The benefits are not simply financial; they also involve ensuring that our police service is fit for purpose for the next 15 to 20 years and can meet the threats that people face.

It is not simply a matter of bean counting; it is also about looking seriously at the future configuration of our police service. If the hon. Gentleman goes to the Home Office website and looks at the documents that are available in the public domain, it might add to his store of knowledge on the matter.

Rob Flello (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

Does my right hon. Friend agree that Opposition Members could have done their homework a little better by looking at the information available on the website, rather than quoting things that were raised 10 years ago?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I am sure that we will all add to our knowledge during the Committee’s proceedings. I urge hon. Members, particularly Opposition Members, to ensure that they speak from a position of informed knowledge.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

May I bring the Minister back to the fact that she said that the costs of merger are analysed to have been reduced from the £600 million to £800 million that the Under-Secretary mentioned?

I cannot remember whether the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Flello) was present at our meeting with the police authority and John Giffard, the chief constable of Staffordshire and architect of some of the mergers. Ten or 11 of the 12 Staffordshire Members of Parliament, of whom only three are Conservative, were present, and all of them bar one said that the business plan was unbelievable and incredibly shallow.

Derek Conway (Conservative, Old Bexley and Sidcup)

Order. The hon. Gentleman is making a long intervention. I am sure that if he wants to contribute when the Minister has concluded, he will catch my eye.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

All I can do is to urge the hon. Gentleman to read the documents in the public domain and to have a look at the finance. I am sure that he will have every opportunity to come back to that point if he wishes.

Mark Pritchard (Conservative, The Wrekin)

I am a little puzzled by the Minister’s use of tenses. She used the past tense in response to the hon. Member for Cheltenham. Then she used the future tense, and then she went back to the past tense. Is it past or future tense in relation to the business cases? Have they been analysed and have conclusions been made, or are they being analysed line by line, as she said, in which case the future tense is appropriate and the decision has been made before they are analysed?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

Perhaps I can refer the hon. Gentleman to the Labour party manifesto at the general election: “Forward not back”. As to the financial situation, work has been ongoing. Since 23 December when we received the cases, and when many of the figures were estimates from the Association of Police Authorities, those figures have been refined through a process of work with independent consultants and the Office of Government Commerce.

We now have a statement in each summary showing year by year the up-front cost, the long-term savings and the point at which break-even can be reached; it is then possible to reach a point at which savings can be reinvested in protective services. Hon. Members will see that, but I have no doubt that discussions will continue on financial issues, because we shall not arrive at an absolutely clear final view, down to the last pound, of where we are to go.

If the hon. Member for Cheltenham has any business experience—I do not know whether he has—he will know that debate and dialogue will continue. We have a pretty clear view of the costs and benefits, the savings and the initial set-up costs. He will see that from the documents, which he will perhaps have the opportunity to study on the Home Office website during the lunch break. I urge him to do that.

I want to take my remarks back a little, away from finance issues. As I said to the hon. Gentleman, this is not simply a question of financial benefit; it is also a matter of policing benefits. The independent report from Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary contains some stark and shocking facts, which surprised me. It states that only 13 of the existing 43 forces have specialist murder units, less than 6 per cent. of more than 1,500 big organised crime gangs are being targeted by police in the course of a year, and the ability of some forces to deal with terrorist or domestic extremist incidents would be strained within a matter of hours.

Only seven out of 43 forces deploy special branch, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for The Wrekin, alongside neighbourhood teams to ensure that it receives the community intelligence that is so vital to the anticipation of crime and a proactive approach to it. Some officers have several crisis management roles and they can conflict. An officer could leave a fatal traffic accident to attend a firearms incident because no other trained person was available. A ports officer might have to leave a ports operation to conduct a surveillance operation because the specialist skills were not available.

Some forces have no independent armed response capacity at some times of the day and must borrow from their neighbours. Only two forces—the two largest in the country—scored well in the HMIC assessment of their ability to handle serious crimes. All other forces fell significantly short of what it believes is necessary in that respect.

What is proposed is not simply a matter of getting the figures right. That is important, but there is an imperative involved. As I said to the hon. Member for Lichfield, in his area the Staffordshire, Warwickshire and West Midlands forces are keen to come together, because they recognise that in many cases they do not have the capacity and resilience to respond to the threats that I have described. There is a serious point to make about leadership in showing that we need to reconfigure our police service so that it will be fit for purpose in HMIC’s terms. It is not at the moment.

Rob Flello (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

Will my right hon. Friend comment on the observation by the hon. Gentleman that Staffordshire would not want to merge with West Midlands police because it would be the merger of a rural force with an urban force? What is her view on the fact that Stoke-on-Trent is not a rural area, but an urban area, and that Longton police station is the busiest police station in the whole of Staffordshire?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

My hon. Friend makes a good point. He will know that as a matter of the wider police reform agenda, we want to make basic command units, together with their local authority partners and the crime and disorder reduction partnership, the engine of neighbourhood policing. That deals, I think, with the comments of the hon. Member for Harwich about localism. We are making the basic command unit the absolute local unit of policing to which many communities will relate. There are clearly matters of urban concern in his basic command unit, which may need to be dealt with differently from those of rural areas.

Lynne Featherstone (Liberal Democrat, Hornsey and Wood Green)

Does the Minister understand that we are not arguing that there is a gap in provision of level 2 services, but that the Government’s solution—merging forces—is not necessarily the answer, particularly if it is done against the will of the forces? Commissioning in other groupings could have been done without the huge expense that will be incurred by what the Government propose.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

We have travelled some of this ground before, and debated the benefits of greater collaboration and whether a federated approach would have been suitable. In the majority of cases, we did not receive detailed business cases for federation; we certainly did not have the detail, the analysis or the financial information to consider them in that way. We also had advice from HMIC that in many cases collaboration had been, in its view, woefully inadequate and that federation would lead to a confusion about accountability and who would pay for the services. It genuinely did not believe that federation and collaboration could give the extra capacity and high-quality police services that amalgamations can deliver.

Mark Pritchard (Conservative, The Wrekin)

Will the Minister give an undertaking that no chief constable who has objected to the amalgamation plans will be overlooked for possible promotion to oversee any future merged police force?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

The hon. Gentleman can be assured that when police authorities consider recruitment—in the interests of localism and partnership, it will be police authorities that recruit their command teams—they will conduct a proper process with propriety and integrity. No matter that it would be improper to consider will figure in their decision-making processes.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

The kind of selective quotation from the HMIC report that the Minister gave reinforces the need for amendment No. 133. She mentioned the failures of smaller forces compared with larger ones, yet if one looks at the detail of the O’Connor report, one finds that it is far from the ringing endorsement of wholesale merger that it appears at first glance. For instance, it says that stakeholders have mixed views, that the performance of some smaller forces is very good by comparison with that of larger forces, and, particularly, that in things such as level 2 resilience, forces such as Gloucestershire and West Mercia perform well. It also draws attention to the importance of leadership in the performance of small forces. Is not one of the risks of merger the removal of a tier of leadership across the country when the number of chief constables is reduced from 43 to 12?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

It is quite breathtaking that the hon. Gentleman should say that I quoted selectively from the report. Does he not regard as important the relationship with special branch, the tiny minority of forces that have major incident teams and the fact that we are tackling proactively hardly any of the organised crime gangs in this country? Those are substantive issues, and I would hope that he would acknowledge that it would be irresponsible of any Government not to act on the recommendations of a report such as that from its professional experts in HMIC.

Of course there are issues. There is not an exact match between size of force and performance; some smaller forces perform better than larger ones. However, it is also the case that our police performance framework often does not measure level 2 performance—it measures, broadly, level 1 performance—so it is difficult to obtain that sort of read-across. However, there is a broad correlation between size of force and ability to cope with the challenges of the serious and organised crime agenda. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that and not persist in refusing to recognise the imperatives from HMIC. This responsible Government are prepared to take them on board and to show a bit of leadership in order to find the right way forward for the country.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

As my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone) said, no one is denying that there are gaps in level 2 resilience and that real concerns have been raised by HMIC. The Minister is right to tackle those problems, but she once again draws specific applications from general trends when it may not be appropriate for particular forces. The simple argument is that we should not have a one-size-fits-all solution, in which the general trend toward efficiency among larger forces and against smaller forces is made to force specific mergers on them all.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is wrong again when he says that it is a one-size-fits-all solution. In the north-west, the Cumbria, Lancashire and Greater Manchester forces will stand alone, but the Cheshire and Merseyside forces will amalgamate. In the north-east, the recommendation is for a regional force. It is the same in the west midlands. In the south-east, the three forces of Kent, Hampshire and Thames Valley will stand alone, and Surrey and Sussex will come together. That clearly shows that it is not a one-size-fits-all solution.

Proper analysis has been undertaken of what is the right solution for particular areas, and we have tried to achieve agreement and consensus. We asked forces and authorities in September last year to suggest how we could better protect the country at level 2, given the threats that face us. We did not go out from the centre saying, “This is the map that we have drawn, and these are the forces, like it or not.” We said that we would look at the business case and then take the necessary decisions. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that his assertion that we are taking a one-size-fits-all monolithic approach is very wide of the mark.

I want to give an illustration of the financial position, because I am aware that hon. Members have not yet had a chance to look at the Home Office website, although I am sure that they will be doing so within the next couple of hours. It is projected that the merger of Surrey and Sussex will result in up-front costs of about £27 million. It will bring together IT systems, and we are trying to ensure that any redundancies can be properly dealt with and be minimised.

Within a few years, net annual savings will result—for example, from reducing the command teams from two to one, and having better procurement and better back-office services. It is estimated that, by the fourth year, the total annual saving from merging forces will be about £16 million, and that that will continue year on year. That money will be available for reinvestment in protective services in the region. The people of Surrey and Sussex will have a better policing service because they will gain from the efficiencies of the merger.

I hope that hon. Members will agree that we have received independent advice from HMIC and independent consultants. We all want to ensure that the benefits outweigh the costs, and that there has been a proper process. I therefore ask the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs to withdraw amendment No. 133.

Amendment No. 82 calls for local referendums. I remind the Committee that the Police Act 1996 makes perfectly adequate provision for amalgamations. That legislation was introduced by the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) when he was Home Secretary. The hon. Member for Lichfield mentioned the Police and Magistrates’ Courts Bill. That, too, was enacted by a Conservative Government, and I understand that it removed a provision for local public inquiries to be held before proposed amalgamations took effect. He does not have a proud record of involving people and giving them the right to a say. I hate to make him blush.

As hon. Members know, there will be two separate procedures for making amalgamations. With a voluntary request, any order will be subject to the negative resolution procedure. If the Home Secretary makes an order on the grounds that it is in the interests of efficiency or effectiveness, it will be made under the affirmative resolution procedure. If the Home Secretary initiates mergers, people will have four months to make objections, and all those matters will have to be properly considered before the Home Secretary can decide whether to lay an order. My right hon. Friend has already indicated how he intends to proceed in relation to Wales, the north-west, the north-east and the west midlands. A time scale has been laid out and yesterday he gave a series of further indications on how those matters will be dealt with.

Mark Pritchard (Conservative, The Wrekin)

Is the Minister aware that Holyhead remains the third busiest port in the United Kingdom for footfall, and that many of those people travel through my constituency in Shropshire? If so, can she tell the Committee why five special branch officers have been told that they will be made redundant, especially as the mergers were supposed to enhance the way in which we deal with the threat of terrorism?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

Contrary to the view of the Opposition, I do not make decisions in Whitehall on operational matters involving individual police forces. We do not have that sort of centralised police system. Clearly, those operational matters are a matter for the chief constable involved. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman can raise his query with the chief constable in North Wales. I hope that he will get a satisfactory answer about why that decision was made.

Referendums have their place. This Government put in place the statutory framework in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. The UK has a parliamentary system of government. We elect our Government to make decisions. Referendums should be reserved for issues of major constitutional significance and change.

The hon. Member for Cheltenham made the point that, if we were to have a referendum and to give one part of an area a veto over what might genuinely be in the interests of the rest of the area, we might find ourselves with a recipe for institutional inertia and unable to reconfigure our public services to meet the challenges of the world we live in. If Opposition Members are saying that they want to cling to the status quo or to go backwards, that they are not prepared to consider change and that they are prepared simply to hand over the issues, that is quite disappointing. There is a role for Government—not an overweening centralist Government that imposes their will, but a Government who look at the country’s needs and decide the appropriate step forward.

During the 1960s and 1970s, when major changes took place in police force numbers, no referendums were held. Decisions were reached that brought about significant change in many communities and that could not have received 100 per cent. support. However, decisions clearly needed to be made to ensure that the police service was fit for purpose. That is exactly what we are trying to do. It is important that the decisions are properly scrutinised by Parliament, and the Bill provides for that.

Amendment No. 82 provides a high threshold for the referendum: the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs would have to obtain a majority of electors, not a majority of the turnout. I am not sure that he would be able to achieve that. The amendment is also silent on how the referendum would be organised, what the question would be, whether public money would be spent on it and how it would be conducted. I am not sure that it is practical, and I oppose it in principle.

It is important to consult communities. Since last summer, we have urged police authorities to consult in their areas on the issue, but if we simply ask people whether they want their police area to be merged, it is virtually guaranteed that an awful lot of them will say no. It is important that people have information. If we ask communities whether they think their police service should be able to cope with the threats of terrorism, serious and organised crime, drugs, money laundering and people trafficking, that kind of referendum question will get a very different answer. Proper debate is important.

The hon. Member for Harwich thought that there was a huge gap between police and communities. I hope that he has now seen the introduction in his area of neighbourhood police teams, which are rapidly closing any gap between police and communities. London has nearly 300 safer neighbourhood teams and will have 600 in the next few months. The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green, being a London Member, will recognise that those teams have been an asset in closing the gap and creating a better relationship with communities.

I do not regard referendums as the litmus test of whether we are engaging with communities. It is much more about neighbourhood police teams, crime and disorder reduction partnerships, relationships with local government and BCUs, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South mentioned. That is the reality of engaging with communities. Referendums are a distraction in that regard, and I ask the Committee to reject the amendments.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I am grateful to the Minister for her reply, but I do not find it satisfactory. As she pointed out, there is no disagreement in this Committee about the need to strengthen protective services. The question is how best to achieve it. At all stages, we have been at pains to agree that the gap needs to be closed. The question is how to do it and what arrangements between police forces will best achieve it.

Amalgamation is not the only option available to the Government. It was not the only recommendation of the O’Connor report, which proposed other alternatives, such as forces sharing their services. In particular, the Association of Police Authorities has urged the Government to consider carefully the option of forces sharing services as an alternative to amalgamation in many areas.

The Minister says that she has not considered those options because they were not put to her. However, that option was put to her by the APA. She also said that it was necessary for the Government to show leadership. Surely, that alternative should have been properly assessed, not least because the kind of savings that she suggested—giving as an example, I think, what could be achieved for Surrey and Sussex through, for example, the sharing of back-office functions and procurement savings—could be achieved just as easily through arrangements under which forces share their services.

The interesting thing about what is happening in the south-east is that there has been a failure to consider the sharing option. A number of forces will remain as stand-alone strategic forces. I am pleased that they have been reprieved. However, the opportunity has been lost to put pressure on those forces and authorities to get together to make arrangements to share their services, which could yield the necessary savings.

I remind the Committee that the Association of Chief Police Officers has estimated that the gap—the amount of investment necessary to bring level 2 services up to scratch—is some £300 million. So far, the savings that have been identified have not been in that sphere. The Government have produced a figure of more than £700 million over 10 years. Again, that figure has not been published in this House—it is being presented by Home Office officials to police authorities and others—so we have not had the opportunity to examine it properly. It is plainly not going to be sufficient for the level of investment in protective services that ACPO suggests will be necessary.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

Does my hon. Friend accept that there is doubt as to the rigour with which the figures were calculated? When they were presented to Staffordshire MPs, Labour and Conservative, they were rejected as not having been thought through properly—that was from the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, backed by Conservative and Labour MPs.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. First, the Minister relied on the fact that Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary had conducted the independent study. She said that there was no need for our amendment to call for an independent body to produce a cost-benefit analysis, because HMIC had already done that in the O’Connor report. That report is seriously deficient when it comes to financial analysis. There is just one page of assessment of where costs will occur and where savings will be made. That is not a credible alternative to a proper, rigorous assessment by an independent body. Denis O’Connor was quoted in Westminster Hall as saying:

“This process looks like five years and not 18 months to me . . . I was asked to put forward a protective services argument, not a critical assessment of forces . . . I recognise that there are key issues such as legal principles, the precept, consultation and the business cases that I did not have time to consider”.—[Official Report, 29 November 2005; Vol. 440, c. 8WH.]

If the inspector who wrote the report concedes that the financial analysis that should have been part of it was not there, it is not an acceptable alternative to the amendment to say that a study has been conducted by the inspectorate; it has not. The Minister said that the business cases that have been assessed by the Home Office have now been published on the Home Office website. I am grateful for that information; it is certainly news to me. When I met her and asked when the cases would be published, I was not informed that they were, or would be, on the website. I was simply told that they would be published in due course. I am looking forward to reading them on the website. However, I should have thought that it was proper, at the same time as the written statements were made by the Home Secretary, for the assessments to be put in the Library of the House, where they would be available to hon. Members, rather than being buried on an obscure part of a website that we have been told about for the first time in this Committee. I do indeed look forward to reviewing the information at lunch time, and reviewing exactly when the figures were published.

In any case, that is not the same as an independent cost-benefit analysis, because the figures have been produced by the Home Office itself—or by management consultants employed by it, under the auspices of the chief constable of Staffordshire, who has been retained by the Home Office for that purpose. They are not an independent assessment of the kind that we seek by means of the amendment.

I was interested in the Minister’s response to the concern expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield that rural forces should not be forced to merge with urban forces. The Minister said that there was a good case for such mergers, because the urban component would help to strengthen protective services. However, in the example of Surrey and Sussex, the example that the Minister used, two rural forces are being merged. I am not sure that what she said follows, in relation to the announcements that have just been made.

The Minister said that referendums should be reserved for constitutional issues. I made the point—and am happy to mention again—that the O’Connor report, on which the Government rely, stated at paragraph 2.4 that the constitutional implications of this work are significant. If that is to be the test of when there should be a referendum, by the inspector’s own assessment, the change in question has passed it, and should be made the subject of a referendum.

The Minister said that there was no need for a referendum because the proposals are being properly scrutinised by Parliament. As I have said, Parliament has been denied much scrutiny of the proposals. A debate was not permitted until just before Christmas. The subsequent debate had to take place in Opposition time. None of the statements have been made orally by the Home Secretary. All the announcements about amalgamation have been slipped out by way of written statements. There has been very little parliamentary debate and scrutiny of the proposals. The idea that such scrutiny has been an adequate substitute for proper consultation with the people will not wash.

The truth is that the one group of people who have really been excluded from the process of amalgamation is the public. They have felt that they have had no real say in the matter, and no ability to affect what is happening to policing in their communities. It is not a respectable argument to suggest that the Government know best and that they must take decisions that they believe to be in people’s interest. That is the argument of tyranny. [Interruption.] It is indeed the argument of tyranny. The idea that it is possible to drive measures through because the Government know best is a denial of the democratic principle, which is that local people are entitled to a say over matters that directly affect them, and that we should pay attention to their views. The arguments that were advanced against referendums were very thin.

I accept that my amendment, which was effectively a probing amendment, was deficient and that a referendum would have to be designed carefully to ensure that it could be conducted in the usual manner by police authorities. We can return to that issue later. However, the arguments on the need for an independent cost-benefit analysis have been well made. It is a perfectly respectable amendment and it is precisely in line with the proposal made by the Home Office strategy unit, not 10 years ago but two years ago, in a document that was not published until recently. That independent cost-benefit analysis is essential, and I will seek therefore to press amendment No. 133 to a vote.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

I beg to move amendment No. 36, in schedule 2, page 67, line 7, leave out paragraph 21.

Derek Conway (Conservative, Old Bexley and Sidcup)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 37, in schedule 2, page 67, line 9, leave out paragraph 22.

No. 38, in schedule 2, page 67, line 25, leave out paragraph 23.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

We have talked about the possible threat to civil liberties posed by some parts of the Bill. In some respects, the Minister made light of that. This is the one part of the Bill that potentially poses a serious threat to civil liberties, and we need to consider it in a sober fashion.

Amendment Nos. 36 to 38 propose the deletion of paragraphs 21 to 23 of schedule 2. The crux of the matter is that, under those paragraphs, the Secretary of State would set police authorities’ strategic priorities, currently a major power for police authorities. Those provisions pose a threat. If one political party is dominant—less the situation now than in recent years, although still broadly the case—it might abuse the powers under the Bill to set policing priorities to its own advantage and to suit its own political agenda.

I would not be so ungenerous as to suggest that the Minister is a tyrant—the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs seemed to suggest a minute ago that she had that potential. Obviously, she is a perfectly reasonable and liberal Minister, and she has an equally reasonable and liberal Home Secretary. However, we must imagine those powers, not in the hands of reasonable, liberal people but, potentially, in the hands of unreasonable people. In the end, the only civil liberties that matter are those that protect us against Governments’ doing unreasonable things that we did not expect when those powers were drafted.

We can imagine how the strategic priority provisions might be used in the wrong hands; local priorities might be set aside and priority given to controlling disruptive and unpatriotic elements. I can think of an example from living memory. Had the Government of the United States—a fundamentally democratic and tolerant country—been given powers such as those before us during the McCarthyite era, they would have been able to set policing priorities that might have posed a real threat to the civil liberties of American citizens. The powers before us contain the same possibility.

It could be imagined that people who are, or have been members of the Liberal Democrat party might be at risk from powers used in the wrong way. That is a light-hearted example. More seriously, in the current political environment and under current political pressures, particular Muslim or minority groups might find themselves on the wrong end of policing priorities that followed a populist agenda. Those priorities could be imposed on police authorities to give them a specific steer on the way in which to direct policing in their areas. The paragraphs confer serious powers on the Secretary of State, which in a free society are best left in the hands of the police authorities.

James Brokenshire (Conservative, Hornchurch)

The schedule and the amendments tabled by the Liberal Democrats highlight key elements of where the Government are coming from. There is a small but significant change of emphasis under the schedule. The Government have been able to set objectives for police authorities, but the Bill now makes a subtle but important change: it sets strategic priorities. There is a big difference between saying to an authority that it has an overall objective to do something and saying that it has strategic priorities. That suggests that there is a greater drilling down and more influence on what individual police authorities can do. The crux of the debate is whether the provision is a centralising measure.

In many ways, the Government have set their stall behind the concept of the safer neighbourhood team, the basic command unit and the crime and disorder reduction partnerships as having the localism element, to which I am sure the Minister will refer. Above that, strategic priorities must lie behind what the individual organisations want to achieve with the resources that are allocated to them. The schedule shows that the balance of power is firmly with the Secretary of State, not local organisations that, in some ways, reflect local aspirations and policing needs. The influence will come from the centre, not local neighbourhood communities.

Safer neighbourhood teams are good. I have a close working relationship with the teams in my constituency but, given their resources, there are limits to what they can achieve. A safer neighbourhood team would usually comprise six individuals: a sergeant, two police constables and three community support officers. The teams are unable to police 24 hours a day. They would usually police together, which tends to make them more effective. On an eight-hour shift, therefore, two thirds of the day and the night would not be addressed in the local community by the safer neighbourhood team and that is when much of the crime could be taking place. It is not realistic to expect the safer neighbourhood team to work a late shift each day of the week, so we rely on the core teams and the resources that are allocated to them. A more specialist team would have to deal with certain crimes, such as armed robbery.

It is easy for the Minister to say, “The safer neighbourhood teams will bridge the gap”, but they depend on the direction and focus that are given to them. Last week, she politely and in a cuddly way told me that we are talking about high-level stuff and that the Secretary of State would not be involved in more operational matters. However, let us consider a strategic objective. In the past, we have seen how the Prime Minister can suddenly decide that a priority should be in place. For that week, the priority could be street crime. In effect, that is a strategic priority. If it had been set, the basic command units, the safer neighbourhood teams and the CDRPs would be subject to it. Whatever the local issues, the direction will come from the centre and that is what the units and teams will follow for a certain time.

The emphasis on setting strategic priorities rather than broader objectives is extremely important and in many ways goes to the heart of our debate on centralisation. The strategic priorities are set from the centre, and the safer neighbourhood teams and all the locally oriented organisations, by which the Minister seeks to set great store, are subject to such objectives, which override the local priorities.

The measure is about centralisation because the powers vest greater control in the Secretary of State rather than in the safer neighbourhood teams and other local bodies. The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, going through the House at the moment, seems to vest in the Government great power to change everything, virtually at the drop of a hat, without having to introduce primary legislation and have proper scrutiny. We have to look closely at such provisions, because there could be a subtle change that would vest even greater power in the centre.

The measure is an important shift in direction which changes the dynamic. It puts much greater emphasis on, and gives much more influence to, the Secretary of State, and takes power away from local bodies, which may have been established as a front to suggest that the emphasis is on them to deal with management and other issues. In fact, setting strategic objectives takes power away from neighbourhoods and local communities and vests it in the centre. It means that priorities are driven by the Government rather than by the local teams on the ground.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I do not know whether these are probing amendments, but they would return us to our current position of having to have a national policing plan. That is a rigid requirement because we have to publish it by 30 November every year and so on. With the national community safety plan, the first of which was published in November last year, I have tried to move towards working across government on such things and to recognise that trying to build safer communities is not simply a job for the police.

Probably half the work of making people safer is done by local government and the health service. The national community safety plan involves 12 different Departments and discusses what contribution they will make—for example, the health service might help with drug treatment and the education service might help divert youngsters away from crime and antisocial behaviour. The amendments would take us back to a more rigid and siloed approach to policing which would be more about the Home Secretary dictating from the centre the police’s priorities and what they should be getting on with. We are trying to implement a much more integrated plan for tackling the problems that beset many of our communities and to draw in all our partners from both national and local government to ensure that we work together to tackle such problems.

Last week I was with a safer neighbourhood team in Hackney, where there is a problem of drug dealing on the streets. In the past, the police had simply used their enforcement powers to tackle it; they tended to move the drug dealers on, so there was displacement. That solved the problem in the short but not the longer term. However, the past 12 months have been different: the police have worked with the local council, involved drug treatment agencies and got youngsters involved in more constructive activities. The problems on the Holly Street estate have now been removed for the long term. I spoke to a lady there who said that she had slept the whole night through for the first time in 18 months because of the more holistic approach.

I am concerned that the amendments would take us back to the rigidity of simply having a national policing plan. I am trying to get localism into the relationship between the police, the local authorities, the health service, the primary care trusts and the education service, all working at the local level. I hope that the hon. Members for Cheltenham and for Hornsey and Wood Green will think about that.

Celia Barlow (Labour, Hove)

I commend the Minister and her team for putting a great deal of money into Brighton and Hove city council to assist the treatment of addicts. That has had a huge knock-on effect on crime in the area. Burglary and vehicle crime have gone down by 20 per cent. in the past year.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I am delighted that my hon. Friend has seen tangible improvements on her streets, and I am sure that her community will appreciate them as well.

The hon. Member for Hornchurch (James Brokenshire) raised the serious concern of getting the right balance between the Secretary of State’s strategic policing priorities and the local plans that police authorities will draw up. The legal position is that police authorities must have regard to the national strategic priorities that the Home Secretary sets out—the hon. Gentleman will know that that has a particular legal meaning—and must take account of them. It does not mean that the priorities substitute entirely for the local policing plan.

In the past year, I have tried to move away from rigid, centrally controlled targets for vehicle crime, robbery and burglary, which is how we dealt with things previously, to much more overarching targets for areas to try to reduce crime by at least 15 per cent. overall. The make-up of that 15 per cent. will be different in different areas. I want more reductions in high crime areas, because the people who live in such places are entitled to live in safer communities. However, within that overarching target, the composition of the crime mix that will be tackled will be different in most areas. Robbery might not be such a big issue, particularly in a rural community, but criminal damage or shoplifting—some of the problems that have not had attention—might be. There is more flexibility in the system that we are introducing because it will enable local people to ensure that the police focus on what is important to them.

The hon. Member for Cheltenham is concerned about the Home Secretary’s ability to set strategic priorities. One of the strategic priorities for this year is to tackle antisocial behaviour. I do not know whether it is his party’s view that that should not be a priority for communities, in view of the stance that it has taken on antisocial behaviour, but I am convinced that it is exactly what the public wants us to do. Every community I visit says that tackling antisocial behaviour is top of its agenda. I do not know whether he wants to suggest that his party does not believe that tackling antisocial behaviour should be a core responsibility of our police service. Perhaps he would like to tell us?

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

I am happy to tell the Minister that Liberal Democrat-led Cheltenham borough council has been a pioneer in the use of antisocial behaviour orders. That is why I support the orders and why my party supports them in appropriate circumstances. We obviously think that antisocial behaviour is a serious problem for citizens of this country and that it needs tackling rigorously.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I am delighted that the Liberal Democrats are now coming on to Government territory. It is getting very crowded, but that is because the policies are popular. I hope that the hon. Gentleman has an influence on his colleague, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green, in ensuring that antisocial behaviour is central to our priorities.

Lynne Featherstone (Liberal Democrat, Hornsey and Wood Green)

Will the Minister give way?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

No, I am going to be a tyrant for a short time.

As I say, it is a matter of balance. Our national priorities are to tackle drugs and antisocial behaviour, to reduce crime in a more flexible way for local communities, and to try to increase the number of offences brought to justice, which everyone would recognise is important for public confidence. Our final priority is to tackle terrorism. If any member of this Committee were to say that that was not a priority for this country, I would be surprised.

Mark Pritchard (Conservative, The Wrekin)

If the Minister is a tyrant, she is the most charming tyrant that I have come across, and there are many uncharming tyrants in this place.

If the Government are serious about dealing with terrorism, why have they delayed in appointing a homeland security Minister and in forming a department for homeland security or resilience? My party and my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) have been calling on them to do that for some time. If they move to our position and create that department, I can think of no better candidate to fill that role.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I did not realise that the hon. Gentleman disliked me quite so much as to map out that future for me.

That debate has been going on for some years. I remain convinced that embedding the responsibility for counter-terrorism across government is important in our system. If one Department were responsible, there would always be a temptation for others to leave that Department to get on with it. Terrorism covers a range of issues—civil nuclear installations, protecting our vulnerable infrastructure and preparing for the consequences of terrorism, where local government has a real role in resilience—and it is not simply a matter for enforcement authorities and the police. That is why it is important that the Department for Transport, the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and other Departments take their responsibility as seriously as they do. If there were simply one central Department dealing with the matter, there would be a temptation to leave it to that Department. Also, we would lose the expertise embedded in many Departments, which helps us to make more of our resources. That is a difference of opinion; the debate will no doubt continue. This country has an integrated way of dealing with the problem, and many other countries look to us as having some of the very best practice in terms of our resilience in that regard.

With that, I ask the Committee to resist the amendment. We have got the balance right between the Home Secretary’s powers and powers at the local level. It is important that he can map out the priorities for the country as a whole, while leaving local areas to get on with the kind of neighbourhood policing that, I am delighted to hear, Members of all parties welcome in their communities.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

I begin on a positive note by agreeing with the Minister about rejecting the idea of a department for homeland security, which the hon. Member for The Wrekin suggested. I have to declare a constituency interest: I represent GCHQ, the work of which would doubtless be complicated by setting up yet another Government institution. I do not think that the American Department of Homeland Security has been such an unqualified success as to justify our using it as a model. Setting up such a department would be a classic example of what the Government do more often than we propose, whereby they find organisational fixes to problems.

The Minister has somewhat mistaken the intention behind the amendments and talked about particular priorities that were either a good or bad idea. She mentioned reducing crime, including vehicle crime, and antisocial behaviour, all of which are laudable priorities. We have no objection to national Government setting national priorities for policing; that is partly what national Governments are there to do. The power to which we object is the power to impose particular priorities on police authorities at a local level. That is the subject before us. She claims that the Bill introduces a more flexible system, but that beggars belief. It certainly gives more flexibility to the Home Secretary and Ministers, but it clearly cannot give more flexibility to police authorities because they are being imposed on. I am afraid that I have to reject that particular assertion.

The example of antisocial behaviour is a good one. Authorities such as Cheltenham have taken a particular approach to antisocial behaviour orders and have used them imaginatively. It is looking into acceptable behaviour contracts, and there many other ways of tackling the problem of antisocial behaviour. That is a classic example of how towns with suburban areas that have a particular problem with antisocial behaviour have different priorities to rural areas and big cities. We need to set our own policing priorities. The powers to allow the Home Secretary to say, “Well, whether you believe that this priority is good or ill, I know best what a particular authority’s priorities should be”, undermine the very examples of good local initiatives that the Minister gave.

If the authorities that the Minister quoted were so effective in developing strategies for dealing with drug crime, for instance, why not let them set those priorities at local level? Why does the Home Secretary need the power to tell an authority what its priorities should be? The powers are unnecessary. Nevertheless, I accept the political reality of the Committee and realise that we would not win a vote on this occasion, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I beg to move amendment No. 75, in schedule 2, page 67, line 36, leave out paragraphs 24 to 26.

Derek Conway (Conservative, Old Bexley and Sidcup)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 78, in schedule 2, page 68, line 5, leave out ‘he may’ and insert

‘and the failure is serious and permanent, he may exceptionally’.

No. 79, in schedule 2, page 68, line 5, after ‘may’, insert ‘as a last resort’.

No. 76, in schedule 2, page 68, leave out line 6.

No. 39, in schedule 2, page 68, line 9, at end insert—

‘(1A)Such a direction must be laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.’.

No. 40, in schedule 2, page 68, leave out lines 10 to 18.

No. 77, in schedule 2, page 68, leave out line 14.

No. 41, in schedule 2, page 68, line 42, leave out from beginning of line 42 to end of line 5 on page 69.’.

No. 80, in schedule 2, page 69, line 25, leave out ‘he may’ and insert

‘and the failure is serious and permanent, he may exceptionally’.

No. 81, in schedule 2, page 69, line 25, after ‘may’, insert ‘as a last resort’.

No. 42, in schedule 2, page 69, line 27, at end insert—

‘(1A)Such a direction must be laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.’.

No. 43, in schedule 2, page 69, leave out lines 28 to 32.

No. 44, in schedule 2, page 70, leave out lines 6 to 16.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

The amendments relate to the proposed power to give directions to police authorities or chief officers of police, which is set out in schedule 2.

They reflect the fact that a number of concerns have been expressed about the directions. The Committee should examine more closely exactly what the powers will entail and how they will be used.

A briefing was prepared by the Association of Police Authorities for this Committee. There was support for the principle of a police authority being able to request an intervention in its force but concern about the proposed powers to intervene in police authorities, as it is doubtful that the Home Office has the depth of skills and knowledge about police authorities to undertake such an intervention.

The briefing raised several specific issues about the powers of intervention. The first is whether a new power is needed. The APA points out that, after all, the existing powers of intervention have not been used since they were introduced four years ago, in 2002. An agreed protocol is in place for forces that are in need of assistance and it works well in practice.

Let us consider the celebrated case where the previous Home Secretary directed Humberside’s police authority in 2004 to sack the then chief constable, David Westwood. When it said that he should remain, the Home Secretary was able to show in court that he had exercised his existing powers properly to direct that the chief constable be removed. Given that, what is the need for new powers? That is the first question that the Minister might wish to address.

The second issue is whether it is right for the Home Secretary to take new powers to intervene not just in the police authority but directly to the chief police officer without reference to the police authority. The APA said that such a provision might create direct accountability between the chief officer and the Secretary of State, which might interfere with the operational independence of the chief officer and would also undermine the tripartite relationship. The creation of fewer chief officers runs the enhanced risk that they are increasingly answerable not to their local police authorities but to the Home Secretary. If the power is exercised in that way, I suspect that the trend will be reinforced.

Thirdly, there is the issue about whether the test that is applied is adequate. After all, the proposal relates to a serious principle: where a police force is failing to such an extent, it merits direct Executive action, through the Home Secretary’s intervening in it. The problem is that the Bill’s wording is effectively subjective; it is a subjective test. The Bill states:

“Where the Secretary of State is satisfied that the whole or any part of a police force is failing to discharge ... its functions ... he may direct ... the chief officer ... the police authority ... or both of them”

to remedy the failure.

The APA points out that such a provision effectively leaves the discretion to the Secretary of State, who can act as judge and jury in his own right. It sought either reassurance on this point or some mechanism to prescribe more closely the circumstances in which the Home Secretary would be able to intervene, because otherwise we would be creating a sweeping power to enable future intervention.

It is not enough simply to rely on Home Office assurances that these are to be reserved powers. On Second Reading, in respect of the use of the powers, the Minister said:

“My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary referred to a backstop and a last resort.”—[Official Report, 6 March 2006; Vol. 443, c. 686.]

Interestingly, the Bill’s explanatory notes also make such a reference. Note 89, on page 17, states that the measures are

“intended to ensure that the power to give directions is only used as a last resort.”

However, there is nothing in the Bill to ensure that they will be used as such. They could be used entirely according to the Home Secretary’s judgment about whether a force was behaving effectively. The precedents in this respect are not particularly good. Not only was there the unedifying row between the then Home Secretary and Humberside police authority, to which I have referred, but there was the even more unedifying example of the previous Home Secretary telling the Evening Standard in 2002 that Sir John Stevens had six months to reduce the level of street crime or be sacked. The report on BBC News online on 17 February 2002 went further:

“Mr. Blunkett threatened to send in government managers to run the force if violent crime was not reduced.”

I do not think that we can rely on assurances given by Ministers that powers are only intended as a last resort, when, as a matter of fact, they are drawn in such a way that they could enable significant additional intervention in circumstances that we could not foresee.

It is because of that concern that I have tabled amendments to include in the Bill the wording given in the explanatory notes and which the Minister gave on Second Reading. Amendment No. 79 makes it clear that such intervention may occur “as a last resort”. If the Minister means what she says about the powers only being taken as a last resort, I see no objection to the inclusion of those few words in the Bill.

I proposed an alternative amendment, No. 78, which begins to do what the Association of Police Authorities wants, which is to define more closely the circumstances in which the Home Secretary may intervene in police forces. It suggests that the failure must be “serious and permanent” and the intervention must be an exceptional one. That is a probing amendment. Perhaps, at a later stage, a better form of wording could be discussed that deals more appropriately with this problem, because at the moment the powers of intervention are completely unconstrained.

I am so concerned about the operation of this provision that I have tabled amendment No. 75, which would remove it from the Bill. I hope that that will not be necessary and that we get the reassurances and amendments that we seek.

I look forward to hearing the Minister, but I hope that she recognises that these concerns have been expressed not just on our part, but by the Association of Police Authorities. She has been at great pains to reassure us that she is not seeking to behave in a centralising manner, still less a tyrannical one, and that the purpose of the Bill is to enhance local accountability, although I find that claim difficult to accept. However, she might understand that when a provision allows the Secretary of State to take powers directly to intervene in the running of police forces—not just police authorities—that gives rise to real concerns that this is, effectively, a centralising measure. We need to understand how those measures are intended to be used and we need to be reassured that the Bill will only allow them to be used in exceptional circumstances.

Derek Conway (Conservative, Old Bexley and Sidcup)

Before I call the next hon. Member to speak, perhaps I may just point out that because this group of amendments is pretty wide ranging and the Committee’s previous consideration this morning and on Thursday on the schedule was also fairly wide ranging, I do not intend to allow a debate on whether it should stand part of the Bill.

Lynne Featherstone (Liberal Democrat, Hornsey and Wood Green)

I rise to speak to amendments Nos. 39, 40, 41 and 42 to 44.

These paragraphs provide for a serious centralisation of power, because to allow the Secretary of State to issue directions both directly to a chief police officer without reference to the authority and to an authority directly goes beyond anything that we have seen to date. He will do that—as the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs said, but which is explained only in the explanatory notes—“as a last resort” or if he believes that the force or the authority is failing. Again the tripartite relationship is undermined, with power shifting completely and neatly to central control.

There are no objective criteria for that intervention; there is no need for negative reports from Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, which the Minister praised so highly earlier in this sitting, and there is no definition in the Bill of what constitutes “failure” or “a last resort”. To add insult to injury, that intervention can come merely if the Secretary of State believes that such a force or authority will fail. He is a clever chap, but I am not sure that clairvoyance is one of his skills.

We totally support the police and the police authorities being able to request help, but we are extremely concerned about intervention enabled without examination or a report from HMIC. The absence of objective criteria means that intervention could be determined by political pressures rather than an assessment of the performance or operational ability of the force. There is no way on earth that a Labour Government would have given this carte blanche power had there been a Tory Home Secretary. This must not be about an individual person or the party; it has to stand for all time, and political intervention must be totally resisted. We cannot jeopardise the operational independence of the police in what appears to be a cavalier manner.

We are told that this will broaden the triggers for intervention because it will allow the Secretary of State to look at the national performance assessments of police forces or ask the new chief inspector of the joint inspectorate for his opinion. I would hope that that would happen in any case, but I am not reassured that that is an adequate safeguard.

I have been trying to work out why the Minister and the Home Secretary want these powers and do not want to include a definition of them in the Bill, and I have come to the conclusion that that goes to the heart of something that we see in respect of the Labour Government—a paranoia about devolved responsibility. This is what the terror seems to be: if there is a bad headline in the papers, for instance about a type of crime rocketing in a particular part of the country, the consequence is the Government’s need to be seen to be taking action. In response to such a headline, there is always that need and a knee-jerk reaction.

Not unnaturally, the Government bear the brunt of the blame when things go wrong, even if that is the fault of the local force. That is an understandable concern for the Government. However, if in their mind the need to act swiftly is automatically followed by a need to cut out all the checks and balances of democracy to enable direct intervention, that whole trend—as discussed in the previous sitting—is about the Government wanting to centralise power so that they can intervene for political reasons by being seen to be dealing with what is a political embarrassment in the media. The consequences are draconian and they undermine the structures that are in place and the balance between the Government, the police and the police authorities in their tripartite arrangement.

No one is saying that the Government do not have a duty to intervene when things are going wrong, but we are saying that we must have objective criteria for judging what that wrong is, and that there should be a genuine rationale for intervention, instead of political reasons. It seems that the Government are moving to batten down the hatches so that anything for which they might be blamed will not be left untouched. Their intervention may be based on their embarrassment rather than on remedies identified by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary. The danger is that the Secretary of State will find himself micromanaging the police.

I suggest to the Minister that the better way forward would be to strengthen the democratic institutions, the measures, the inspections, the monitoring and the triggers, so that objectives and independent assessment can be improved. The answer is to put resources into improving the quality of the processes rather than jumping up and down at particular or defined outcomes mentioned in the press. That is not what needs to be tackled. It is the qualitative processes that need the Government’s attention and resources.

This part of the Bill demonstrates how little faith the Secretary of State has in professionalism. He has no trust in the system of inspection, no trust in chief officers and no trust in the police authorities. That is what the schedule is about.

Under amendment No. 39, such directions would be laid before Parliament. If these swingeing powers are to be given to the Home Secretary, the public would at the very least expect Parliament to debate and to scrutinise them. The Association of Chief Police Officers was extraordinarily strong in its criticism of the schedule:

“Far from empowering communities, we believe that the Bill empowers the Secretary of State ... This replaces the tripartite arrangement with its checks and balances preventing any one arm exercising power inappropriately”.

Hear, hear.

Amendments Nos. 40 and 44 would delete proposed new sections 40(2) and 40A(5), which will give the Secretary of State the power to intervene if he believes that a police force will fail. We would like a better definition of how he is to make that prediction and the basis on which he might think it fair to intervene in advance.

Amendments Nos. 41 and 43 would delete proposed new sections 40(5) and 40A(2), which allow the Secretary of State not to consult the police authority if he is satisfied that the authority has already been made aware of the problem. Those provisions are confusing. They use a sort of doublespeak. On one hand, the Bill purports to allow the police and police authorities to see the evidence that they are failing. On the other hand, the provision to allow the police authority and chief officer further opportunities to deal with the matter and to make representations does not apply if they have been made aware of those matters. I take it, from that rather mixed message, that when the Secretary of State wants in, he will butt in.

Amendment No. 42 would ensure that regulations relating to this part of the Bill were properly laid before Parliament.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

The Government are making changes to the existing intervention powers to try to make them more fit to respond to performance failings identified in police forces and, importantly, in police authorities. The Bill provides for police authorities to be inspected for the first time. We therefore need a mechanism to allow intervention if authorities, as well as forces, are failing.

The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs spoke of the suspension of the former chief constable of Humberside. It is important to recognise that those powers were exercised under section 11(3)(a) of the Police Act 1996, as amended by the Police Reform Act 2002. The Bill does not amend those powers. They are separate powers relating to the suspension of chief constables and deputy chief constables in certain circumstances. They cannot be read across to the intervention powers in the Bill, which are about the performance of a force or an authority and not about individual chief officers. It is important that we do not mix the two.

The purpose of the powers is to build on our experience of the past few years in driving performance. All the chief constables whom I have met welcome the increased focus on performance over that time, which has led to significant reductions in crime in a range of areas. Their forces have welcomed the rigorous performance framework, which did not exist three or four years ago. As part of its ethos, the police service now recognises that performance is really important to local communities. These powers—I have said this, but I am happy to reiterate it—are steps of last resort, to be taken only where serious and enduring performance problems arise.

Where performance problems persist and the service to the public is affected, it is important to remedy the situation quickly. The amendments put a number of unnecessary obstacles in the way of that process. Amendment No. 75 would do away with the changes all together, so we would not be able to learn from the past few years in order to make continuous improvements. Effective intervention powers must be in place to ensure that we can take action when a police force or police authority takes too long to show an acceptable improvement in performance, is incapable of addressing its failings or, in an extreme case, refuses to co-operate to remedy failings that have been identified.

Under amendment No. 78, the Secretary of State would intervene if the performance failure were serious and permanent. There is value in trying to be clear about the criteria for intervention. However, I would be concerned about waiting for failure to be permanent. It is difficult to decide when that point is reached. I have used the words, “significant and enduring”, which is fairly clear. It is not fair on communities not to act until a failure is serious and permanent—the standard of service that they receive is at issue, so to wait until failure is permanent is to wait far too long.

Amendment No. 81 seeks to include the words “as a last resort”. It is not necessary to do that. I fear that, if we put “last resort” in the Bill, we will find ourselves having a series of legal arguments about what is last, what is resort and what the whole phrase means, and we will end up with a long delay in introducing the power.

Let me make a general point on that issue. The powers that the Secretary of State will exercise—as the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green said, the Secretary of State has only to be satisfied—are subject to the general legal framework of judicial review. That means that the Home Secretary has to take into account all relevant considerations. He has to reach a decision that any reasonable Home Secretary could reach in order for the power to be exercised. There is a perfectly proper legal framework within which the Home Secretary makes such decisions. The hon. Lady will know, if she has any experience of legislation or the legal system, that the Home Secretary’s decision making is always constrained by the fact that it has to be rational and reasonable, otherwise it is subject to challenge.

One of the other amendments proposes that we remove the provision that enables the Secretary of State to route the powers direct to the chief officer in respect of forces that are failing or will fail. Again, that is not about bypassing the role of the police authorities in holding forces to account for their performance, but it is trying to reflect reality. In the rare cases in which a police authority is unable or unwilling to act, it might be necessary to go to the chief officer, who has the power to do something about the failings.

Amendments Nos. 39 and 42 require Parliament to debate and to approve the issuing of a direction. The provisions require the Home Secretary to produce a report to Parliament when he exercises those powers, and I do not agree that a further change, making provision for a debate, would help. In fact, if there were to be a national debate about failings in a force, it might be alleged that the force was being put in an intense spotlight, when it would be in everybody’s interests for it to address the performance failings, get its organisation back on track and start providing a decent service to its community.

Amendment No. 40 seeks to remove the provision that says that the Secretary of State may intervene when he considers that a police area or police authority will fail. I understand the concern; people do not want the power to be exercised in an unnecessarily pre-emptive way. However, when a failure has been diagnosed, through engagement with the Police Standards Unit, and consideration of inspection reports and a series of performance information, and when it is clear that unless remedial action is taken that force or authority will fail, we have a responsibility to intervene. Clearly, that will be a matter of judgment. As I said, those powers would be a last resort and have never been exercised.

There is a lot of voluntary engagement between the Police Standards Unit and police forces—those engaged with the unit have improved twice as fast as those that are not. There is a clear route through for performance. However, where there have been signs of systemic weakness, rapid deterioration and things starting to go seriously wrong, there should be intervention. In a lot of cases, it will be right that first there is collaboration, and that people work to improve services in that area, but intervention must be a last resort.

The usual route through those issues is to give forces the opportunity to remedy the problem with, as I said, the Police Standards Unit. Clearly, in most cases, we will do that. However, it is important that, in those rare cases in which that will not happen, when people are either unwilling or incapable of remedying those failures, the Home Secretary can intervene. At the end of the day, those powers are not a sign of the Government’s paranoia—if the Home Office were worried about bad headlines, we would be seeking to introduce new legislation virtually every day.

Lynne Featherstone (Liberal Democrat, Hornsey and Wood Green)

Will the Minister give way?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

Let me finish my point.

We do not want people to get ineffective policing and to live in fear in their communities. We have a responsibility to ensure that our police service is the best that it can be, and that can be done in a number of ways—through support, collaboration, the Police Standards Unit, the inspectorate and so on. Of course, we trust all those mechanisms. and in fact, our previous debate was on the HMIC’s expert advice, which we have taken very seriously.

I think that the hon. Lady is seeking to face two ways at the same time. I say genuinely that the Liberal Democrats have had a tendency, not just in the current debate, but in previous ones to will the ends but not the means. Of course, we all want good policing, antisocial behaviour to be tackled and public services at the highest level, but in order to make that happen, the Government must be prepared to take decisions, and it is right and proper that we protect some of our most vulnerable communities, which have lived with crime for many years. I feel a personal responsibility, as do the Government, and I am sure all hon. Members, to find a way of remedying those problems and ensuring that our police service is fit for purpose and can tackle the really important problems.

Lynne Featherstone (Liberal Democrat, Hornsey and Wood Green)

The Minister must forgive my cynicism, but the Government have just introduced recommendations to address the situation of loans to political parties as a result of political embarrassment.

Siobhain McDonagh (Labour, Mitcham and Morden)

Of course, the Liberal Democrats don’t do that.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I could get into a debate about Liberal Democrats taking loans from foreign donors that have to be repaid.

So far in our deliberations, the Committee has enjoyed a constructive atmosphere. Hon. Members have raised some serious points in their amendments, and until recently, there appeared to be a genuine desire to see how we can get the best legislation to enable our police forces to serve our communities. I think that we have seen graphically where the priorities of the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green lie. They are not in the best interests of providing good policing for her local community. I hope that she will take part in the debate more constructively.

Lynne Featherstone (Liberal Democrat, Hornsey and Wood Green)

Will the Minister give way?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

No. On that basis I ask hon. Members to reject the amendments.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I expected the Minister to be a little more constructive—the word that she used in her response. These are serious amendments that we, and I believe the Liberal Democrats, tabled on the basis of concerns raised partly by the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Police Authorities. The more that she speaks, the more concerned I am that the power to intervene in police forces will be relatively unrestrained. The more that she spoke about the passion that she felt about the need to do so, the more clear it became to me that it is the Government’s intention to use those powers.

We could debate the extent to which such powers should be used in all but the most serious circumstances, but the question is whether there are sufficient checks. In my view, a provision that gives the Secretary of State complete discretion, on the basis of his or her judgment, to decide whether

“a police force is failing to discharge any of its functions”

is not sufficiently constrained.

The Minister said that she takes Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary seriously, but the inspectorate will effectively be excluded from the process, will it not? There might be a respectable reason for doing that, relating to the Government’s desire to intervene directly when, for instance, a public inquiry recommends action, as in the case of the Bichard inquiry. That was her point on Second Reading. It is still possible to write into the Bill that, in normal circumstances, such intervention should be triggered by the inspectorate. One would think that that would be the proper balance and process. The independent inspectorate should first say that there is a problem and then empower the Home Secretary to intervene, although there might be exceptional arrangements for the Home Secretary to intervene—for instance, in the case of public inquiries. As far as I can see, the Bill does not provide for that.

I thought, perhaps naively, that the Minister would accept amendment No. 79, which would insert into the Bill the words “as a last resort”. After all, that is written in the explanatory notes to the Bill. If those powers are to be used only as a last resort, why not accept the amendment and thereby offer the reassurance that that is how they are intended to be used? Her quite casual dismissal of that proposal on the grounds that it was simply not necessary was sufficient to convince us that the reason that the amendment will not be accepted is that the Government wish to use the powers in a relatively unfettered manner.

Another concern is that police authorities could be bypassed under the provision. The Minister said that it might be necessary to bypass a police authority if it were unable and unwilling to act. Again, perhaps it should be written into the Bill that, in normal circumstances, the police authority should be approached first, but in exceptional cases, if the police authority is unable or unwilling to act, there should be a power of direct intervention. All those would be improvements to the Bill, but would limit the exercise of the power.

I am sure that we shall return to the matter. We have already voted against clause 2, which will bring the schedule into force. Therefore, I do not think that it is necessary to divide on the amendments now, but I must say that the Minister’s reply has persuaded me that we did the right thing in opposing clause 2. It is very difficult to argue, on the basis of what she said and her refusal to accept quite moderate checks on the exercise of the power, that it is anything other than a centralising measure. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Lynne Featherstone (Liberal Democrat, Hornsey and Wood Green)

I beg to move amendment No. 46, in schedule 2, page 72, leave out lines 3 to 5 and insert—

‘(5)An order under this section shall not be made unless a draft of it has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament’.

This is a probing amendment to help us to understand the Government’s thinking on why an order under this proposed section in the schedule should be annulled in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament. That seems to diverge in methodology from other parts of the Bill.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

We are trying to simplify section 96 of the Police Act 1996. It is a general principle that the key functions should be on the face of the Bill and that the secondary functions should be in regulations. The provision deals with regulations about obtaining the views of local people on how we should consult. It is proper for such detailed matters to be in secondary legislation. We have to consult ACPO, the APA and others before making orders. However, as I said, I will take into account the views of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee if it feels that there should be a different procedure. It is proper that the regulations relating to public consultation should be in secondary legislation and subject to the negative procedure.

Lynne Featherstone (Liberal Democrat, Hornsey and Wood Green)

I thank the Minister for her explanation, which clears up a couple of things that I was concerned about. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 3 - Police authorities as best value authorities

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

I beg to move amendment No. 4, in clause 3, page 2, line 14, leave out from second ‘authority’ to end of line 26.

Derek Conway (Conservative, Old Bexley and Sidcup)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 5, in clause 3, page 2, line 26, at end insert—

‘()A police authority must make arrangements to secure continuous improvement in the way in which its functions are exercised, having regard to a combination of economy, efficiency and effectiveness.’.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

These are probing amendments to try to discover what on earth is the Government’s purpose in clause 3, which does some rather strange things. It is probably common ground that we want good and constantly improving performance and business excellence in police authorities, although judging by what the Minister said at our last sitting, best value may not always be the best way to achieve it. In practice, best value has proved rather bureaucratic and tiresome for public sector organisations.

The amendment would remove paragraph (d), which itself removes from a police authority’s best value obligations

“section 5 (best value reviews);

section 6 (best value performance plans);

sections 7 to 9 (audit of best value performance plans)”,

and sections 13(5) and 15(2) of the Local Government Act 1999, which I consulted to see what would be left. The answer is precious little, except for the right to collect information and to be inspected. It is not so much throwing out the baby with the bathwater, as throwing out the baby and being left with the bathwater. The obligations and the bureaucracy of the best value framework remain, but the meat of best value does not.

That raises the question whether the best value framework is really needed in this context and it is why we suggest removing the proposal and replacing it with a general principle of improving performance. There are plenty of other models of performance improvement that a police authority might choose to adopt: for example, one of its members may have experience of ISO 9000, Investors in People or the European Foundation for Quality Management business excellence model, any of which might be appropriate, cheaper and more effective than what is left of the best value process in the clause. That might be an alternative way to proceed and it is the purpose of the amendment.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I hope I can enlighten the hon. Gentleman on why the Bill is so drafted. I am impressed by the amendments’ simplicity; we are trying to achieve the same end result but there is a caveat: we need to keep some of the framework of best value even though we are disapplying some of its specific requirements.

The amendments would disapply all the best value provisions and reapply an overarching duty to secure continuous improvement, which is what we want, but it would mean that the Audit Commission had no role in inspecting police authorities. It is important to keep the Audit Commission’s expertise in carrying out joint inspections with the new commission for justice and safety which the Bill introduces. The Audit Commission has extensive experience of how local authorities should perform. Under the Bill, as drafted, we can still involve the Audit Commission in some joint inspections. If it were amended along the lines of the hon. Gentleman’s proposal, it would shut out the Audit Commission from being able to play what I regard as a constructive role, especially given some of the work that I have seen it carry out. I would not want to lose the benefit of its expertise. I reassure the hon. Gentleman that we want to achieve the same as he and not bind police authorities with the bureaucracy of best value inspections.

We could save about £0.5 million throughout the service if we did not have such a system, but it is important that there is an overarching duty to secure continuous improvement and value for money from our investment in policing. Members of the Committee will know that, in the past five or six years, we have increased investment in policing by about 50 per cent. That is significant, and it is incumbent on all of us to make sure that we get best value. Even though my drafting is perhaps not as elegant as his, I hope that the hon. Gentleman understands why I want the provision to remain as drafted. I ask him to withdraw his amendment.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

I am flattered by the Minister’s compliments on my drafting, although I cannot claim personal responsibility for all of it. However, I shall relay those comments to the researchers who were involved in it. I am somewhat reassured by what the right hon. Lady said and I see the value of an Audit Commission role in inspecting police authorities. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 4 - Standard powers and duties of community support officers

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I beg to move amendment No. 134, in clause 4, page 2, line 41, at end insert—

‘(2A)In making an order under subsection (1), the Secretary of State shall have regard to the desirability of maintaining the discretion of Chief Officers to designate the powers of Community Support Officers to the extent that Chief Officers judge to be appropriate’.

We shall now consider proposals in the Bill that will standardise to some extent the powers of community support officers. The guillotine will fall at 5 o’clock, so we shall have a relatively short discussion on such matters, although it will be important. I am sure that we agree about the role of community support officers, especially in the delivery of neighbourhood policing. The purpose of the amendment is to write in the Bill a requirement on the Secretary of State. It would establish the principle that, when determining the standard set of powers for all community support officers and the powers that are to be reserved for the discretion of the chief constable, the Home Secretary should not be prevented from standardising powers, but should always have regard to the general desirability that the matters should be left when possible to the discretion of the chief constable.

The powers are not listed in the Bill. They have been proposed. We only know the particular standardisation of powers as a result of reading the ministerial consultation document. It will be a matter for further discussion how exactly the division is to fall between regularised or standard powers throughout all forces and those that chief constables should decide. My first observation about the list that has been produced is that the cut-off point seems relatively arbitrary. Either there is a strong case to be made that chief constables should have the ability to determine the powers of community support officers or a respectable and debateable case for saying that the powers should be standardised throughout all police forces and that there is too much of an opportunity for confusion if different community support officers have different amounts of powers.

Police and Justice Bill - Standing Committee D

Clause 4 - Standard powers and duties of community support officers

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I was speaking before we broke about the proposal to allow the standardisation of the powers of community support officers. I was raising the question of the extent to which it is sensible to divide powers in the way proposed not in the Bill but in the consultation document. The clause will simply allow Ministers to standardise powers by order.

There is general agreement, as there was in the Home Office’s consultation exercise, that some standardisation of powers is desirable. Only 12 per cent. of respondents disagreed with that proposition. However, a range of bodies have expressed concern about whether too much standardisation is being proposed. That is what I wish to explore.

The regulatory impact assessment published by the Home Office concedes that it is intended that the vast majority of CSO powers, including the power to detain, will be made standard, leaving only a small number to be designated at the discretion of chief constables. It is that balance that has raised concerns in some quarters. The Association of Police Authorities has said that giving additional automatic powers to community support officers, particularly the power of detention, is likely to lead to their being taken off the streets and spending more time behind desks completing paperwork; and that the decision about whether or not to vest additional powers in community support officers should be a local one consistent with local policing style and strategy and not imposed from above.

The APA pointed out that its consultation with police authorities found that they supported only a minimum standard set of powers and maximum local flexibility. That view is supported by the Association of Chief Police Officers, which said:

“The standardisation of powers for PCSOs will bring some clarity to the public as to what PCSOs are for. However, we need to guard against them being given powers that lead to abstraction from their major role in providing high visibility contact with the

Against that, it is fair to say that the Police Federation, which was always sceptical about the introduction of community support officers, was not in favour of giving chief officers more discretion over the exercise of their powers. However, the APA and ACPO are, and the Home Affairs Committee also said that any extension of the powers of CSOs that reduced their street presence would be counter-productive. Of course it would be.

The question is whether the balance that the Minister is proposing is sensible. I have difficulty in understanding why it is proposed to standardise some powers, yet others that seem remarkably similar are to be left to the discretion of chief officers. For instance, the power to detain beggars who have refused to stop committing vagrancy offences will be standardised, but the power to use reasonable force to detain a person making off will be discretionary. Both of those powers would require the exercise of force, and I cannot understand why one should be a definite power that all CSOs will have and the other be subject to the exercise of discretion by chief constables. The Minister says that the Bill is not about centralising policing. The right principle, consistent with that, would be to give chief police officers the maximum possible discretion in this matter.

James Brokenshire (Conservative, Hornchurch)

My hon. Friend has set out interesting examples, but in many ways the issue is that we just do not know what will be standard and what will not. What we are discussing will be dealt with through order-making powers. Does he agree that it would be helpful to have some clarification of the direction of travel and confirmation of where the Government are coming from, so that we can better understand the role of police community support officers and where they fit in the overall police family? That is unclear from the Bill.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. We seek clarification from the Minister from the standpoint that there is general support among Opposition Members for PCSOs. As I said in a debate earlier this year on the police grant, PCSOs have proved useful in reassuring the public and so on. However, there are studies, including the Home Office’s recent study, that suggest that more empirical evidence is needed to judge the effectiveness of PCSOs. One study found that it was not possible to show that they had played any role in reducing antisocial behaviour. Nevertheless, the public surveys are clear that an additional uniformed presence on the streets is valued.

The question is what the right balance is in maintaining PCSOs in a support role for the police and therefore not giving them so many powers that they almost become fully warranted officers themselves, but ensuring that they are sufficiently able to deal with the problems of antisocial behaviour in particular, for which they were deployed. It is difficult in a Committee such as this to reach a judgment on precisely which powers should be exercised by a PCSO. I would much rather that those decisions, within a framework that we set out, were taken, as far as possible, by chief police officers.

My amendment proposes that the Secretary of State, in exercising the power that he will be given by the Bill to designate standard powers for community support officers, should have regard to the desirability of leaving the discretion for chief police officers. That does not mean that the Secretary of State would be unable to designate standard powers for any of the offences proposed. It simply means that the balance should be shifted more towards discretion for chief officers, which ACPO and the APA want.

There is a question about the extent to which PCSOs should be able to use force at all. It is interesting that the range of offences for which PCSOs are used varies substantially among police forces. It differs from none at all in some cases to more than 40 in others. I wonder whether the Committee should test the proposition that the variation in PCSO powers confuses the public. After all, members of the public generally live in one place. Is it strictly necessary to standardise most powers, taking that discretion away from chief officers, simply to address the supposition that the public do not know what powers PCSOs have? I wonder whether the local variation matters as much as the Home Office’s consultation document suggests.

I hope that the Minister responds to my amendment in the spirit in which I tabled it. I did not want to undermine the process of standardisation that the Government propose, but to suggest that the balance should be shifted more in favour of chief officers, although in a non-prescriptive way—in a way that still allows the Government the discretion as to which powers will be exercised by all PCSOs.

James Brokenshire (Conservative, Hornchurch)

I support the points that my hon. Friend has made from the Front Bench about the need for flexibility. We have said all along that the debate is about localism and ensuring that decision-making processes are as close to the ground as possible. This is an opportunity for us to clarify the role and position that PCSOs have in the wider police family.

In my intervention, I alluded to the fact that there was a degree of uncertainty about where the order-making power would lead, although the explanatory notes list the proposed set of powers and discretionary powers. Clearly, things are not currently set in stone and are subject to change. We need to see what the final order looks like.

There is an issue about the need to maintain a balance between a fixed list, which sets certain criteria, and responding to the concern that PCSOs are used as effectively as possible in the communities that they serve. My constituency experience tells me that PCSOs are most commonly the ones who are walking the beat and are the visible sign of policing. If people have issues to raise, they can speak to PCSOs because they are visible and people know who they are. They are used as a way of feeding intelligence back to the police about issues that are taking place in the wider community.

I would be concerned if as a result of fixing a standard set of powers, that role was in some way diminished or changed. For example, safer neighbourhood teams use voluntary support: people who give up their time to support the police with a lot of the clerical duties and the behind-the-scenes work. That is an interesting development. It is good that people want to give to the community by serving the safer neighbourhood teams and dealing with some of the clerical work and the paperwork.

If the role of the PCSO was more prescribed in terms of some of the back-up work, that could lead to less time being spent out on the street, which is where we would like them to be as much as possible. We want them to work with their constable colleagues to ensure that the public are given as much reassurance as possible. We do not want the changes to create even more blurring of the role of PCSOs and that of fully fledged police constables. A distinction must be drawn. PCSOs are not policemen or policewomen on the cheap, as might be suggested. They have a distinct and more community-orientated role in feeding back intelligence; they have the relationship with their police officer colleagues to ensure that communities are better and safer places.

It is important to have clarity about the roles of PCSOs and police officers, so that the public understand how they sit together. There is a concern that people who wish to engage in antisocial behaviour understand the limitation of PCSOs and will therefore exploit the loopholes and that weakness. Therefore, there must always be a strong linkage between the PCSOs and police officers, so that we are not seen to be relying on PCSOs. We must have proper fully trained and fully fledged police officers, given that the training of PCSOs provides much more limited experience. After just a few short weeks, somebody joining as a PCSO is put out on to the streets. They are deployed quickly. That must be balanced with the need to ensure that those PCSOs are not put at risk and that they are not pushed beyond the training and support that they need to do an effective job. Also, their personal safety must not be compromised.

I welcome the opportunity to clarify the duties, roles and responsibilities of PCSOs. However, I support the amendment that my hon. Friend has tabled. It will ensure that PCSOs are kept as close as possible to the neighbourhoods that they serve. If there is a balance to be struck, it should be on that issue rather than on fixed or rigid rules that would apply to PCSOs and their duties and responsibilities.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

I am in two minds about community support officers. A friend of mine, a serving police officer, tells me that they are just policing on the cheap. He resents, although I hope the Minister will correct me if this is wrong, the fact that when someone becoming a PCSO starts on a higher salary than a new police officer. My friend maintains that another difference is that police officers have much longer training than PCSOs and argues that in certain circumstances—here I refer to the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch on the safety of PCSOs—they would not be able to look after themselves.

That is the bad side of the PCSO initiative. The good side, I guess, is that it is better to see someone on the streets to give reassurance than no one at all. On the other hand, that rather raises the question of whether, if we can afford it, we should not have police officers rather than PCSOs.

I support amendment No. 134 because I believe in localism, about which my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs has spoken. It should be for individual chief constables to decide precisely what the role of the PCSO should be. This morning, we had an interesting debate on urban versus rural areas, and I learned from the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Flello) that Longton police station is the busiest in England.

Rob Flello (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

What I actually said was that according to the inspector to whom I spoke, it is the busiest station in Staffordshire.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

That is not quite the same. Nevertheless, it sounds like the sort of place I shouldn’t visit on a Friday or a Saturday night, and perhaps not the sort of place I should visit on a Friday or Saturday morning either.

Rob Flello (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

I went out with police officers from the Longton station on a Friday night, and most illuminating it was.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

Obviously, I would not make personal remarks about the hon. Gentleman, but perhaps his shape intimidated—[Interruption.] I will rephrase that: perhaps his fine stature intimidated any miscreants. The point is whether, although a PCSO might well be appropriate for patrolling the leafy lanes of Lichfield on a Tuesday morning, the hon. Member thinks that that same PCSO would necessarily have the skills to do the sort of policing that might be required on a Friday or Saturday night?

Rob Flello (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

From my conversations with the inspector at Longton, I believe that PCSOs are regarded as a very important and integral part of the team. They are deployed as part of a team approach, which works extremely well. All the police officers in the Longton area regard the PCSOs as vital to the team. The hon. Member referred to where and when PCSOs are deployed. That is an operational issue that, quite rightly, is handled carefully and properly by the inspectors concerned.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

That is a helpful response. I imagine that a similar assessment is made with female police officers. I speak with a little knowledge of the issue, because my personal assistant in Norman Shaw North is a former Metropolitan police officer. She told me that after the fourth time she had a knife put to her throat, she decided it was marginally safer to work for me in the House of Commons.

The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South made an important point when he said that it should be up to individual police officers to determine where and how PCSOs should work, just as such decisions are made in respect of female police officers, not only for the safety of those officers, but to ensure that our streets are policed safely. That brings me back, logically, to amendment No. 134, because such decisions have to be made by senior officers, perhaps including the chief officer, of a constabulary. I put it to the Minister in no uncertain terms—she looks startled, but that is how I wish to make the point—that policing in rural Staffordshire, notwithstanding what happens in the rougher parts of Stoke-on-Trent, South, is very different from that in leafy inner Birmingham.

Mark Pritchard (Conservative, The Wrekin)

I would like to put it on the record that I had a very attractive girlfriend from Longton; many good things have come out of that part of the world.

On the discretion of senior police officers, does my hon. Friend agree that they should have the discretion to appoint special constables who, unlike PCSOs, have a warrant and the power of arrest?

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I hope that the Minister will address the issue, because I do not understand why we do not do more to encourage the recruitment of special police constables. As my hon. Friend said, they have full powers of arrest, rather than the temporary detention powers of PCSOs. Special constables might feel that they are not paid enough. Perhaps they could be paid more, at an interim level—less than the pay of a full police officer—to encourage them to play an important role. I know that late on a Friday or Saturday night in Lichfield, where we have lots of good pubs, clubs and restaurants, things can get a little hectic. If it were not for the good work of special constables, the regular police might be overwhelmed.

Mark Pritchard (Conservative, The Wrekin)

The Conservative party is considering its policy on a lot of matters at the moment, and I am aware that our previous leader, my right hon. and learned Friend, the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), suggested an annual bounty for specials. What does my hon. Friend think, and what has the Minister to say, about a bounty similar to that offered to territorial army soldiers?

Greg Pope (Labour, Hyndburn)

Before Mr. Fabricant deals with that, might I suggest that we are straying to special constables, while the debate is about PCSOs?

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

That is absolutely right, Mr. Pope. All I was going to say was that I hope that, if it is in order, the Minister will address the important point raised by my hon. Friend. Senior police officers have to work with a mixture of male and female police officers, male and female special constables and male and female PCSOs. How they combine all those different law enforcers should be left to them, as stated in amendment No. 134. Without that amendment, the Bill will not allow for that degree of flexibility.

The Minister for Policing, Security and Community Safety (Hazel Blears) indicated dissent.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

The Minister shakes her head, and I hope that she will explain why. However, at the moment there does not appear to be that degree of flexibility in the Bill.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

I give the amendment cautious support, although the hon. Gentleman’s friends may have done terminal damage to the attempts of the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) to project a new model Conservative party. Perhaps he will recommend a gender awareness course to them soon.

The clause adds a degree of flexibility to the role of PCSOs, which seems an admirable thing given that it is local flexibility for a chief constable who will know the local circumstances. However, it is worth reiterating that PCSOs should not be seen as policing on the cheap. That is the exact phrase that ACPO used in 2002. It said that although they had

“rapidly established a unique role for themselves within the police service,”

they were

“best seen as a complement to, not a replacement for, the role of sworn police officers.”

In ACPO’s view, only sworn police officers were appropriate in certain circumstances, such as where

“there is a clear likelihood that a confrontation will arise ... Where there is scope for exercise of a high degree of discretion—for example, where a situation is complex owing to a number of different parties involved ... Where police action is likely to lead to a higher than normal risk of harm ... Where there is a clear likelihood that police action will include any infringement of a person’s human rights ... Where the incident is one which is likely to lead to significant further work”.

Therefore, there are clear boundaries to the role of PCSOs.

Nevertheless, I generally welcome the role they play, and I certainly do so in my constituency. They are a valuable contributor to a visible policing presence on the streets of Cheltenham and elsewhere. An occasional uniformed presence, especially on foot or on a bicycle, deters antisocial behaviour or low-level crime from occurring in the first place.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

I accept what the hon. Gentleman says, but does he not agree that, all things being equal, people would rather see a police officer than a PCSO?

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

The underlying philosophy of the amendment is that there should be local flexibility. If resources being limited allows for more PCSOs on the streets, and therefore a greater visible presence, that might sometimes be preferable to spending the same resource on police officers. However, it should be a matter for local flexibility. PCSOs provide a valuable function, so long as they always have the right to call in uniformed officers when things may get out of hand. In a neighbourhood area that covers more or less the whole of the south of Cheltenham, we are likely on an average night to have only two full police officers on duty for the evening, and they will be in a car, so there is a perception that policing has disappeared from the streets.

Douglas Carswell (Conservative, Harwich)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if the Minister does not accept the amendment, it will be a further example of her talking the language of localism—paying lip service to it—but not actually delivering? What we have here is an example of achievable localism, where we can have local solutions to local problems. If the amendment is agreed to, it will provide an example of real localism in action.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

I think I would go so far as to agree with my hon. Friend—or the hon. Gentleman rather, since we must not push the friendship too far.

I was summing up by saying that I disagree with some of the reservations about PCSOs and that they can play a valuable role in policing, especially when resources are so stretched that in some parts of the country—certainly in my constituency—the perception is that the police have disappeared from the streets altogether, and people feel—[Interruption.] The Minister may say “pah”, but the fact is that that inspector neighbourhood area which covers the entire southern half of my constituency has only two police officers in a vehicle on duty on an average evening, and people therefore clearly perceive that police officers are simply not about at the times of day when antisocial behaviour is likely to occur. That is precisely why PCSOs can provide a useful complement to police officers, and it is why I am happy to support the amendment.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I am delighted that there is cross-party consensus that police community support officers are a valuable addition to our police service. I stress the word “addition” because the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) has talked about there being hardly any police about. There have been an extra 14,000 police officers since this Government came to power, and 6,000 extra community support officers.

Andrew Gwynne (Labour, Denton and Reddish)

My right hon. Friend refers to apparent consensus in the Committee. Is she aware that despite the fact that Chief Superintendent Neil Wain, the basic command unit commander for Stockport division, has said that he is absolutely delighted he will get new PCSOs, which will enable the neighbourhood policing model to be developed in advance of the Bill, Stockport council is putting out irresponsible scare stories that Stockport is under-resourced? Chief Superintendent Wain’s words to me on Friday made it quite clear that Stockport police are not under-resourced. What does my right hon. Friend have to say about that?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

Greater Manchester police, along with every other police service in the country, have received an increase in resources. The police service as a whole has had a 50 per cent. increase in investment in the past few years. I am sure that my hon. Friend’s superintendent is doing a fine job in ensuring that he gets best value out of that increased investment.

There has been extensive consultation about the standard set of powers that has been proposed, and which is outlined in the explanatory notes. Some 70 per cent. of respondents to the consultation supported the idea of a standard set of powers. There was clearly some difference about the extent of that set.

The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) said that he thinks the cut-off point is rather arbitrary. The powers have been carefully thought out. I personally spent a lot of time looking at the different schedules, which are designed entirely to reflect the role of the community support officer on the street, tackling low-level antisocial behaviour rather than being drawn off to deal with confrontational situations that might lead to the officer having to give evidence in court. That is not where we want them to be. We want them to be out on the streets, maximising patrol time and building a relationship with local people, schools and shopkeepers, and ensuring that they can make a significant impact. The powers mainly concern environmental issues and antisocial behaviour, such as confiscating alcohol from underage drinkers—the things that the public want CSOs to do.

It is vitally important that there is no confusion among the public. At the moment, CSO powers can vary from place to place and the public are not clear about what they can and cannot do. The fact that CSOs will have a standard set of powers does not mean that they will have to exercise all of them all the time. It will still be open to chief officers, BCU commanders and neighbourhood police team leaders to task and deploy their resources in a flexible, local way. The measure in no way seeks to dictate how they use those powers, but it is important that they have a menu of powers at their disposal to enable them to tackle the issues that the public think important. If CSOs do not have sufficient powers, people will often seek to undermine their activities. It is important that they have those powers, particularly when they are dealing with groups of people who can be fairly rowdy, and sometimes threatening and intimidating.

The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs raised the apparent inconsistency, to him, between a power to detain beggars and no power to use force to detain others. In fact, that is perfectly consistent. CSOs will not have the power to use force to detain as a standard power, but they will have the power to detain, to seek name and address and to detain somebody for 30 minutes pending the arrival of a constable if it proves necessary. The same power applies to beggars as to anyone else, so there is no inconsistency.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

Will the Minister give way?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I just want to make a bit of progress. I want to put some points on the record, and we will probably be short of time.

The amendment duplicates, to some extent, provisions already in the Bill, which provides that in seeking to make an order around a standard set of powers there has to be consultation with the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Police Authorities. It is not a matter of our simply coming to a conclusion. There has to be proper consultation, and that is exactly what has happened. In some cases, the Police Federation wanted wider designation than other parties. Clearly, people will take different views. Unison, the trade union that represents the majority of CSOs, wanted a wide range of standard powers at its members’ disposal to help them to do the job properly.

The hon. Member for Hornchurch wanted some reassurance about the direction of travel. I hope that I have given him that. The powers allow CSOs to deal with low-level antisocial behaviour, to have maximum time out on patrol, not to be taken off the street to do administrative or managerial tasks, and to play the role that they are there to play. Clarity of that role is important, and police constables and sergeants in the neighbourhood policing teams will co-ordinate, manage, task and deploy the team, look at the national intelligence model and consider problem-solving and operations. CSOs will help in carrying out that task, but it will be much better done together.

The hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) asked whether this is policing on the cheap. Clearly, that is not the case. It is policing done in the way in which the public want it done, with the right people with the right skills in the right place at the right time, and hopefully, with the right attitudes. That is the essence of neighbourhood policing.

The Bill contains a commitment to the adequate training of police community support officers. That is very important. They were experimental when first introduced, but now they will be a mainstream part of our work force. That means that when there are 24,000 of them, they will need to be properly trained, and we are working on national standards for that.

The hon. Members for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) and for The Wrekin raised the issue of special constables. I am pleased to be able to say that for the first time in a long time we have managed to reverse the decline in special constable numbers. This year, the figures are going up. There has been a 14 per cent. increase in the 18 months from 31 March 2004 to 30 September 2005, and we now have more than 12,500 special constables. A further 4,000 applications are being processed. In a large part, that is due to the excellent television recruitment adverts that we put out last year, which have drawn an awful lot of interest in the special constabulary from people who traditionally might not have got involved.

Mark Pritchard (Conservative, The Wrekin)

Is the Minister aware that West Mercia unfortunately is not experiencing that national trend of increasing numbers of special constable but has in fact seen a cut of more than 50 per cent. since 1997? If she is not aware of that, will she undertake to drop a note to Mr. West, the chief constable, and encourage him to follow the national trend?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I am sure that the chief constable is doing what he can to encourage special constables, but I will have a look at that situation. It may well be that in recent times, he too has been the beneficiary of the new recruitment campaign.

There are a series of schemes whereby special constables can be paid—I think five schemes are currently operating—but people have different views on that issue. In fact, many special constables do not necessarily want to be paid because they see it as a voluntary job. However, in the areas in which they get an allowance, it is useful.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

I did not understand something that the Minister said earlier. She said that PCSOs could not use force—perhaps I have got it wrong—but that they can detain people for up to half an hour and get their details, while they wait for police officers arrive. If the miscreant or the person that they are trying to detain does not want to be detained, how can they be detained without the use of force?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I think that the hon. Gentleman has not quite understood the powers, which are to detain and to seek a person’s name and address. If a person decides that they are not going to remain in that place, they can walk away but will be guilty of an offence. PCSOs do not have the standard power to use reasonable force to detain, but they do have the power to detain and to get a name and address. They have the power to use reasonable force only when exercising a power for which, were a police constable exercising it, reasonable force would have been needed. So the use of reasonable force is a very limited power.

Hon. Members are looking puzzled. I say to them that if they had to study the provisions as closely as I have had to, they would understand the fine nuances and interpretations of those provisions. I am always trying to enlighten certain Opposition Members about the intricacies of the powers. That is the position, and if somebody chooses to walk away before the police constable arrives on the scene, they will be guilty of an offence.

Mark Pritchard (Conservative, The Wrekin)

I am happy to reciprocate in this period of enlightenment. If a PCSO is known to have made an arrest, given that they do not have the power of arrest, does that mean that any such arrest would have been unlawful, or could it be that the PCSO has made a civil arrest? I ask because I am aware that Arriva Trains has just appointed PCSOs who apparently have the power of arrest—that is in Wales and Shropshire.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I am sure that hon. Gentleman has information that I may not have, but I am not aware of any PCSOs with the power of arrest. They are not police officers and should therefore exercise the powers with which they are designated under legislation. They cannot exercise powers that are not designated to them. He may give me more information about that case if he wants to.

The standard set of powers proposed, which is aimed at low-level antisocial behaviour, is perfectly appropriate to the role of PCSOs. I commend the schedule in the explanatory notes to hon. Members. The amendment is unnecessary and I ask the Committee to resist it.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I confess to being slightly bemused by all this. The Minister has obviously had a little more time to study it in detail.

Despite the fact that a majority of respondents to the consultation exercise agreed that power should be standardised, there was minimal support in some responses for standardisations that have nevertheless found their way into the proposal. Only 35 per cent. of respondents were in favour of granting CSOs a standardised power to issue fixed penalty notices to deal with dog fouling, but that power has found its way into the proposed powers. Similarly, only 41 per cent. of respondents supported giving CSOs the standardised power to require a name and address in relation to antisocial behaviour, but that power has also found its way into the proposals. I am concerned that the views of consultees such as ACPO and APA, which want to see more discretion in these matters, are not being taken into account.

The Minister relied on the explanation that chief officers will still have operational independence, in that they will be able to tell PCSOs whether to use powers, but I am not sure that that is a very good principle. Chief police officers seek the power to decide exactly what powers should be available to their forces, but I am not sure that it is a good principle for Ministers to set standard powers through Parliament and then say that it is all right for chief constables not to use them if they do not want them. To what extent will chief constables be open to attack, or even judicial review, if they suggest that CSOs should not use powers that they have been given by order? I am not sure that that is a sensible balance.

James Brokenshire (Conservative, Hornchurch)

What are my hon. Friend’s thoughts on the fact that PCSOs have the power under terrorism legislation to stop and search vehicles and pedestrians when in the company of an appropriate officer? That raises some issues that I highlighted earlier about safety and training. Someone might be under the supervision of an officer, but in terrorism situations and with the heightened threat that we all face, PCSOs might become more actively involved in the campaign against terrorism.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend; I was not aware of that. We should keep under review the exercise of warranted officers’ powers under the terrorism legislation.

I return to the point that I made to the Minister earlier, to which she did not respond, that in spite of the fact that I have been clear about Conservative support—albeit with some reservations—for the deployment of CSOs, a Home Office study found no discernible differences in trends in the numbers of crimes and incidents between areas with and without CSOs before and after their introduction. That is rather a damning finding.

When PCSO powers are standardised, it will be necessary to keep under close review the question whether the right balance is being achieved between, on the one hand, maintaining community support officers as a branch of the police family that is on the streets and not tied up in police stations and, on the other, establishing by means of empirical evidence the extent of their effectiveness in the job, and whether and to what extent their powers are lacking, as opposed to merely obtaining survey evidence that they are generally popular.

It probably makes sense, subject to proper parliamentary scrutiny, to allow Ministers to make those judgments about the right balance of powers, but I am disappointed that the Minister felt that it was not necessary at least to include in the Bill the requirement to have regard to the need to give chief constables discretion. That is a further small piece of evidence in support of the view that the Bill tends to accrue power to the Home Secretary.

The Minister is tending to resist proposals that would devolve the power in some way, or make it clear that decisions and discretion should still rest either with police authorities or the chief constables. That tendency was evident this morning and is evident in a small way in the provision that we are discussing. Nevertheless, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

I beg to move amendment No. 6, in clause 4, page 3, line 18, at end insert—

‘(7)The standard powers and duties of community support officers shall not include the power to use reasonable force to detain or control a person, under Paragraph 4 of Part 1 of Schedule 4 of the Police Reform Act 2002 (c. 30).’.

I fear that we may tread on some similar ground, in discussing my amendment, to the ground that we covered in considering the previous one, as the confusion surrounding the clause continues. The amendment is a probing amendment, intended to discover the nature and extent of the powers that the Secretary of State might want to introduce under the clause. It is rather strange that, as the Minister has already begun to explain to us in some detail, extremely detailed powers are included in schedule 4 to the Police Reform Act 2002, explaining exactly the powers that PCSOs can exercise: issuing, in effect, fixed penalty notices; detaining, for up to 30 minutes, suspects who fail to give details; and using reasonable force to detain people in those circumstances—I think. The Minister may well correct me.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

There is a matter on which I am genuinely unclear. We have heard from the Minister that force cannot be used to detain someone, but a person who then walks away in that situation has committed an offence; I understand that. However, if the person also says, “I am not going to give you my name and address,” and then walks off—

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

They can take a picture.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

The Minister says, correctly, that a picture could be taken to identify them. That is assuming that there is CCTV available. It all seems a bit wet to me.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for explaining yet again the extent of the confusion about the powers. I must admit that I was under the impression, from the research that we did, that PCSOs could use reasonable force in some circumstances. Perhaps the Minister will correct me when she comments. At the very least, an extremely long and detailed list of the powers that PCSOs can use is given in the Police Reform Act 2002, which seems appropriate in a measure that comes before the House. Therefore, it is curious that when the opportunity is presented by clause 4 of the Bill, no such powers are forthcoming. Nothing in clause 4 gives details of any possible new powers for PCSOs. Subsection (2) includes a proposed new section 38A of the 2002 Act, but that includes no details of added powers.

Explanatory notes are sometimes helpful, but in this case, bizarrely, they state:

“Only a power that is set out in Schedule 4 to that Act”—

the 2002 Act—

“as being exercisable by CSOs can be conferred as a standard power.”

That seems completely tautological to me; I think it really means that the only powers that the Secretary of State can confer are the powers that the Secretary of State is given the power to confer.

The purpose of this probing amendment is to draw out from the Minister what powers might be conferred in addition to those in the 2002 Act. We have picked the example of detention, which is perhaps one of the more contentious. Would she care to go beyond the limits suggested by ACPO when the 2002 Act was passed? It advised not using PCSOs in circumstances where

“there is a clear likelihood that police action will include any infringement of a person’s human rights—for example intruding into their privacy or deprivation of their liberty (beyond the temporary detention period available to PCSOs)”.

That sphere of action would extend their powers beyond what everybody imagined when PCSOs were first established. Indeed, it might extend them beyond what PCSOs were capable of doing, given their training. That begins to blur the line between PCSOs and full officers. In due course, we would no doubt find out what the additional or varied powers were by laying an affirmative resolution before Parliament. Indeed, the Bill provides for that, but why leave things to an affirmative resolution, which we could only oppose or support? Why not put things in the Bill, as we did in the 2002 Act? Would the Minister care to enlighten us?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I will do my best to enlighten the Committee. Let me explain the structure of the legislation. The schedule to the 2002 Act outlines a set of powers for community support officers. The Bill does not introduce new powers—other than the truancy power—but decides which of the powers in the schedule should be standard powers for CSOs and which should still be designated only at the chief officer’s discretion. The explanatory notes set out in pretty clear detail which powers we propose should be contained in the standard set and which should still be designated only at the chief officer’s discretion.

There are two tables in annexe A to the explanatory notes. One is entitled, “Powers intended to be included in the first set of standard powers for community support officers” and includes alcohol and tobacco powers, powers to tackle antisocial behaviour, enforcement powers and security powers. The other is entitled, “Powers that can be given to CSOs but which are not intended to be included in the first set of standard powers”. That second set remains to be designated at the chief officer’s discretion. We therefore have two sets of powers, but none of those powers are new—they are all in the Act. One set will be designated as standard powers, which all CSOs in all forces will be able to exercise, and the other set will be designated at the chief officer’s discretion.

The first set includes the power to detain for 30 minutes, but the power to use reasonable force to detain is in the second set of powers, which are to be designated at the chief officer’s discretion, so we are maintaining the distinction between powers that do not involve confrontation and powers that might. I am concerned to ensure that we do not necessarily put CSOs in positions of confrontation, which might mean that they get taken off for lengthy training, as hon. Members have said. That, then, is the structure of the legislation.

The hon. Gentleman might not be aware that section 38(8) of the Act gives CSOs the power to use reasonable force when exercising a power if a police constable would have the right to use reasonable force when exercising the same power. To give two examples, a CSO might use reasonable force when exercising their power to enter premises for the purposes of saving life or limb or their power to photograph somebody. Therefore, if a police constable has the power to use reasonable force when doing something, a CSO doing the same thing by virtue of the powers designated in schedule 4 would also have the power to use reasonable force. I hope that that is clear to hon. Members. If not, we can probably provide a master-class in the designation of CSO powers. That might be helpful at some point.

The amendment is not needed. We have the affirmative resolution and can look at the issue. It is appropriate that we have had a lengthy consultation period, and we have had a whole series of responses. That is the appropriate way for us to proceed. Having had that explanation, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will agree that the amendment is not necessary and withdraw it.

Martin Horwood (Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham)

I am grateful to the Minister for her impressive exposition on the detail of schedule 4 to the 2002 Act and the contingent contents of the Bill. I feel the haze lifting slightly and I look forward to the day when some villain who has not properly analysed schedule 4 fails to walk away from a PCSO, under the mistaken impression that they have the power to detain him. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 5 - Community support officers: power to deal with truants

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I want to raise an issue relating to the proposed additional power for community support officers to deal with truants. The Police Federation says that truancy is a serious problem which can be very time-consuming for fully sworn officers, and expressed the view that this is a sensible measure that should allow police officers to spend more time fighting crimes that require more skills, training and experience. It is also consistent with the type of powers that CSOs were originally envisaged to hold.

However, organisations such as the Howard League for Penal Reform have expressed concern about giving CSOs, who may be untrained, the power to deal with truants. A document from the Howard League points out that child truants are often very vulnerable and challenging, and awarding CSOs the power to remove them could put children and officers at risk. It states that child truants should be dealt with by people who are “expert and trained”. That is a perfectly fair observation on the need to ensure that CSOs are properly trained to deal with truants. The Minister said that clause 4 puts a training provision into primary legislation for the first time, which we welcome. Is that also the case in relation to clause 5 and the additional powers that CSOs will have to deal with truants? If not it is an omission, because training in the exercise of the power to deal with young offenders—albeit that it is something that we welcome CSOs being able to do—would be an important counterbalance to the extension of that power.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I can certainly give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that he wants: CSOs who have this power will have to receive proper and adequate training to deal with young people. The power of CSOs to do truancy sweeps will be universally welcomed as they often know the young people in their area and it will free up police officers’ time. It is also important in tackling antisocial behaviour. As we know, young people who are out of school hanging around the shopping centre or on estates during the daytime can easily be drawn into antisocial behaviour and even more serious activities, so the power will be very welcome indeed. However, as the hon. Gentleman said, it is important that CSOs should be adequately trained to exercise the power, and I give him that assurance.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

Will the training that the Minister promised be provided under the statutory provision in the Bill? In other words, will chief officers have a duty to provide the training under clause 4(6) or will it be a discretionary matter? Was the Minister just expressing a desire that there should be training?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I can inform the hon. Gentleman that clause 4(6) relates to additional powers that are designated, so it does not apply to this power. It is section 38(4) of the 2002 Act that provides that there should be adequate training.

Schedule 4 - Police bail

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I beg to move amendment No. 135, in schedule 4, page 75, line 10, after first ‘a’, insert ‘senior’.

Greg Pope (Labour, Hyndburn)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 136, in schedule 4, page 75, line 25, at end insert—

‘(4A)In this section “senior constable” means a constable designated as a senior constable by the Chief Officer of the force.’

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

We now come to the part of the Bill that extends the concept of street bail, which was introduced in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. I have considerable concerns, which I expressed briefly on Second Reading, about the provisions and how they will operate. I have therefore tabled amendments, which I believe will be complementary to those that the Liberal Democrats have tabled, to suggest some moderation in the operation of those provisions.

What I have to say is not to be taken as a challenge to the concept of street bail, which I recognise as valuable. Where police officers arrest a suspect but for some reason find it difficult to fulfil their statutory obligation to take them straight to a police station, street bail allows them to impose the condition that they report to a police station at a later stage. We know from a report published in 2001 by the PA Consulting Group that the average time taken to process an arrest is three and a half hours. Given the potential difficulties for police officers, particularly early on in their shifts or when they have to deal with a large number of offenders, it makes sense for them to have the discretion to require people to report to a police station at a later stage.

However, the Bill goes considerably further by enabling police officers to attach a wider range of conditions to street bail than simply having to report to a police station. Those conditions include not committing an offence, not interfering with witnesses and not obstructing the course of justice. There is also a condition to protect the person themselves. Although those measures sound perfectly reasonable, the problem is that, in effect, custodial conditions are potentially to be imposed by police officers without the supervision of the courts. The provisions represent a significant shift away from a system in which the courts properly exercise such functions to one in which individual police officers do so. They are potentially the extension of a form of summary justice.

Such conditions could be imposed for lengthy periods of time, despite the fact that the offender had not been charged with any crime. I cannot see any measure in the schedule that will put time limits on those conditions. The conditions could include curfews, tagging and restrictions on whom a person can meet and speak to, so they are potentially onerous penal conditions. The role of the independent custody sergeant, as a semi-independent arbiter of bail conditions—a role that is important in the current process of granting bail at police stations—is effectively eliminated in such cases. The provision has given rise to worry outside the House not least on the part of Liberty, which said:

“It is unreasonable to impose conditions on a person’s freedom, by means of bail conditions, before there is even considered to be sufficient evidence to prosecute in respect of offences they may never be charged with and before the person knows the nature of the case against them.”

We shall come shortly to amendments that will deal with that worry by bringing the provisions of the extension of street bail under the auspices of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, so I shall not discuss them now. That would be one way in which to deal with the extension of power. My amendments are not mutually exclusive; they have the same objective. They propose an additional way in which to moderate the use of the sweeping additional police power. Under amendment No. 135, the power to confer street bail and set the conditions should be exercisable only by a “senior” constable. Amendment No. 136 defines a senior constable who is designated as such

“by the Chief Officer of the force.”

In part, the amendment is probing, because I am not sure of the extent to which the office of senior constable may or may not exist under current legislation. I do not believe that it does, but we are moving to a criminal justice system where, increasingly, such discretion will be given to police officers. We are moving to a remarkable extension of summary justice through the Bill and through other measures that form part of the Government’s respect agenda. We must bear in mind the Prime Minister’s proposal to bypass the court system and to speed up the process of justice. All such matters give rise to serious issues about whether such discretion should be exercised by relatively inexperienced police officers.

When punitive conditions can be set by police officers, not only do they need to be subject to proper constitutional checks and safeguards, but those powers should be exercised under supervision and by police officers with more experience than a recent trainee graduate. That view is shared broadly by others. The Criminal Justice Act 2003 introduced the concept of street bail. In 2002, the Home Affairs Select Committee said:

“We believe that the custody sergeant is an officer with an appropriate level of experience for the responsibility of imposing bail conditions before charge because, unlike detention, conditional bail requires the consent of the prospective defendant.”

The Police Federation said that, while it welcomes the decision to extend street bail, police officers should still be subject to the scrutiny of a police sergeant, which is important to ensure integrity and proportionality. The body that represents police officers is expressing some worry about the extension of the discretionary power that will be given to police officers.

Other countries have the position of senior constable. For example, in the Australian federal police, the position requires six years’ service in community policing. In New Zealand, it requires 14 years’ service. The Tasmanian state police have grades of constables: for example, first-class constable first grade and first-class constable second grade. That sounds wonderfully old-fashioned in many respects. The concept that there should be constables in whom powers, which are not regarded as appropriate for use by all police officers, are vested is important.

I resisted the temptation in amendment No. 136 to designate a senior constable by reference to their length of service, because that is more a matter of judgment on the part of chief officers as to whether an individual has the maturity as well as the experience to fulfil that particular role. We can debate that. This Committee, or a future one considering a similar proposal might judge that a statutory term of experience is necessary. I am open to such a suggestion.

My alternative is in line with the principle that I have been trying to set out during our deliberations: where possible, chief officers should have discretion over these matters. I propose that chief officers could make the judgment. It is possible that relatively young officers or those who have spent relatively little time on the beat might nevertheless be of a calibre, and have sufficient maturity to be able to exercise the powers; it is not just a matter of experience. I hope that there will be work force reform that enables police officers to be recruited who are not necessarily at the young age of those who are currently being recruited.

I hope that the Minister will respond by addressing my substantive concern about the operation of these powers and by recognising that we do not seek to oppose wholesale their exercise. There is an important debate to be had about the extension of summary justice and the need to try to ensure that police officers have immediate powers to deal with things such as antisocial behaviour and exercise their role on the streets appropriately. If the police are to have these powers, it is important that they are balanced properly and that the public’s confidence in the system is maintained.

My view about this matter was reinforced when I met a constituent last week. He is a highly respectable senior businessman who encountered some youths in an unpleasant way in a local car park. Some disagreement resulted. The youths later claimed that he scratched their car when passing it, which he denies. As a consequence, the police officers visited him at his home. A relatively young police officer offered him the alternatives of admitting guilt and being given a fixed penalty notice or going to a police station some distance away and having to be dealt with there. He chose the fixed penalty notice route but felt that the police officer was not exercising his discretion in a particularly sensible way.

I am concerned that, if we give these sweeping additional powers to police officers who do not have the experience to exercise them—leaving aside the civil liberties implications of what they are doing—it will lead to an undermining of the relationship between the police and the communities that they serve. The fact that the Police Federation has expressed concern about the supervision of the powers should send a strong warning message about whether we are doing the right thing by extending street bail conditions in this way. I hope that these amendments and the concept of the introduction of a senior constable will be taken seriously by the Minister.

James Brokenshire (Conservative, Hornchurch)

I support the amendment. Creating the concept of a senior constable would be helpful in the context of their experience and knowledge as a police constable—my hon. Friend used the word “maturity”—reassuring the public that the powers would be used effectively and judiciously. That concept would also allow there to be separate training modules and the support that would come from that. The amendment is sufficiently widely drawn to allow for that flexibility, because it talks about a senior constable being designated by the chief officer of the force.

The chief officer could designate that relevant senior constables had to complete a period of training or to gain specific experience to ensure that they were able to use the additional powers sought under the Bill fairly and reasonably. I can envisage circumstances where people would rush into attaching quite onerous or stringent bail conditions. In some ways, that ability is hemmed in by restrictions under PACE, but again the question is—I suppose that this will be my phrase for the day—what the direction of travel is and where the measure is taking policing powers.

We are talking about summary justice, taking much of the administration of justice away from the courts and giving it directly to police officers. That places a heavy burden and responsibility on them. It must be paired with ensuring that there are sufficient checks and balances so that powers are not misused. I am not saying that that would in any way be the case but, in other countries, the powers are tilted more heavily towards the police and could be misused.

It is possible to make complaints about the way in which the police handle things, and it is right that we have a robust approach to investigating complaints where the police may have exceeded or not used their powers appropriately. That is key to ensuring that powers are not abused. If we are moving towards the police having a much greater ability to exercise powers directly, without direct judicial scrutiny or independent scrutiny of their actions, there needs to be a sufficiently robust challenging mechanism, whether it be through an investigation if complaints are made, or otherwise.

I have concerns about going down the road of summary justice. There must be checks and balances so that, if there is inappropriate use of powers and—dare I say it—corruption, those matters will be addressed properly, efficiently and effectively. Checks must be in place to ensure that such situations are picked up quickly and that the officers involved are dealt with quickly, and to provide assurance to the public.

I say that because giving police officers much stronger powers changes the nature of policing. I am referring to the trust that must exist in the police, given the manner in which policing is, and has always been, undertaken in this country. We have policing by consent. We must keep that at the forefront of our minds when straying down the road of summary justice and increasing police direct powers without oversight. We have to ensure that the public are willing always to trust the police to use their powers in the interest of justice, which is what this is all about.

Although I give a cautious welcome to the proposals, which I hope will make the operation of police bail more effective and efficient, it is important that there should be checks and balances. That is why I support the amendment, which seeks to ensure that there is adequate scrutiny, so that we can be sure that police constables who exercise the police bail powers do so properly, and have the experience, maturity and training to use the powers to the intended effect.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

Earlier, the Minister reassured the Committee that PCSOs dealing with truant children would have adequate training. The provision that amendment No. 135 seeks to amend also concerns young children. In paragraph 2 of schedule 4, new subsection (3B) states that where a constable—my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs argues that, if amendment No. 135 were to be adopted, it would be a senior constable—

“releases a person on bail under subsection (1) the constable may impose, as conditions of the bail, such requirements as appear to the constable—”

Presumably, that would again change to senior constable—

“to be necessary ... for the person’s own protection or, if the person is under the age of 17, for the person’s own welfare or in the person’s own interests.”

I guess we are not allowed to say child, but that is what we are talking about if the person is under 17.

The problem is that, because of the way in which the measure is drafted, it sounds as though that could be any constable. I suspect that the Minister will reassure me that it cannot, and that it must be a constable specially trained in dealing with young people under the age of 17—I hope that she will say that, anyway. However, it is not just that that concerns me. Under new subsection (3B)(a), (b) and (c), important judgments have to be made by the senior officer or, as the schedule is drafted, the constable. That constable will have to judge whether the person will

“interfere with witnesses or otherwise obstruct the course of justice, whether in relation to himself or any other person”,

will have

“to secure that the person surrenders to custody”,

and that he

“does not commit an offence while on bail”.

To do all that, he will have to be a veritable Judge Deed, yet we hear that he is to be an ordinary constable. My hon. Friend has shown considerable foresight in suggesting that it should be a senior constable. Amendment No. 136 gives power to the local chief officer to make the decision about what denotes a senior constable. What is a senior constable? Is it a sergeant, an ordinary constable who has 10 or 15 years’ experience, an ordinary constable who has had training in a particular area, or an officer of a particular rank?

Earlier, we argued that the Bill was too tightly drafted. In this instance, it has been too loosely drafted. It does not give a clear indication of the skills, qualities, training or seniority that a constable should have if he is to make those important decisions. I hope that the Minister will accept that they are important decisions—we are discussing the welfare of children under the age of 17. Also, when we discuss witness interference, we are talking about the integrity of the justice system. I hope that the Minister will reassure us that a constable will be appointed to that important role only if he or she has been clearly designated by the chief constable. If amendments Nos. 135 and 136 are rejected, what mechanisms will be in place to allow a chief constable to ensure that only trained and experienced police officers make the important decisions regarding who should be put on bail?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

Amendments Nos. 135 and 136 highlight some serious and significant issues. I do not pretend that these are not matters of public concern. They are certainly matters of concern to the police service. The provisions are part of a genuine attempt to ensure that the system works as quickly and effectively as it can. At the same time, we must retain the important emphasis on human rights and on the liberty of individuals.

This requirement, together with some of the other provisions in the Bill, put the focus on how we get the right balance between acknowledging the rights of people who are subject to inquiries about their behaviour, but have not been charged with offences, and protecting the community from the possibility of those people carrying out further offences or, indeed, interfering with witnesses while on bail. What conditions should those people be subjected to because of their behaviour? This is a serious debate about striking the right balance, ensuring that there are safeguards in place for those people who have genuine rights and, at the same time, protecting the community.

We must ensure also that the police do not become bogged down in bureaucracy. The police service must have a system that allows it to maximise the time that it can spend protecting the public on the front line. Sometimes, these issues cause an inevitable internal tension between establishing a rigorous system that protects people’s rights and creating unnecessary bureaucracy. Some bureaucracy is necessary because the police service has the power to interfere with people’s liberty. Time and again, I make the point that not all bureaucracy is bad. In this country, bureaucracy often sustains our democratic principles. However, I am keen to minimise bureaucracy where possible, and I respond to amendments Nos. 135 and 136 in that spirit.

The term “senior constable” is not defined in our law. It may apply in other jurisdictions. The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs will know that we are intent on work force reform. We are considering the creation of an enhanced constable grade, which would allow for extra responsibilities in the neighbourhood policing team. However, those negotiations are at a very early stage.

Amendments Nos. 135 and 136 do not state whether street bail could be granted by more senior ranks than a senior constable. Clearly, superintendents, sergeants and inspectors should exercise those powers as well. However, the amendments go to the heart of some of the provisions for street bail. The purpose of introducing conditions on street bail is to give police officers the confidence legitimately to release people rather than keep them in custody. Therefore, the idea is to strengthen bail conditions so that people do not have to be kept in custody unnecessarily. Far from the measure being an extra incursion into people’s rights, it will minimise the amount of time that people spend in full custody. Therefore, providing that street bail is subject to a framework of conditions that gives police officers sufficient confidence to let people out of custody without the fear of them re-offending or interfering with witnesses, it will enhance people’s rights by allowing them to be in the community.

This is not simply about giving the police more powers; it is acknowledging that most people would like their time in custody to be minimised. Street bail, subject to conditions, will achieve that.

James Brokenshire (Conservative, Hornchurch)

The use of detention is strictly controlled by the conditions that dictate the amount of time that a person can be held before he or she must come before a court. There do not appear to be any time restrictions in the conditions for the extension of street bail. Can the Minister square that off? I have articulated the need for scrutiny and review. Given that the measure is time-unlimited as far as I can see, no provision appears to have been made for oversight.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I assure the hon. Gentleman that there are provisions for supervision and monitoring. People will be given a record of their conditions. Monitoring will take place to ensure particularly that the powers are not being used on the basis of stereotyping against a particular group and that they are exercised reasonably and proportionately to what the officers are trying to achieve.

Circular 61/2003—there is always a Home Office circular—was issued when the original provisions for street bail were brought in. According to the circular, before an officer issues street bail, he must consider the seriousness of the offence, the views of the victim, the circumstances of the offender and the needs of the investigation. The guidance suggests that officers should not apply it to serious offences, which are a matter for bail at the police station rather than on the street, and requires them to have particular regard to offences involving juvenile offenders and to be aware that, as the hon. Member for Lichfield said, particular considerations sometimes come into play regarding young people. It might be more appropriate to issue that kind of bail at the police station rather than on the street.

Street bail gives officers on the street the power to deal with low-level offences there and then rather than taking people back to the police station, keeping them in custody, giving them conditional bail and letting them go about their business. Both sides benefit from street bail.

The requirement for a senior constable worries me. If an ordinary constable came across somebody committing a low-level crime—shoplifting, vandalism, graffiti or the like—they would have to wait for a senior constable to come before they could issue street bail. That could lead to an increase in bureaucracy. The person being detained would have to spend longer waiting, or would have to go back to the police station to be processed for police bail at the custody centre. That would take officers off the front line, and none of us wants that. We want to maximise their time out there. Street bail is a useful power provided that it is used properly and proportionately and is aimed at low-level offences that require an immediate and proportionate response.

There is a series of safeguards on the way in which street bail is processed. If the person does not agree with the conditions proposed, they can appeal against them to the custody officer at the police station and, if necessary, have a further appeal to the magistrates court. The system has checks and balances. The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs moved his amendments with a proper regard for ensuring that the powers are not exercised arbitrarily or by people without proper training, and I share that concern.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

The Minister has been quite persuasive in her arguments for street bail. Does she accept that extra training may be needed, or do police officers already have the skills to take on the role? If not, how would the training be given?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I hate to say it, but the hon. Gentleman is almost reading my mind, which causes me some concern. I was just about to come to training. Of course we will expect officers exercising such powers to be properly trained. We expect that with any powers that the police are given. They have extensive training, and we will expect them to be properly trained in those powers.

Tagging is being thought of as a condition. It is quite a serious step to take, and we shall issue guidance saying that tagging should be applied as a condition only at the police station. That is probably the right balance. The subject caused me a little concern when it was raised. The very requirement to apply tagging implies that the nature of the offence would not meet the criteria set out in our circular, which was about low-level offending. If we took steps to implement electronic tagging, that would clearly happen at the station.

I understand the spirit in which the hon. Gentleman put forward his amendments, but there is no senior constable status. I hope that he agrees that there are sufficient safeguards in the system, and on that basis I ask him to withdraw his amendment.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I am grateful for the Minister’s reply. I am not sure that I accept that there are sufficient safeguards in the system, but perhaps we can discuss that under the next set of amendments, which will deal with that issue rather more specifically.

To give one example of the difference that the proposal in the Bill will make, if a suspect were granted street bail, he or she would not have a chance to consult a lawyer or receive any advice about whether to accept the conditions. The Minister says that that person will have a right of appeal. That is very different from a situation in which bail might be granted in a police station. It worries me that much of what the Minister said related to guidance that would be issued—there will be guidance to say that the provisions should be used only in relation to low-level antisocial behaviour and so on, and now there is to be guidance saying that the provisions should not be used in relation to tagging. I welcome the fact that that is the Government’s view, and that certainly deals with one of our concerns, but such provisions should probably be written into the Bill.

James Brokenshire (Conservative, Hornchurch)

One other need that must be met if the matter is to be dealt with properly, aside from ensuring that power is not overused, relates to the Minister’s comment about ensuring that we do not unnecessarily detain. The power should be used effectively, with officers knowing when to take someone to the police station and detain them properly, rather than just giving them street bail with a condition attached to it. That way, there can be the security and safety that we all want for the public.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I agree with my hon. Friend; the danger with the new measures, of course, is that it becomes the easier option for police officers, with fewer checks and safeguards than existing measures for the granting of bail at a police station. That is precisely the concern, and we will come to that.

I accept that there is no such office as senior constable, and it would be difficult to write one into the Bill, but I hope that, under the work force modernisation to which the Minister referred, she will consider whether what we propose is wise. We will certainly be considering our own ideas for working up the creation of the designated rank of senior police constable.

What with the extension of summary justice in a number of other respects—we will come to them later, in relation to conditional cautions—my proposal is potentially very good, and would instil public confidence. I am anxious that, when the proposal is introduced by the Government in a year or two, we all remember that we heard it here first. Indeed, I suggested a respect agenda two years ago, and look what happened to that. That is not something to which I normally admit, but I feel moved to do so at this moment.

As we are about to discuss amendments suggesting further checks and safeguards for the operation of the revised conditions for street bail, and given the spirit in which the Minister responded to my amendment, I am happy to beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Lynne Featherstone (Liberal Democrat, Hornsey and Wood Green)

I beg to move amendment No. 7, in schedule 4, page 75, line 15, leave out from beginning to end of line 22 and insert—

‘(b)to secure that the person attends at a police station.’.

Greg Pope (Labour, Hyndburn)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 8, in schedule 4, page 75, line 25, at end insert—

‘(5)Conditions of the bail imposed under subsection (3B) shall expire—

(a)at the time at which the person attends at a police station or surrenders to custody, or

(b)72 hours from the time at which the person was released on bail, whichever is the earlier.’.

No. 9, in schedule 4, page 76, line 13, leave out from ‘necessary’ to ‘, and’ in line 14 and insert

‘to secure that the person attends at a police station or surrenders to custody.’.

No. 10, in schedule 4, page 77, line 17, leave out

‘for any of the purposes mentioned in paragraphs (a) to (d) of section 30A(3B)’

and insert

‘to secure that the person attends at a police station or surrenders to custody.’.

Lynne Featherstone (Liberal Democrat, Hornsey and Wood Green)

The amendments are about getting the balance right between giving the public confidence that low-level and antisocial crime will be dealt with swiftly and effectively and issues of human rights and civil liberties. It is a form of summary justice and moves towards presumption of guilt rather than innocence. Those are our difficulties. Street bail can be an excellent tool in the police officer’s box, but as the Bill is presently drafted a constable could impose quite a range of conditions on that bail. Those conditions are at the officer’s discretion. The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs tried to put some seniority into that decision-making process. Although we think that the power will be useful in certain circumstances, we are troubled by its open-ended nature. The amendments seek to address twin concerns: the level of conditions that can be applied and the length of time for which they can be imposed.

The amendments first specify that the conditions set on bail will expire when the person presents himself at a police station or surrenders to custody, or three days from the time at which the person was released on bail, whichever is the earlier. They will also the restrict the circumstances in which conditions may be imposed on street bail. The concern is to get the balance right. As drafted, the paragraph could lead to a misuse of the power or result in unintended consequences. Conditions such as tagging, curfew or a restriction on whom a person can speak to or meet will be imposed with no absolute time limit. The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs referred to liberty, and that severe restriction on liberty would become worrisome without a time limit. Conditional street bail could theoretically be used as a general, long-lasting preventive measure. If no time limit is ever brought into play, there is no end in sight.

Street bail is serious, not a casual act, and it is important to bear in mind that there could be serious consequences. While it can be immensely beneficial and effective, our concern is to ensure that it is not overly punitive. We seek reassurance from the Minister that the safeguards that apply to an individual in a police station or in custody will not be discarded when bail is granted elsewhere. The rights should be the same. Will a person released under street bail be able to call a lawyer before the constable imposes conditions on them? As has been mentioned, when street bail is granted, the officer responsible for deciding on the conditions will be the arresting or investigating officer and therefore not impartial in the imposition of conditions. The Minister said that the officer would be trained to understand what conditions would be appropriate. Nevertheless, an arresting officer is not impartial; normally anything punitive is dispensed with in the judicial system rather than through a police officer. When bail is granted in a police station, the custody sergeant, who is independent of the investigation under way, performs the semi-judicial role of deciding what conditions are justified. He or she has specialist expert training in those matters.

As the Bill stands, those safeguards will not be present when street bail is imposed. Will the Minister consider introducing the changes suggested, whether in the form of our amendments or later as Government amendments? They are probing amendments intended to encourage her to do so. I hope that she can see that it is unsatisfactory to provide such an open-ended position on street bail as the Bill contains, as it might lead to abuse of power and unintended consequences.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I am afraid I am going to disappoint the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), because her amendments would remove the ability of the police to attach conditions to street bail, other than to attend a police station. There would also be a maximum period for which conditions could be applied to street bail of 72 hours.

That would defeat two key elements of the clause. The first is to minimise the ability of the bailed person to offend further or cause further harm. One reason why we have set out the conditions in paragraph 2(3B) is precisely that we want conditions that can affect people’s behaviour so that they are less likely to reoffend and interfere with witnesses. The hon. Lady’s amendments would allow only the condition of simply turning up at the police station. That would defeat part of our very reason for introducing the provisions.

I hope the hon. Lady recognises that it is important to protect the public, and to get the balance right between the needs of the individual who is subject to the bail and the needs of the wider community. That is why we are introducing the ability to make these conditions, and her amendments would defeat that.

Lynne Featherstone (Liberal Democrat, Hornsey and Wood Green)

Does the Minister accept that there should be a time limit on those conditions?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

No, I do not think it is right to include a time limit in the Bill. Clearly, it is important that our judicial and police systems work as quickly as possible and are as effective as they can be. The safeguards that are in the system that allow for a person to appeal first to the police against any conditions imposed and then to the magistrates court are sufficient. I would not like an arbitrary time limit to be placed on the street bail provisions.

It is clearly important for our police service to be able to get cases moving along as quickly as possible, and to make sure that cases are referred to the Crown Prosecution Service and that charging decisions are made as quickly as possible. However, one of the purposes of street bail is to allow people to be released on bail, rather than being kept in custody while further inquiries are made and the case referred to the CPS. It is often in the interests of the individual to be given bail. If they can be granted bail only because that the police are confident that the conditions are sufficient to protect the community, it is in the interests of the person to whom bail is been granted to have the conditions, because one of the results of not having them could be that they were kept in custody.

I ask the hon. Lady to think about that balance. If it is in a police officer’s mind that the only thing they can do with a certain person is remand them in custody because they do not have the ability to give them conditions on their bail that give them the security that they are protecting the community, they are more likely to exercise their discretion by putting somebody in custody, rather than letting them out on bail. I hope she accepts that.

Lynne Featherstone (Liberal Democrat, Hornsey and Wood Green)

I do accept that bail can be an effective tool and can be beneficial to the person who is being street bailed, but my real concern is that it is open-ended. We will have to disagree about the issue of a time limit, and my proposal was not an arbitrary time limit. In my view, a time limit would be beneficial and a safeguard against the misuse or abuse of what is a very useful power. We want to support the Government, but I am trying to encourage them to come a little way towards us.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I have confirmed to the hon. Lady that there are safeguards in the system in respect of the use of these powers. There will be monitoring, and there will be supervision by senior officers.

The hon. Lady made a point about whether it should be the arresting officer who decides on conditions. It is important that arresting officers are involved because they know what happened and will probably be in a good position to take on board the views of victims, which is important, and to take a view on whether street bail should be granted. They will be aware of the circumstances of the offence and how the investigation needs to proceed. I would not like to see some fairly arbitrary decision made about conditions that is not connected to the circumstances around the arrest. It is important that the arresting officer has an input into those conditions. Therefore, I do not accept the hon. Lady’s view that that process should be entirely separate.

James Brokenshire (Conservative, Hornchurch)

I am interested in that last point. Obviously, if bail is granted at a police station, the custody sergeant has an independent, quasi-judicial role. I now hear the Minister stressing the need for the investigating officer to have much more of a say. Does that mean that bail from police stations will also be reviewed so that it reflects that? It seems to undermine the quasi-judicial nature of the custody sergeant at the police station, if I follow her argument correctly.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I have no proposals in this legislation to review the way in which bail is administered in that regard, but it is important. When we come to conditional cautions, we will come again to the appropriate division of decision making between arresting officers and the Crown Prosecution Service. It is important that the person who is aware of the circumstances is involved in the decision making, and that is why our circular talks about taking into account the circumstances of the offence and the views of the victim. It is important to know whether the victim is content that such conditions should be in place. That makes the decision-making process more real. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, but it is important that there is a connection. I believe that safeguards are sufficient.

Lynne Featherstone (Liberal Democrat, Hornsey and Wood Green)

Am I right that it could be the singular responsibility of the arresting officer to make decisions about conditions?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

Yes.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I listened with particular concern to what the Minister said in rejecting the suggestion that there should be a time limit on the operation of the conditions, which was made by the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green. It seems extraordinary that it would be theoretically possible for a person to have such a restriction placed on them in perpetuity, with no provision for formal review.

The Minister relied on the fact that there would be supervision of the proposals and that the individual concerned could appeal to a magistrate, and she described time limits as arbitrary. We have so-called arbitrary time limits in relation to all aspects of our criminal justice system, particularly the penal system. Time limits prevent people from being detained in police stations beyond a certain time, and so on. I wonder at the extent to which the provisions are even compatible with the human rights—

Greg Pope (Labour, Hyndburn)

Order. I think that the Minister may have got the drift of that rather long intervention.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I have said on several occasions that there will be proper supervision of the way in which the powers are exercised, in relation not only to the power to grant street bail but to the conditions attached, to ensure that they are necessary and proportionate. There will be checks and balances within the system to ensure that the powers are not exercised arbitrarily and, in particular, that they are not exercised in relation to specific stereotypes. The fear expressed by the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green that the powers would be used as a convenient way to deal with perceived rather than real problems will be monitored through the system.

The circular that I have mentioned, which has already been issued, suggests that street bail should be for as short a time as possible, and states that we should look to a maximum of four to six weeks.

6.8 pm

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I support the amendments.

Further to my comments about the extension of bail conditions, I add my concerns about where the measure leads us, given that there will be no time limit on or automatic review of the provisions, unless the relevant suspect appeals. I foresee that when dealing with suspects, it might become an option for the police to impose punitive conditions on bail in the hope that that will dismiss the suspect concerned and that the suspect will simply abide by the conditions. That would effectively shut out their need to go to court at all, and might mean that the courts never have an opportunity to consider the matter.

The proposals in the Bill represent a fundamental shift in the balance between the powers that we have traditionally expected the police to deploy and the proper role of the courts. In that context, it is extraordinary that there is no measure to time-limit the provisions and that the Minister would reject one. When my rather too lengthy intervention on the Minister came to an end, I was about to ask whether she was sure that the provision in the Bill was compatible with the Human Rights Act. I suppose that the operation of consent is important, and perhaps that is the answer to my point, but the open-ended imposition of punitive restrictions, with no formal review process, nevertheless seems to contradict the normal processes and principles of natural justice.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green for tabling her amendments. Even if she decides not to press them, I hope that she, like my colleagues and I, will be willing to return to the issue at a later stage. Some of the principles that we have discussed will apply to the measures on conditional cautions, under which the same extension of summary justice is proposed. That gives rise to the same profound issue of whether it is proper to allow such an exercise of power without sufficient scrutiny or sufficient checks and balances.

Lynne Featherstone (Liberal Democrat, Hornsey and Wood Green)

I have listened to the Minister’s comments, but I am not reassured. There are issues about the open-ended and overweening nature of the change in the balance of power before charge, which might have some dangerous, unintended consequences. At this point, however, I am content to ask that we revisit the issue at a later stage. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Lynne Featherstone (Liberal Democrat, Hornsey and Wood Green)

I beg to move amendment No. 11, in schedule 4, page 78, line 4, leave out paragraph 6 and insert—

‘6(1)In section 47(1A) after “but” there is inserted “, subject to subsection (1AA),”.

(2)After section 47(1A) there is inserted—

“(1AA)The normal powers to impose conditions of bail shall be available to him where a custody officer releases a person on bail under section 37(2) or 37(7)(b), subject to sections 47B to 47E below.

(1AB)In section (1AA), “the normal powers to impose conditions of bail” has the meaning given in section 3(6) of the Bail Act 1976”.

(3)After section 47A there is inserted—

“47BLimits on duration of bail conditions without charge (1)Subject to the following provisions of this section and to sections 47C, 47D and 47E below, any relevant conditions on bail shall not last for more than 24 hours after the relevant time. (2)“Relevant conditions” in this section and in sections 47C, 47D and 47E below are any conditions of bail imposed on a person under section 47(1AA) above. (3)For the purposes of this section and sections 47C, 47D and 47E below “the relevant time” has the meaning given in section 41, subsections (2) to (5), subject to the following modification: for “the period of detention of” in subsection (2) there is substituted “duration of bail conditions imposed on”. (4)Subject to subsection (5) below relevant conditions shall be rescinded 24 hours after the relevant time. (5)Subsection (4) above does not apply if the continuation of relevant conditions for more than 24 hours after the relevant time has been authorised or is otherwise permitted in accordance with sections 47C, 47D or 47E below. (6)A person whose bail conditions are rescinded under subsection (4) above shall not be re-arrested without a warrant for the offence for which he was previously arrested unless new evidence justifying a further arrest has come to light since his release; but this subsection does not prevent an arrest under section 46A above. 47CAuthorisation of continuation of bail conditions (1)Where a police officer of the rank of superintendent or above who is responsible for the police station at which the relevant conditions were imposed has reasonable grounds for believing that— (a)the relevant conditions imposed on the person are necessary— (i)to secure that he surrenders to custody, or

(1)Subject to the following provisions of this section and to sections 47C, 47D and 47E below, any relevant conditions on bail shall not last for more than 24 hours after the relevant time.

(2)“Relevant conditions” in this section and in sections 47C, 47D and 47E below are any conditions of bail imposed on a person under section 47(1AA) above.

(3)For the purposes of this section and sections 47C, 47D and 47E below “the relevant time” has the meaning given in section 41, subsections (2) to (5), subject to the following modification: for “the period of detention of” in subsection (2) there is substituted “duration of bail conditions imposed on”.

(4)Subject to subsection (5) below relevant conditions shall be rescinded 24 hours after the relevant time.

(5)Subsection (4) above does not apply if the continuation of relevant conditions for more than 24 hours after the relevant time has been authorised or is otherwise permitted in accordance with sections 47C, 47D or 47E below.

(6)A person whose bail conditions are rescinded under subsection (4) above shall not be re-arrested without a warrant for the offence for which he was previously arrested unless new evidence justifying a further arrest has come to light since his release; but this subsection does not prevent an arrest under section 46A above.

(1)Where a police officer of the rank of superintendent or above who is responsible for the police station at which the relevant conditions were imposed has reasonable grounds for believing that—

(a)the relevant conditions imposed on the person are necessary—

(ii)to secure that he does not commit an offence while on bail, or

(iii)to secure that he does not interfere with witnesses or otherwise obstruct the course of justice whether in relation to himself or any other person, or

(iii)(iv)for his own protection or, if he is a child or young person, for his own welfare or in his own interests;

(b)an offence for which he was arrested is an indictable offence; and

(c)the investigation is being conducted diligently and expeditiously, he may authorise the continuation of the relevant conditions for a period expiring at or before 36 hours after the relevant time.

(2)Where an officer such as is mentioned in subsection (1) above has authorised the continuation of relevant conditions for a period expiring less than 36 hours after the relevant time, such an officer may authorise the contiuation of relevant conditions for a further period expiring not more than 36 hours after that time if the conditions specified in subsection (1) above are still satisfied when he gives the authorisation.

(3)No authorisation under subsection (1) above shall be given in respect of any person more than 24 hours after the relevant time.

(4)Where an officer authorises the contiuation of relevant conditions under subsection (1) above, it shall be his duty to inform that person of the grounds for the continuation of relevant conditions.

(5)Before determining whether to authorise the continuation of relevant conditions under subsection (1) or (2) above, an officer shall give—

(a)the person on whom the relevant conditions were imposed; or

(b)any solicitor representing him who is available at the time when it falls to the officer to determine whether to give the authorisation,

an opportunity to make representations to him about the continuation of the relevant conditions.

(6)Subject to subsection (7) below, the person subject to the relevant conditions or his solicitor may make representations under subsection (5) above either orally or in writing.

(7)The officer to whom it falls to determine whether to give the authoisation may refuse to hear oral representations from the person subject to the relevant conditions if he considers that he is unfit to make such representations by reason of his condition or behaviour.

(8)Where an officer has authorised the continuation of relevant conditions on a person who has not been charged under subsection (1) or (2) above, any relevant conditions shall be rescinded at the expiry of 36 hours after the relevant time, unless—

(a)he has been charged with an offence; or

(b)continuation of the relevant conditions is authorised or otherwise permitted in accordance with section 47D below.

47DWarrants of continuation of bail conditions (1)Where, on an application on oath made by a constable and supported by an information, a magistrates’ court is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the continuation of relevant conditions imposed on the person to whom the application relates is justified, it may issue a warrant of continued conditions authorising the continuation of the relevant conditions on that person. (2)A court may not hear an application for a warrant of continued conditions unless the person to whom the application relates— (a)has been furnished with a copy of the information; and

(1)Where, on an application on oath made by a constable and supported by an information, a magistrates’ court is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the continuation of relevant conditions imposed on the person to whom the application relates is justified, it may issue a warrant of continued conditions authorising the continuation of the relevant conditions on that person.

(2)A court may not hear an application for a warrant of continued conditions unless the person to whom the application relates—

(a)has been furnished with a copy of the information; and

(3)The person to whom the application relates shall be entitled to be legally represented at the hearing and, if he is not so represented but wishes to be so represented—

(a)the court shall adjourn the hearing to enable him to obtain representation; and

(b)the relevant conditions may continue during the adjournment.

(4)Continuation of relevant conditions is only justified for the purposes of this section or section 47E below if—

(a)the relevant conditions imposed on the person are necessary—

(i)to secure that he surrenders to custody, or

(ii)to secure that he does not commit an offence while on bail, or

(iii)to secure that he does not interfere with witnesses or otherwise obstruct the course of justice whether in relation to himself or any other person, or(iv)for his own protection or, if he is a child or young person, for his own welfare or in his own interests;

(b)an offence for which he was arrested is an indictable offence; and

(c)the investigation is being conducted diligently and expeditiously.

(5)Subject to subsection (7) below, an application for a warrant of continued conditions may be made—

(a)at any time before the expiry of 36 hours after the relevant time; or

(b)in a case where—

(i)it is not practicable for the magistrates’ court to which the application will be made to sit at the expiry of 36 hours after the relevant time; but

(ii)the court will sit during the six hours following the end of that period, at any time before the expiry of the said six hours.

(6)In a case to which subsection (5)(b) above applies the relevant conditions imposed on the person to whom the application relates may continue until the application is heard.

(7)If—

(a)an application for a warrant of continued conditions is made after the expiry of 36 hours after the relevant time; and

(b)it appears to the magistrates’ court that it would have been reasonable for the police to make it before the expiry of that period,

the court shall dismiss the application.

(8)Where on an application such as is mentioned in subsection (1) above a magistrates’ court is not satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing that continuation of the relevant conditions imposed on the person to whom the application relates is justified, it shall be its duty—

(a)to refuse the application; or

(b)to adjourn the hearing of it until a time not later than 36 hours after the relevant time.

(9)The relevant conditions may continue during the adjournment.

(10)A warrant of continued conditions shall—

(a)state the time at which it is issued;

(b)authorise the continuation of the relevant conditions on the person to whom it relates for the period stated in it.

(11)Subject to subsection (12) below, the period stated in a warrant of continued conditions shall be such period as the magistrates’ court thinks fit, having regard to the evidence before it.

(12)The period shall not be longer than 36 hours.

(13)Any information submitted in support of an application under this section shall state—

(a)the nature of the offence for which the person to whom the application relates has been arrested;

(b)the general nature of the evidence on which that person was arrested;

(c)what inquiries relating to the offence have been made by the police and what further inquiries are proposed by them;(d)the reasons for believing the continuation of the relevant conditions on that person to be necessary for the purposes of such further inquiries.

(14)Where an application under this section is refused, either the person to whom the application relates shall forthwith be charged or, subject to subsection (15) below, the relevant conditions shall be rescinded.

(15)Relevant conditions need not be rescinded under subsection (14) above—

(a)before the expiry of 24 hours after the relevant time; or

(b)before the expiry of any longer period for which continuation of the relevant conditions is or has been authorised under section 47C above.

(16)Where an application under this section is refused, no further application shall be made under this section in respect of the person to whom the refusal relates, unless supported by evidence which has come to light since the refusal.

(17)Where a warrant of continued conditions is issued, the relevant conditions on the person to whom it relates shall be rescinded on the expiry of the warrant unless he is charged.

(18)A person whose bail conditions are rescinded under subsection (17) above shall not be re-arrested without a warrant for the offence for which he was previously arrested unless new evidence justifying a further arrest has come to light since his release; but this subsection does not prevent an arrest under section 46A above.

47EExtension of warrants of continued conditions (1)On an application on oath made by a constable and supported by an information a magistrates’ court may extend a warrant of continued conditions issued under section 47D above if it is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the continuation of the relevant conditions on the person to whom the application relates is justified. (2)Subject to subsection (3) below, the period for which a warrant of continued conditions may be extended shall be such period as the court thinks fit, having regard to the evidence before it. (3)The period shall not— (a)be longer than 36 hours; or (b)end later than 96 hours after the relevant time.

(1)On an application on oath made by a constable and supported by an information a magistrates’ court may extend a warrant of continued conditions issued under section 47D above if it is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the continuation of the relevant conditions on the person to whom the application relates is justified.

(2)Subject to subsection (3) below, the period for which a warrant of continued conditions may be extended shall be such period as the court thinks fit, having regard to the evidence before it.

(3)The period shall not—

(a)be longer than 36 hours; or

(4)Where a warrant of continued conditions has been extended under subsection (1) above, or further extended under this subsection, for a period ending before 96 hours after the relevant time, on an application such as is mentioned in that subsection a magistrates’ court may further extend the warrant if it is satisfied as there mentioned; and subsections (2) and (3) above apply to such further extensions as they apply to extensions under subsection (1) above.

(5)A warrant of continued conditions shall, if extended or furhter extended under this section, be endorsed with a note of the period of the extension.

(6)Subsections (2), (3) and (13) of section 47D above shall apply to an application made under this section as they apply to an application made under that section.

(7)Where an application under this section is refused, either the person to whom the application relates shall forthwith be charged or, subject to subsection (8) below, the relevant conditions shall be rescinded.

(8)Relevant conditions need not be rescinded under subsection (7) above before the expiry of any period for which a warrant of continued conditions issued in relation to him has been extended or further extended on an earlier application made under this section.’.

Some of this debate will be a repeat of the previous one. Basically, the amendment is copied from sections 41 to 44 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, which relate to pre-charge detention. Once again, we seek to ensure that the conditions that are set on pre-charge bail at a police station cannot be open-ended timewise and we seek to limit the duration of bail conditions without charge. Once again, Liberty was extremely strong and clear in its briefing about its concerns over the lack of safeguards, time limits and judicial oversight over the conditions for pre-charge bail.

As has been mentioned, certain things automatically follow when someone has been charged and the person has certain rights relating, for example, to contact with a lawyer or to learning about the case against them. The ability to impose conditions on a person before charge could lead to the police never getting round to the charge or never placing the case before the court. In effect, that would be a punishment or at least a restriction that was subject either to no legal necessities or only to necessities that were not sufficient to safeguard somebody’s civil liberties and human rights.

Unless time limits are provided for, pre-charge bail conditions could be used as alternatives to charging a person and bringing them before the courts for prosecution. Without judicial oversight, the police could use bail conditions as an endless preventive tool or as a punishment in themselves. In the amendment, therefore, we seek a reassurance from the Government that street bail cannot be used for lengthy periods while evidence is being gathered to determine whether to charge.

My colleagues and I are extremely uneasy about this part of the Bill, because we believe that it will have unintended consequences. I find it hard to see how the Minister can reassure us, even if there is guidance, that that is not the intention. Once again, we ask the Minister to support our amendment, although I am sure that she will find that difficult. If she is not willing to support it, I hope that she will be willing to table Government amendments to at least introduce a time limit to safeguard civil liberties and human rights.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

The hon. Lady is right to say that the amendment covers some of the ground that we have already discussed. The aim of granting bail is to enable the person to be released from custody. At times during this debate, we have lost sight of that.

Under section 37(2) or (7)(b) to PACE, bail is granted pending the outcome of further police inquiries prior to a decision to charge or refer to the Crown Prosecution Service for a decision on a charge. Paragraph 6 of schedule 4 to the Bill before us amends PACE to enable the normal conditions of bail, which currently can be attached to bail that is granted pending the decision of the CPS to charge or refer, to be attached to the other categories of bail. As I have said, that is aimed at raising the ability and confidence of the police to enable people to be released from custody for a period sufficient to enable the necessary further inquiries to be completed.

The hon. Lady put forward the idea that the police might use that as a punitive end in itself, or as a method for simply never bringing a charge. That would be an inappropriate use of police powers and therefore would be subject to challenge should a case come to court, and certainly subject to appeal in the magistrates court. There are safeguards in the Bill that would allow people to apply to the custody sergeant to have those conditions re-examined and varied, so I feel that the hon. Lady has reached a conclusion that is not justified by the provisions in the Bill. She is speculating that the police, with some kind of vindictive attitude or nefarious motive, would seek to use those powers inappropriately and unlawfully. The powers are there to be used in a proportionate way, and the conditions have to be necessary. The picture that she painted is extreme and not one in which police officers would be involved. Clearly, there are general provisions to challenge police officers’ actions should they act unlawfully.

The hon. Lady’s amendment would impose on the system a new and extensive bureaucracy, and require police and magistrates to review conditions even when the person who is subject to those conditions has not sought to change or vary them, or asked for them to be reviewed. It is difficult to see how an effective review could be carried out without contacting that person on virtually every day of their conditional bail to see whether those conditions are still appropriate and proportionate. Again, that would involve extensive bureaucracy, and would take officers off the front line so that they could go and find those people to check their conditions. The amendment is poorly thought out.

The hon. Lady talks about a maximum period of 96 hours. That is arbitrary, and I see no evidence to suggest that four days is the period for which bail conditions can normally be sustained. If bail conditions are issued at the custody station, in the normal course of events, people can be on bail for a significant time. I see no evidence whatever to suggest that the conditions set out in paragraph 6 would be more onerous than those that would normally apply, or that four days is the maximum period for which they should be sustained.

The Bill contains safeguards. I said in the circular that has been issued that street bail is not expected to last for a period longer than six weeks. In most cases, a person will answer to their bail much sooner. We are looking at a fairly short period in which people will have conditions so that while they are on the streets, they are not reoffending or interfering with witnesses. That will ensure that the investigation into the offence can proceed properly and that further police inquiries can be carried out while that person is on conditional bail.

After four to six weeks that person will answer to the bail and the matter will be dealt with. I really feel that the hon. Lady is painting a picture and imputing to the police service motives that it would not accept. She is suggesting that it would misuse those powers in a punitive and unlawful way. She is wrong to set out that scenario, so I ask her to consider withdrawing the amendment. If not, I ask the Committee to oppose it.

Lynne Featherstone (Liberal Democrat, Hornsey and Wood Green)

I was not impugning the police force; I am examining the extent to which those powers could be extended and the possibility of unintended consequences. That is my job, but this is a probing amendment, and on that basis I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 8 - Power to stop and search at aerodromes

Rob Flello (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

My hon. Friend the hon. Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Mrs. Hodgson) has raised with me the power to stop and search at aerodromes and the practical difficulty that arises where police officers might wish to enforce football banning orders. Under the law as it stands, somebody with a football banning order against them who has surrendered their original passport may intend to travel with a duplicate passport for which they had previously applied and that they had stuck away somewhere. They might attend a football match abroad and cause trouble, perhaps at the World cup, which is coming up. I understand that, at the moment, the police do not have the power to stop such a person. What can be done to address that situation, under clause 8, or by using a similar provision? That would certainly put at rest the minds of the likes of Michael Downes, the national representative from the Police Federation, who has done some research on this issue.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

The clause introduces a new power for the police to stop and search any person at an aerodrome. It uses “aerodrome”, rather than airport, which sounds fairly old fashioned, because apparently that has a wider meaning and covers major airports, as well as airfields used only by private flying clubs. That was news to me.

The lack of appropriate stop-and-search power has been an obstacle to the police when conducting anti-smuggling operations and particularly in detecting staff collusion in theft. The current powers available to the police are not sufficient to provide a comprehensive deterrent, because airports are strange places—sometimes they are private property, with restricted access—providing significant opportunities for criminal and terrorist activity. Minor criminal activity could be exploited by terrorists, with disproportionate effects.

Police powers at airports are variable, depending on whether the airport has been designated. There are currently nine designated airports in the country where police constables have additional stop-and-search powers that are not available at non-designated airports. That is why it is important to get a consistent set of powers across different kinds of airports.

Mark Pritchard (Conservative, The Wrekin)

Is the Minister aware that the policing of designated airports has to come from the budget of the respective police forces, so there is not an overarching incentive for senior officers to put police officers there 24 hours a day, seven days a week? In fact, there are many loopholes in police coverage at the nine designated airports.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I am aware of the policing at the designated airports throughout the country. Chief constables take their responsibilities seriously and provide appropriate policing relevant to the nature of the security risk and threat. Clearly, it is for chief constables to determine operational matters, but I am satisfied that they are making appropriate decisions to ensure that security is of the highest order at our airport facilities. These are important matters, particularly in the counter-terrorism context, so it is vital that airports are properly policed. A current review, by Stephen Boys Smith, is looking at funding for designated airports, because there can be disputes about who is responsible. I am not sure when he is due to report, but perhaps I could let the hon. Gentleman have that information in due course, as he has expressed an interest in it.

The point made by my hon. Friend Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Flello) was raised on Second Reading by my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West. I undertook to examine whether it would be possible to give constables the extra powers that she mentioned. Extending the provision to provide a constable with the automatic power to check passports would represent a significant departure from the safeguards and protections in PACE code A, which is intended to minimise arbitrary interference with the individual. I am sure that the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green would welcome that.

We are ready to consider the potential for extending the power to a constable within the confines of an aerodrome, provided that benefits can be shown in terms of security and public reassurance and that sufficient criteria are developed on the exercise of the power and accountability. I am keen to ensure that such issues are brought to the fore. We are ready to examine any further evidence that the Police Federation may wish to submit in support of such a power. I cannot offer any firm undertaking that we will be able to address the point in the Bill, but it is an important issue and if we can find a way of making the power practical and useful, we should do it.

Our proposals on football banning orders have been very successful in limiting opportunities for football hooligans to travel internationally. The reputation of our international game has been enhanced as a result of rigorous policing and the new legislation that we have introduced to tackle such issues.

Mark Pritchard (Conservative, The Wrekin)

Who will pay for officers from this country to go to help the German police when the World cup comes along? Will that be paid for by German or British taxpayers?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I am afraid that I do not have that information to hand, but the hon. Gentleman will know that some reciprocal policing is going on. Some members of the German police are coming to this country to work in close liaison with our officers. I am sure that he would welcome such international co-operation between police forces.

Douglas Carswell (Conservative, Harwich)

European co-operation.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

It is not the creation of a European police force; I can assure the hon. Gentleman of that, although I am sure that he would welcome mutual aid and assistance, which could be beneficial to this country.

I do not have the information that the hon. Member for The Wrekin sought, but perhaps I could write to him with it. I shall be writing him a longer letter than I originally anticipated but am more than happy to do so. In fact, I can tell him now that the review of designated airports is likely to be completed by spring 2006. Sometimes, in Government-talk, seasons last a long time—sometimes summer extends to November. If I can be more definite later, I will be.

I am sure that the powers of stop and search at aerodromes set out in the Bill will be welcomed by hon. Members, and I commend the clause to the Committee.

Clause 9 - Information gathering powers: extension to domestic flights and voyages

Lynne Featherstone (Liberal Democrat, Hornsey and Wood Green)

I beg to move amendment No. 56, in clause 9, page 5, line 18, at end insert—

‘(2A)In section 32 (police powers to gather information relating to flights and voyages to or from the United Kingdom) after subsection (1) insert—

“(1A)A circuit judge may on the application of a constable of the rank of superintendent or above issue a warrant in relation to specified passenger or service information under this section if he is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the nature of the information is such that there are likely to be circumstances in which it can be required under subsection (2).”’.

Greg Pope (Labour, Hyndburn)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 57, in clause 9, page 5, line 18, at end insert—

‘(2B)In section 32(2) (police powers to gather information relating to flights and voyages to or from the United Kingdom) leave out the words “imposed by a constable of the rank of superintendent or above” and insert “of a warrant”’.

No. 58, in clause 9, page 5, line 18, at end insert—

‘(2C)In section 32(4) (police powers to gather information relating to flights and voyages to or from the United Kingdom) leave out the words “A constable may impose a requirement under subsection (2) and a warrant may be issued under subsection (3) only if both are satisfied that it is necessary” and insert “A constable may impose a requirement”.’.

No. 59, in clause 9, page 5, line 24, at end insert—

‘(3A)In section 32(5) (interpretation of section) after “In this section—” there is inserted—

“‘circuit judge’ has the meaning given in the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 (c. 41) Section 72.”’.

Lynne Featherstone (Liberal Democrat, Hornsey and Wood Green)

To a great extent, the amendment runs over territory covered on Second Reading in addressing the extension of the powers granted in the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 to reveal passenger lists to the law agencies. Those powers will be extended under the Bill for domestic flights—that is, flights starting and ending in this country. Our concern and the reason for the amendments is increasing surveillance. We want to support the Government in disrupting terrorism or preventing crime but, as ever, doing that leads to tensions over people’s civil liberties and the right to a private life.

I should also like to query how effective the measure will be, because there will not be equal surveillance on the roads and on rail. A terrorist who is creating a pattern for police officers to observe might well choose different forms of transport, so I am not sure that such powers are an effective tool in disruption. However, I am willing to say that they could be, so we should consider them seriously. We need to consider appropriate safeguards to protect the individual’s right to privacy.

There is also the question of whether a circuit judge is the appropriate level for the measure. In some ways, a magistrate might be more appropriate, because the Government propose that a superintendent make a request for information, and a magistrate is about the equivalent level. There is a belief on our side that some judicial oversight is needed because, as I understand it, there is a principle in common law that a decision that has been made should, by law, be able to be reviewed later. The Minister might argue that the police want powers that are not directed at individuals. However, I understand from the Home Office that the purpose is to spot developing patterns and to track such things so that crimes can be prevented and terrorism disrupted.

If those patterns can be spotted, there has to be concern that the search would be based on, for example, Muslim surnames. That must be taken into account when we consider whether it is appropriate for that information to be mined. We argue that there should be oversight. Our amendment does not affect the ability of the police to use the network to make connections between people. However, although detection and prevention of terrorism and crime are clearly to be desired, a circuit judge would have to be satisfied that such activities did not contravene the Human Rights Act 1998, and that they were for police purposes under section 21(3) of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, the prevention, detection, investigation or prosecution of criminal offences, safeguarding national security and any other purpose that the Secretary of State decides and is passed by order. That would add some protection, as I said on Second Reading.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

On a point of order, Mr. Pope. I understand, through the wonders of modern technology, that the Metropolitan police have just launched an investigation into the alleged sale of honours by the Labour party. I wonder whether any member of the Committee feels an urgent need to give immediate evidence and assistance to the police.

Greg Pope (Labour, Hyndburn)

Whether or not they wish to do so, that is not a matter of order for me as the Chairman of this Committee.

Lynne Featherstone (Liberal Democrat, Hornsey and Wood Green)

It is jolly interesting, though.

In the Second Reading debate, I mentioned that my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) had been informed in a letter that there would be an audit trail, and that the matter would be looked into. The amendment seeks to put further safeguards in place.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

The amendments seek to require a police officer of the rank of superintendent or above to apply for a warrant from a circuit judge before being able to submit a request for passenger, crew or service information from the owner or agent of a ship or aircraft.

Requiring a police officer to obtain a warrant from a circuit judge every time they want to submit a request for data would be hugely burdensome for both the police and the courts. I am sure that the hon. Lady is aware that the power is intended to be used in relation to assessments of threat or risk; it is not intended that the police should have access to the 40 million or so domestic journeys that would fall into those categories. They would seek to use the information in the course of their inquiries, in seeking to find out patterns of travel and to build up an intelligence picture. There are powers in the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 to obtain information on international flights. The clause seeks to introduce the same power for domestic flights, ferry crossings and journeys from ports.

Often, the domestic leg of a journey can be influential and important in a criminal investigation. Such journeys are often connected to international flights, and people stop off and travel around the country. Therefore, it is important for the police to be able to build the proper intelligence picture, so that they can not only respond to events when they have happened, but, if they have built up a picture, intervene. That might allow them sometimes to prevent serious crime and terrorism from taking place.

Mark Pritchard (Conservative, The Wrekin)

Is the Minister aware of unease in the intelligence and police services about when they receive passenger manifests? If she is, will she tell us what consideration has been given to the American approach, where passenger manifests are received four days ahead of international scheduled flights?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

Clearly, this is a new power for us and a new area into which we are moving. I am sure that the police will learn from their experience of using the power whether it is fit for purpose.

The current proposal is for a request to be submitted to obtain advance information. I am not sure how far in advance some domestic carriers would have that. We are currently in negotiations with the industry, for example, about what documentation people need to produce for domestic flights. Currently, people do not need to produce passports for such flights, so we need to try to ensure that we get sufficient information to be of use to the police. However, we should not ask for too much information because that becomes a burden on both the carriers and the individuals concerned. We are trying to ensure that the costs for and requirements on the carriers are minimised, while ensuring that we have useful information that we can use for crime prevention and detection.

Mark Pritchard (Conservative, The Wrekin)

Given the growth in electronic ticketing, surely the information that the police require needs to reach them in time for them to investigate any suspect passengers. Currently, they so often receive manifests after the event. Professionals have told me that they are concerned that the measure will still not give them enough time. If that is the case, it needs to be re-examined.

Let me give an example. I am going to the United States on a private visit in the next few weeks. I have already booked my ticket and therefore I will be known to the authorities.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I wish the hon. Gentleman well on his visit.

Steve Pound (Labour, Ealing North)

One-way, I trust.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I would not say that to the hon. Gentleman. I am sure that he will find out some interesting information on his visit that will help us to take this forward.

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that information that the police request from carriers will include passenger name record data, which is a generic airline term used to describe the information that the carrier collects about a passenger in the normal course of its business. I am sure that the information will be transmitted by electronic means.

We have Project Semaphore, which is co-ordinating information in relation to border policing. It is part of the e-borders programme. It will process advance passenger information and passenger name records data. The data will be sent to a newly created joint border operations centre where officers from the border agencies will confirm that the traveller identified is the same person who is of interest to them. There will be an extensive system to ensure that we can get information that is of use to us.

All I was saying was that I do not know whether four days should be the period; I do not have that detail at the moment. We need to ensure that we have the information in good time to enable us to track the kind of people that we want to be able to track.

The Terrorism Act 2000 contains powers whereby examining police officers can request information relating to counter-terrorism powers at port or border areas, but they cannot obtain the same information to deal with serious and organised crime. It is important that they have powers right across the piece. The current legislation does not allow for what the hon. Gentleman talks about: gathering information in advance to enable the police, hopefully, to pre-empt some of the dangers and threats to our system.

Under the Data Protection Act 1998, there are provisions for people not to disclose information in an unauthorised way. People would be subject to a criminal offence is they were to do so. Under section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998, the police have a duty to ensure that they comply with convention rights. A series of safeguards are in place, through those two 1998 Acts, to ensure that information is not used inappropriately.

It is important, particularly in the light of the threat that we face from serious and organised crime and terrorism, that we give the police sufficient powers to enable them to protect the security of this country while at the same time maintaining safeguards. I am sure that the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green and I will constantly disagree about where the balance properly lies, but we can probably agree that there needs to be a balance. In this case, there are sufficient safeguards in the system to obviate the need for an application to a circuit judge before any application for data can be made to the carrier itself. That would be far too burdensome a procedure to go through and could mean that vital information slips through the net. Our police service would then not be able to protect the people of this country in the way in which it should be able to. I therefore ask the hon. Lady to withdraw the amendment.

Lynne Featherstone (Liberal Democrat, Hornsey and Wood Green)

I should have said that this is a probing amendment. We agree with the Minister that it is important for the police to have the power to disrupt terrorism and prevent and track organised crime. We also accept that speed is of the essence. We are talking about a balance, and my balance shifts to what the review process should be, to what checks and balances can be used to look retrospectively at requests and to consider whether there was a trend or anything untoward in those requests. When we consider new clause 3, we will examine such points. I would be equally happy to have the provision that I seek in a review process that would not interrupt the police’s speed and efficiency. I am relieved to learn that there will not be a database into which all of the information will be put, but we must remember that section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which was to be reapplied for in each part of London, is now permanent across London. Such things can escalate and become permanent, which is a small concern for us. On the basis of the Minister’s explanations, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.