Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Public Bill Committee, 25 January 2011.

Clause 1

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I beg to move amendment 102, in clause 1, page 1, line 6, at end insert—

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 103, in clause 1, page 1, line 7, leave out from ‘each’ to end of line 8 and insert

Amendment 104, in clause 1, page 2, line 32, leave out subsection (9).

Amendment 105, in clause 1, page 2, line 34, at end add

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

May I begin, Mr Howarth, by welcoming you to the Chair? The two Chairs under whom we served during the evidence sessions are away, but it is very good to be here under your chairmanship. I also say good morning to the rest of the Committee. I have debated with two or three of the Government members of the Committee a number of times, so I know that this will be an interesting exchange in the best spirit and traditions of the word.

The amendments would establish pilots. One of the premises behind the Bill is that crime and policing are in crisis. However, figures released just last week continue to show significant falls in crime. The figures to September 2010 show that recorded crime is down by 7%, and that is on top of—the Association of Police Authorities briefing tells us this—a 30% fall in crime year on year over the past decade. According to the most recent British crime survey, crime is at its lowest level for three decades. It dipped below 10 million offences with a 9% fall last year to the lowest level since comparable records began. We also learn from the APA that figures showing confidence in the police are rising, although they are still not high enough—none of us would say that they were. The Government’s Bill says that change is needed, and although hon. Members will see from our amendments that we accept that the status quo needs to be examined and changed, we do not accept that the measure is made necessary because of a dramatic crime problem or a major problem with confidence in the police.

Although some of the witnesses from whom we heard last week said that they did not believe in pilots, it is important to note that hardly any of them supported what the Government are doing. When the Minister responds to the debate, it will be interesting if he will tell us who supports their actions—apart from himself, the whipped Government Members sitting behind him and a couple of people around No. 10 Downing street. In other words, why is a pilot not necessary?

So many people support a pilot that it is a given that we ought to conduct one. When hon. Members talk to their local councillors, police authorities and everyone else, I do not think that they will find that their constituencies are full of people demanding the introduction of police and crime commissioners. In fact, I have not heard one person demanding that—I do not know whether anyone else has. Perhaps the Government’s deliberate ploy is to sneak this through without anyone realising what is happening. No one has come to my surgery to say that there is a problem, so let us hold the pilots and see whether people want these measures.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is even more important to have these pilots in Wales, where many areas of government, such as local government, health and all the partnerships that help to combat crime, are devolved? We need to learn lessons prior to full implementation, especially in areas such as Wales.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I agree with that. The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice is responsible for policing in England and Wales, so I want him to tell us who in Wales supports what he is doing. According to the submissions that we have received from Police Authorities of Wales, it is totally opposed to what the Government are doing, yet the Minister ploughs on because he thinks that he knows better. This is an important point, because if there was huge pent-up demand and people were saying, “We would have better policing on our streets and we would improve how we tackle crime if only we had police and crime commissioners,” there would be no need for pilots.

I would have thought that those who have opposed the scheme in their written submissions to us would welcome pilots so that they could find out whether they were completely wrong. Authorities either oppose what the Government are doing or have real concerns about it. I would suggest that Surrey police authority does not support the Government—it has real concerns about or opposes the scheme. Staffordshire police authority’s submission will be of interest to the hon. Member for Cannock Chase, who will have read it and will, no doubt, have received correspondence from the authority. That excellent document expresses opposition to what the Government are doing. The police authorities of Lancashire, West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, Chester, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall, and Avon and Somerset, as well as Police Authorities of Wales, have all written to say to the Government, “You’ve got this wrong.” They say one of three things: that the model is wrong; that they have real concerns; or that the Government should not be doing this.

A pilot would give the Government an opportunity. It would allow the hon. Member for Cannock Chase to say to Staffordshire police authority, “Don’t worry. I think you’re wrong, but I’m not determined or arrogant enough to say that I’m right and you’re wrong. We’ll have a pilot and then let’s see who’s right.” That would be a good thing for him to say to the police authority, given that it is totally opposed to what the Government are doing. Every member of the Committee needs to understand this issue.

I know that the Minister is in favour of the scheme and that he thinks it is right—he is not doing this for fun—but I ask him, in all sincerity, given that virtually every person who has given evidence or who has written to the Committee believes that what the Government are doing is wrong, how is it possible that they are all wrong and he is right? Amendment 102 would give us an opportunity to test his argument. Let us see whether all the people who have written to us have got it wrong and whether the Government have seen the light because the establishment of PCCs will transform policing in this country.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

My hon. Friend has given a comprehensive list of those opposed to the scheme. If there is no groundswell of opinion among professionals, what is the Con-Dems’ true reason for advancing the scheme? The only evidence that we have heard in favour of it so far has come from a few odd—and most of them are odd—Liberal Democrat councillors. What is the Con-Dems’ true reason for pushing the issue so strongly?

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

The honest answer is that I do not know, but when the Minister responds to the debate, it will be interesting to hear his answer to my hon. Friend’s question.

Members of the Committee might not have noticed this, but pilots are now even more necessary, following the withdrawal of amendment 7. That Liberal Democrat amendment was originally going to be the lead amendment of the third group on the selection list. We would have supported the interesting proposal that it put forward, so it is regrettable that it has been withdrawn. If Liberal Democrat Members do not wish to return to it, we will. Liberal Democrat members of the Committee are part of the Government, yet the fact that they tabled an amendment stating that a referendum should take place in every area means that they have similar concerns to those that lead me to say that there should be pilots. In a sense, that amendment was an attempt to determine who was in favour of police and crime commissioners. It would have let local people have their say, because there is no groundswell of opinion.

I will be interested to hear why the hon. Member for Cambridge has withdrawn amendment 7, although I know the real reason—the hon. Member for Cannock Chase, to whom he is talking, has done a good job. However, I do not believe that the hon. Member for Cambridge woke up yesterday and thought, “My God, I have made a terrible mistake. That amendment I put down simply did not make sense and I will withdraw it.”

I ask your indulgence, Mr Howarth, because while I am talking about amendment 7, it is directly relevant to amendment 102 and pilots. Where is the groundswell of opinion? The hon. Members for Cambridge and for Edinburgh West clearly wished to test where there is support for police and crime commissioners, which is my point. That support could be determined through a referendum in which local people could vote to say, “Absolutely. We want police and crime commissioners in our area. Goodness me, Cambridgeshire would be so much better with a police and crime commissioner.” Alternatively, it should be determined by holding pilots in the areas that are demanding them.

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley)

Order. I am loth to interrupt the hon. Gentleman’s flow, but he must speak to amendments that have been selected, rather than ones that have been withdrawn. I understand why he feels the need to make his point, but he must now concentrate on the amendments before us.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

That was very helpful, Mr Howarth, because I was about to move on from amendment 7. I just wanted to make the point that the reason for its withdrawal is interesting.

The withdrawal of amendment 7 makes amendment 102 even more important, because the pilot would test the operation of the clause with respect to PCCs. We have suggested that the pilots should take place in two or four police areas, but the Government could have three or six. No doubt—this is why a pilot could take place rather than a referendum—queues of authorities will demand to be part of the pilot schemes, although it would be interesting to know how many.

Mark Tami (Labour, Alyn and Deeside)

May I put forward the suggestion that the Liberal Democrats have withdrawn their amendment because they have been convinced by our argument and they intend to roll behind us and support amendment 102?

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

Mr Howarth, you have reminded me of the appropriate amendment under discussion, so I will not stray. Of course, however, any member of the Committee is free to support our amendment.

We are considering an extremely important change. I have found virtually no one—whether a chief constable, a police authority, the Local Government Association or an organisation—who supports the plans, and I challenge any hon. Member to do so. Against the army of people and organisations that are opposed to the idea, one or two support it. That is why we should run pilots, because we can then test the system and see whether they are wrong and the Minister is right.

Bridget Phillipson (Labour, Houghton and Sunderland South)

Is my hon. Friend aware that Northumbria police authority volunteered to pilot an alternative model in a submission to the Home Affairs Committee? It suggested a number of alternatives to the Government’s proposals. Given that a police authority is clearly willing to pilot an alternative, surely the Government should look again at the proposals and consider that.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

My hon. Friend makes a good point. As I understand it, Northumbria announced that it was willing to make changes and to improves, but in the way that it wanted to, rather than according to the model that has been set out. One of the important things about a pilot—Northumbria is a good example, and others may want to come forward—is that local people and the local authority would decide that they wanted to participate. I would have thought that the Government’s localism agenda would support pilots, because local authorities would be demanding to be part of the change, testing the system for the Government, and being at the forefront of the radical change that everybody wants, even if they do not realise how good it is. The localism agenda fits well with the amendment that we have tabled.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

Is my hon. Friend as perplexed as I am about the apparent inconsistency in Government thinking over these matters? In the area of local government, the Government are obviously determined to have directly elected mayors. In that scenario, they are prepared to have shadow mayors, so that people can see what will happen and how it will work, iron out difficulties, then subject it to a main election. In this situation, they take an entirely different approach: they impose the election first and leave us to find out the results and problems as a consequence. Where is the consistency in what the Government are trying to achieve?

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point: there is no consistency. When I address the need for a pilot, I will make the point that he has made about arrangements. A police authority will introduce the budgets and policing arrangements for the new commissioner to take over in May 2012. Some of the submissions we received talked about the need for shadow arrangements for transition, because of the lack of clarity about the changeover from one system to another. One stops and another starts. My hon. Friend is right to point out some of the difficulties. A pilot would demonstrate what those difficulties were.

What does the Minister think is going to happen nationally? What will be the consequence of moving from one system straight into another, with no shadowing or transition arrangements and no real clarity in the Bill about what will happen? People in police authorities and police forces up and down the country are really worried about the management and structural changes that are going to take place without any evidence about the consequences or any certainty. My hon. Friend makes the point that the Government know there is a problem in that respect, which is why they have shadow arrangements in place for mayors, to iron out problems and look at difficulties.

We know, as I have said, that all the police authorities that I listed, along with the LGA, oppose the measure. The APA, Liberty, Justice and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children oppose it—the list goes on. Last week, the police officers who gave good evidence to us were very professional and said they would do their duty, and of course they will do whatever the Government put in place. However, the response to the Bill from the police service in terms of support is deafening. I do not meet many police officers in private who think this is a good idea. I am speaking not only about all the police authorities but about police officers themselves.

I do not often object to political debate. Many Members may wonder what I am talking about, and may not agree. [Interruption.] That is good to know. Some of us have suggested pilots or have tabled amendments looking at different models of accountability. It is wrong to frame the debate, as is sometimes done, as if those who oppose the measure are dinosaurs or are not progressive, or simply want to defend the status quo. There are good reasons why people oppose it. They think that it lacks clarity or could have unforeseen and unintended consequences. It is wrong to say that those people believe that everything about the current system is perfect and works as well as it should, or that we could not do better. Where there is virtual unanimity in opposing what the Government propose, a Committee of the House and Members of Parliament ought to recognise that. The Government should not just plough on regardless. That is the point of the amendment. I will come to some of the other problems that must be addressed, as I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say, but that is the point of the amendment. Let us see whether what has been said and my concerns are wrong.

The police and other organisations are not the only bodies discussing the measures. My hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South mentioned Northumbria police authority. Ian Loader and Rick Muir both support improvements to democratic accountability and say that the current system is wrong. In their evidence to us, they said, “Yes, we agree with direct elections and with the need to change, but we don’t agree with this model.” As my hon. Friend said, Northumbria and other places might pilot a different model to test whether a single individual at the top or several directly elected individuals are best. They might see whether different models of police governance improve the situation.

Even those who support the Minister on the issue of direct elections say that his proposed model is wrong and that he needs to think again and change his mind. Why does he not use a pilot to see which model works best? I have heard him expound the virtues of localism on many occasions and talk at great length and with eloquence about how important it is that local people make decisions. Why is he imposing structures from the centre on the local level irrespective of what local people tell him? Because what they say to him does not fit his point of view. That is not localism; it is central diktat.

When I was a Minister, and the Minister and the Under-Secretary were in opposition, they used to accuse me of knowing better than local people. It is amazing how things change. I distinctly remember being asked, “Why does the Minister think he knows best? Why does the Minister ride roughshod over local opinion? Why doesn’t the Minister test some of what he’s saying and see whether it actually works?” The amendment provides an opportunity for them to put into practice what they said just a few months ago when they were in opposition.

Is it really the case that a few months into a new Government, all the rhetoric that we heard about localism and central diktat has now been put in the dustbin, and that they are determined in power to impose on—[Interruption.] The Under-Secretary shakes his head. Let local people decide what they want for their own area. The Bill will not do so. It will impose on them a model of police governance that the Government think is best, irrespective of what local people, local authorities and local councils say.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way for the third time. One of the supposed reasons why the Con-Dems are proposing the measures is to get power closer to the people in the name of localism. Could there be more sinister reasons? We have seen in many Departments that the Con-Dems are changing what measurements and figures are collected and collated. Within policing, they have already downgraded the figures for antisocial behaviour and told police forces that they do not need to collect those figures any more. They are manipulating the figures and saying that they are passing them down.

If the measure takes off and police commissioners are put in place, I can see a time when we as national elected representatives will table questions on antisocial behaviour and crime and Ministers—perhaps the Ministers here today—will answer that those figures are not collected centrally any more. This power is being devolved to the regions. Ministers will do a Pontius Pilate and try to wash their hands of national control of crime in this country, because they know that the economic agenda that they are putting forward will increase crime.

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley)

Order. I remind Committee members—although these many months in, I should not need to remind them—that the purpose of an intervention is to make a brief point, usually a single point, and not a mini speech.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

Although it was very good, Mr Howarth, and I agree with the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd made.

To be fair, there is a real issue about central versus local. When we provide things locally, the Government always say, “Oh my God, we’ve given away all our power and everybody is asking us what we will do, when we have no responsibility for it”. There is therefore a real dilemma, and my hon. Friend is right: if we give something away locally, sooner or later, when we ask questions, the Government will get it back because they will not know what the answer is. It is a real problem.

We are suggesting that there should be pilots; I have set out the context for them and why we need them. However, there are a number of important points that the Minister needs to answer. First, we could see through the pilots whether politicisation of the police, which some people say is something to be concerned about, is just a myth or a handy argument, or whether there is real truth in that claim. I say that because people really are worried about the politicisation of the police.

Let me make a serious point to the Minister. Operational independence, or “operational responsibility” as Patten called it, is crucial. I know that the Minister accepts that, but he needs to ensure that a draft code of practice, or memorandum of understanding, is made available to the Committee.

We have tabled new clause 2, which we will come on to discuss. However, if we are talking about a pilot to test politicisation, there should be a code of practice, as the Select Committee on Home Affairs discussed. I believe that the Minister himself has said that a code of practice needs to be considered. If the Government are considering establishing a code of practice or a memorandum of understanding that sets out the responsibilities of the chief constable vis-à-vis the police and crime commissioner, a draft of that code should be made available to the Committee so that we can look at it and see what we think of it. Although it would not have the force of legislation, it would give us an idea of what might actually come to pass.

As I have said to the Minister, politicisation is a big issue with respect to the Bill. The code of practice would help, but so would a pilot. In fact, the code of practice could be tested in the pilot. Members of this Committee, some of whom serve on the Home Affairs Committee will know from the evidence that they have received about the debate that is taking place about the need for operational responsibility. The hon. Member for Edinburgh West was a police officer and he knows the fundamental importance of operational responsibility. That is why a code of practice was suggested by the Select Committee. Should such a code not be made available to the Committee? Should a draft not be produced, or suggestions about what might be included in it? If there is no time to do that now, the pilots would be a way of developing that code. Where is the code of practice and what is the Minister’s answer to the claim about politicisation?

The pilots will also give us an opportunity to test the issue of local accountability. Many of us are concerned about the fact that the Bill creates a force-wide commissioner. For example, there would be a force-wide commissioner for the whole of Devon and Cornwall, an area which, according to the APA, is 180 miles wide—good luck to the commissioner there. Dyfed-Powys police cover an area of 10,000 sq km. There are 2.5 million residents in Greater Manchester and there are 25 parliamentary constituencies in the west midlands. If one of those forces piloted the measure we would be able to see whether one person is able to act as the PCC in that area. Why does the Minister think that so many people ask, “How can one PCC drive policing improvement in areas as massive as that?”?

The Minister has made a fundamental error with respect to democratic accountability. If he piloted different models as, according to my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South, Northumbria has suggested, he would be able to test them. The Minister has got it fundamentally wrong. I challenge any member of this Committee to stand up and say that any of their constituents have come to them and said, “As my MP, I want you to tell my police force in Staffordshire”—or their police force in Derbyshire—“that its fraud policy is completely wrong, its collaboration arrangements are completely wrong.” They do not come to us about that; they come to us about youths at the end of their street, noisy neighbours, drug dealing in the local car park and other such issues. The model proposed by the Minister is flawed, as it represents the wrong level of democratic accountability. He could pilot different models and see whether I am wrong and he is right.

The Minister may say, “The shadow Minister has got this completely wrong, because he does not understand that in the Bill there are all those local accountability arrangements. All those things that will happen and all those things will establish local democratic accountability. If the shadow Minister understood that, he would realise that there will be the PCC at the top and all of those other people underneath. Those people would tell the PCC about things locally, and the PCC would be able to sort it out and things would be fine.” I would not believe him, and I do not think that most people would do so either. I think most people, and many Government Members, too, think that there is a problem with the size of the areas that PCCs will cover.

In my area of Nottinghamshire—again, we could test this with a pilot—somebody living close to Leicester will not see a PCC as relevant to the policing of issues local to them or to issues local to somebody living in the north of the county, which is virtually in Sheffield. It is just not tenable or feasible, yet the Minister says that we do not need pilots and that we do not need to test this; we can do it because he is right and everybody else is wrong.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

The Minister is aware that the 42 or 43 police authorities in England and Wales are grouped into families, which are likeminded, of equal size, and with equal socio-demographic profiles. Does my hon. Friend think that there should be at least one pilot in each of those families? The PCCs might be right for police authorities of a certain size, but not for others. We need a pilot in each family to get a picture before we have a national roll-out.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

That is absolutely right and it is the point of the amendment. The Minister is so convinced that he is right and everybody else is wrong that he does not see the need for pilots and he does not see the need to test what he is saying. The Minister knows best. He knows that Devon and Cornwall would do better with a PCC, irrespective of the fact that all the representations we have had from that area say that he is wrong. The people of Derbyshire are not queuing up to tell the hon. Member for Amber Valley that they want a PCC.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

Does my hon. Friend appreciate that in the west midlands, which has the second largest force in the country, the elected PCC would need to speak to 7,000 people every day of the year to have any sense that he is in contact with the population he represents?

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I did not realise that, but it is an interesting fact. The Minister will say that it does not matter, because it is not the job of the PCC to talk to everyone and it is not the job of the PCC to know every community.

Provisions in the Bill put in place the PCC, but do not supersede the existing accountability arrangements. If that is the case, where is the clarity—as the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers has said—in what is supposed to happen? There is none. All the Minister does is make pronouncements. He does not explain to the Committee, “This is what the PCC will do; this is the relationship with local authorities; this is the relationship with local people.” He says, “The PCC will be responsible for the strategic direction of policing in the area.” Frankly, most people will throw their hands up and ask what on earth he is talking about. That is why pilots are important, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak suggested, with big rural forces or an urban force. If the proposal were piloted in areas with a huge force, it would be possible to test it and see whether it was right or wrong.

On Second Reading, the Home Secretary spoke about the PCC and criminal justice. The PCC is responsible for the strategic direction of policing, but what about criminal justice? What is the relationship? Do we need to say anything about what influence the PCC would have? In my experience, some of the dissatisfaction is not because of the police; it is because of the criminal justice system. People have or have not gone to court, something has not happened in court, or something has broken down—and the police get frustrated about that, too. In response, the Home Secretary seemed to say that it was necessary to look at what the relationship would be between the PCC and criminal justice. What are we saying, actually? Again, if the proposal were piloted, we would know whether the establishment of a PCC made a real difference to confidence, with respect to the police, or whether the problem was not with the police, but with the criminal justice system and how that operated.

I would like the Minister, in his response, to talk about the relationship between the PCC and the criminal justice system, and about whether there is clarity that proves there is no need for pilots. We need pilots because, to me, it is clear how totally unclear the Bill is on the relationship between the PCC and police and crime panels. The Minister’s silence is completely deafening. What is the purpose of police and crime panels?

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I have not spoken yet.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I will walk out in a minute, with heckling like that. I cannot stand the abuse. The Minister’s silence, up until this Committee sitting, on the purpose of police and crime panels has been deafening. The provision is unclear. I asked witnesses about the purpose. The Bill says that the purpose is to have a bit of review, a bit of overview, a bit of something—what actually is it? Is it to hold the PCC to account? I cannot answer the question; it is for the Minister to answer. Surely, in a pilot, we could tease that out and see whether there is something in there that makes sense.

I know the Minister gets frustrated with all this, but we are talking about a huge change. The president of ACPO and the police, in their neutrality, have said that the Bill is unclear. The only thing that is clear is its lack of clarity, but we should not make huge changes without clarity. It is perfectly reasonable for me to say, “Pilot something”, in order to test it and see what the consequences will be. The relationship between the PCC and the PCP is not clear, and I will return to it in a minute.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

Is not the real difficulty of police and crime panels, as one of the witnesses suggested, that that process has been developed in parallel? It is becoming apparent that the Government developed the proposal as an afterthought, having realised that putting one commissioner in charge of 2.6 million people would be ludicrous to defend as an exercise in localism and accountability.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

That is absolutely right, which is why there is a lack of clarity about the role of police and crime panels. The provision looks as if it was bolted on to the Bill, because the Government decided to establish police and crime commissioners and, exactly as my hon. Friend has pointed out, then thought: “Goodness me, we will really be attacked over one person looking after a whole area—we need a police and crime panel.” However, the relationship between the commissioners and the panels is unclear.

No doubt, the Minister will tell us that we do not need a pilot, because of what the role of the police and crime panels is vis-à-vis that of the police and crime commissioners. He can say that he is perfectly satisfied that a pilot is not needed, because the way in which the police and crime panel will be able to veto the precept, with the requisite three-quarters majority, is fine. What is the quorum, by the way? It would be interesting to know that, or whether there is no quorum.

In the appointment of the chief constable, the police and crime panel has a veto, with the requisite majority, although we do not know how that will work. Supposing that the police and crime commissioners are established, how will it work if one decides to sack the chief constable? We have no idea of the consequences of that, but we are giving police and crime commissioners the absolute power to do that, and police and crime panels will not have any power of veto. If a police and crime commissioner does not like the chief constable, he will have to go through the various procedures, but in the end that will be his decision. Unless I have read the Bill incorrectly, the police and crime commissioner is omnipotent. I would like the Minister to tell us exactly what the police and crime commissioner’s powers are and, again, whether we need a pilot to test whether there is any danger in the prospect of the police and crime commissioner exercising such powers.

I have spoken at length on those points, but they are real issues relating to why a pilot is needed. It might seem unclear to the Committee what the answers are. It is unclear to me, which is why I am asking such questions. The Minister must give us real clarity in answering many of my points. Another concern is that, as the Bill is drafted, police and crime commissioners may be focused purely on local issues, as we heard in evidence.

I may have misled the Minister. So that he does not correct me for saying something wrong in Committee—I have read the Bill again and I own up if I get something wrong—I think that I said that the police and crime commissioners do not have to have regard to clause 79. After re-reading the Bill, I think that they do.

Will the Minister explain, on the provisions in the Bill on police and crime commissioners and strategic matters, why he thinks that a proper balance will be struck between the local policing requirements and the strategic national policing requirements? Is it not better to test in a pilot whether that is the right way forward? There is a real danger, and we need to see how the system will operate. If somebody is elected on a mandate to pile more police on the street, or to do this or that, we need to see how that will work vis-à-vis a chief constable, who may understand the need for such policies and give them the priorities that they deserve, but who will also want to give priority to sexual violence, counter-terrorism, domestic violence, fraud, economic crime and collaboration with other forces. Do we not need to see how that works, before we allocate all such powers for every single police force in the country? As I have said, we need a pilot to test the local versus the strategic.

On an earlier point about elections, there is a need for pilots to see how they will work. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak talked about the importance of transition. Surely the Minister understands the real nervousness and worry that exist on that matter. Will a pilot not help us to see how the transition from our current arrangements to an elected police and crime commissioner would work?

Everyone can think of their own area. We have a police authority, which exists up until March or April of next year. Perhaps the Minister will tell us when he expects the police authorities to finish. We know that we have the elections in May 2012. What does he expect to happen? The police authority currently sets the budget and the precept, so we need a pilot to see how this will work.

When will the police authority exists until? Perhaps the Minister will tell us when the police authority will end. The election takes place in May 2012. When does the police commissioner take over? What happens to all the staff and resources? Are the staff sacked or do they move on? What happens to all the property, the debt and the various arrangements that the police authority has taken on board? When it comes to the changeover point, will the police authority have to have an account of what the police and crime commissioner wants to do? Again, there is no clarity in this. The Minister can say that he will lay out what should happen in regulation, but surely if we had a pilot we could see whether the system worked or whether it led to confusion.

A pilot would also help us to see how the elections would work. We would see who was prepared to stand, how much interest there was, how many people rushed forward to stand, and whether there is any credence to the worry that extremism may come from the direct elections for police and crime commissioners. The Minister says that we need to trust the people. Surely a pilot would help us to determine whether the concern about extremism carries any weight.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

Would a pilot not allow us to test out the costings of the measure? As far as I am aware, no information has been produced on that. The figure of £50 million appears to have been agreed for the comprehensive spending review. A pilot would enable us to test out whether the costings for the election are accurate, given the variety of areas and sizes of force covered. It would also enable us to find out whether or not people understood the Government’s decision to have a first-past-the-post or an alternative vote system depending on the number of candidates. I personally think that that could be a recipe for confusion.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

My hon. Friend makes a good point as to why there is a need for a pilot. First, we would see how the Minister’s proposed electoral system would work. Secondly, we could test out some of the costings, over which there has been some dispute. We could see whether or not the Minister’s costings are accurate. For example, we know that figures of £50 million and £100 million have been bandied about. Just as an aside, at a time when police officers are being cut, it is amazing that the Government can find money for this. When the Minister responds, he may want to say that there is no need for a pilot, because the costings are absolutely secure. He may lay the figures on the record, so that they can be analysed and scrutinised by everyone.

Let me conclude by saying that at the end of the day, what we all want—I know that the Minister wants this as well—is to see crime reduced even further. We want people to feel safer on the streets and for them to have appropriate and proper influence over policing in their area. On the need for pilots, the Minister is almost messianic in his belief that if we have police and crime commissioners, all those things will be achieved. What the Minister has failed to properly demonstrate in a way that convinces all—or many—of the professionals and interest groups is that he is right and that they are wrong. In saying why he disagrees and disapproves of the pilots, the Minister needs to tell the Committee why he believes that we do not need to test this and why we do not need the pilots.

In arguing against the amendments, the Minister should tell the Committee that having police and crime commissioners will reduce crime, make people feel that they can influence their policing and tackle some of the problems that he says exist. However, the Minister has not made the case. He has asserted the case, but that is a totally different point. I have said this before, and he has heard me say it: he needs to argue the case and not assert it. He is asserting the case for police and crime commissioners against all those people whom I listed at the beginning of my contribution who are against it. He is not arguing the case. All those people have lined up and said that the Minister has got all this wrong. I am saying that he should pilot it and prove it one way or the other, or win the argument. When he responds, I want him to argue the case and not assert it, because all we are getting at the moment is Government assertion, not argument.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

I want to make a couple of brief comments in support of the amendment. My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling is absolutely right. The difficulty with these proposals is the speed with which the Government have approached them. If they are a good idea, it would be perfectly possible for the Minister to take people with him and demonstrate the merits of the proposals. The difficulty that we have in dealing with the legislation is the speed with which it has been introduced, because there is virtually no evidence to support some of the main elements of the proposals. The witness sessions that we had did not do much to support the Government’s case. The difficulty is fundamentally that this has been done too quickly.

The proposals look like change for the sake of change, which is hardly a Conservative philosophy. In fact, one would have thought that that was almost what the Conservative party existed to avoid. However, here the Conservatives are rushing into a radical set of changes—the provision is quite liberal in that respect—without bothering to think through the consequences. I do not know whether the difficulty is that the Bill is an example of coalition thinking, but we would certainly do a greater service to the police and the public if the provision were to proceed at a more rational pace.

I do not—I have not heard a single Minister explain this—understand what the hurry is. So many issues are confronting the police at the moment in terms of funding problems. For example, as part of major changes to the West Midlands police, it has had to undergo an exercise called Project Paragon, which has involved rearranging the basic command units into much larger local policing units in anticipation of some of the funding issues that will arise. The force is currently locked into that cycle of change. On top of that, it has discovered that the funding problems that it will have to contend with are much greater than it had originally been led to believe. The force is now looking at whether there will have to be a Paragon 2, as it tries to accommodate further problems.

That is what the police have to deal with at the moment, and they are doing so in a situation in which, because of the freeze in recruitment, there is already some evidence of rising crime. On Saturday night, we had a major piece in the local Birmingham paper about a police officer reporting a rise in burglary to a local tasking group. He was struggling to deal with it, because of the number of officers lost to the recruitment freeze. Given that, the issue of the Olympics and the continuing problems of terrorism, it seems a funny time to embark on a massive structural change for the police without explaining in more detail how it will work and what it is designed to achieve.

Another thing in the Bill that surprised me is that the London model looks a lot better, at first glance, than the model proposed for the rest of the country. However, the more I read it, the more I cannot understand why such different conclusions are reached for London and for the west midlands. Other than the London Mayor already existing and having certain responsibilities, I am not entirely clear how that decision was arrived at. It seems strange that everyone is required to pay taxes and council tax, and that the Government insist that their interest is accountability—the public having a greater say in policing and accountability for policing—and yet London is being offered a much more democratic model than the rest of the country.

In London, the Mayor is able to influence policing in accordance with all the other concerns of the electorate. He can take such matters into account and give advice. In Birmingham, for example, we could have a powerful directly elected mayor, but he would not be able to influence the police agenda at all, because he would be faced with an equally powerful police and crime commissioner who had all the cards in his hand. That is another example of the Bill not being thought through. That is a reason for pilots—

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley)

I am very glad that is the case.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

My point is that, had we had a pilot, we would have been able to test the London model against a different model for different parts of the country. As it is, we will move full steam ahead into the arrangements and, if there are problems and inconsistencies, they will emerge only once the scheme is up and running, by which time will be either engaged in firefighting or having to live with the consequences of an ill-thought-out proposal.

Similarly, we are not clear what police and crime panels are designed to do. They look like an extra grafted on to the proposals when the Government realised that selling their ideas would be increasingly difficult. It is astonishing how a Government who talk about efficiency, reducing bureaucracy and regulation, and promoting localism have ended up with a situation in which we have an extremely costly police and crime commissioner and, in addition, police and crime panels. Originally, we had a police authority. Now we have an extra layer in the bureaucracy, without any idea what it will cost or what benefit it will bring. Once again, piloting would have allowed us to look at the possible issues.

The final part that we are being asked to support that should have been tested out, and which the Government might come to regret more than anything else, is the introduction of an incredibly complex change in the structure and management of our policing without any idea of the cost. The Government spend every day of the week telling us that they are obsessed by the deficit and with saving money, but we have no idea what the salary of police commissioners will be, whether it will be the same throughout the country and whether it will be based on the number of people whom the commissioners purport to represent. There are no costings.

There has been no attempt to engage the electorate who will be asked to vote on the proposals in whether or not they are a good idea. We know nothing about the pensions. We know nothing about what costs will have to be added for people who are part of the police and crime panels. It could make the reorganisation of the national health service look like small beer. It could turn out to be an extremely costly proposal, which will work entirely against the interests of the public.

Mark Tami (Labour, Alyn and Deeside)

My hon. Friend makes a powerful case for pilots. Although the Government said that they will not have special advisers and so on, is not the experience from directly elected mayors that they collect an ever-growing bureaucracy around them? My hon. Friend is entirely right: we must look at the financial cost, and surely pilots are the best way of doing so.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I know that it came up on Second Reading, but I am not clear what clause 16 is wholly about. My fear is that it could become a consultant’s charter. Obviously, it is exactly the sort of thing that we should test before we get into the full-scale introduction of the plan because no one knows who the people will be, how they will be appointed, what duties they will be appointed to do and, above all, what they will cost. To introduce a radical change to our model of policing without identifying its financial implications and without giving people a chance to understand what the change will mean suggests that the Government do not have much confidence in their own proposals. They do not want pilots, because they do not want people testing out the ideas and looking objectively at what is happening.

That is the fundamental flaw in the Bill, and it is why we should at this stage ask the Minister to think again. If the ideas are good, it should be possible to defend them. If the measure is not a case of simply taking a gamble with the policing of our country, it should be possible for the Minister to justify it. At least he should have no fear of a phased introduction, which will answer some questions as the plans unfold.

Bridget Phillipson (Labour, Houghton and Sunderland South)

I am grateful, Mr Howarth, for the opportunity to serve under your chairmanship. I wish to make a few points, following on from the compelling case put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak, in support of piloting such a fundamental change to policing in England and setting out the dangers.

I genuinely do not understand why the Government are putting forward such an idea. The evidence does not back it up. We have not received evidence to support what they are planning to do. Again, I can only agree with my hon. Friend. It seems to be change for change’s sake. I am not convinced of the benefits of such a provision for local people. Why do we not try pilots first? If local people are so convinced that the measure will improve accountability and the service that they receive from the local police force, let us try it. Let us hear what they say, and we can come back and look at it again.

I wish to refer briefly to the local differences and variations that are important for us to consider. We have not received sufficient clarity about them and I do not consider that the Government have really addressed them. Northumbria force has nearly 1.5 million people in the area, with 16 MPs and 400 councillors. My constituency shares a border with Durham, which has an entirely different police force. It covers a population of about 600,000, seven MPs and 179 councillors. It is not clear that we will see an increase in accountability. What might work in Northumbria, if piloted, might not work in Durham or vice versa. Arguably, such a pilot might work better in a smaller force. A force the size of Northumbria, which stretches from the border with Scotland to Durham covers a huge, geographic area with very different communities—urban, rural and with different needs.

What local people want when policing is being dealt with in their area are solutions to the very local problems that they face, whether it is antisocial behaviour, vandalism or dog fouling I am not convinced that someone who lives in Berwick, Alnwick or Morpeth could sufficiently address the needs of my constituents in Sunderland, and I do not see how that could be arguably an improvement on the system that we have. We have police authorities, imperfect though they are, and local people at least have one representative sitting on those bodies. I would appreciate some clarity regarding the policing and crime panels because I am not convinced that the diversity and geographic breadth will be dealt with by the new system.

If we had a pilot, we could also look at how existing partnership arrangements work. I certainly do not have a clamour of local people saying to me, “I’m desperate for a directly elected commissioner.” They say that they absolutely want solutions to local policing problems, but many of the steps that we have taken in my area address that, with a multi-agency approach. For example, when someone has a problem with an antisocial tenant or a family on an estate that continually causes huge problems, that is dealt with in a co-ordinated way by housing, the local provider, the council and the police. I am concerned that the new arrangements will jeopardise the effective local partnership working that we have in Sunderland.

We need to see the case for the new arrangements. If they work, fantastic, but can we not try them to see if they work, to see whether local people believe that there is an improvement or whether they have less to say than before? At the moment, local people in my area can directly approach their local councillor, and he or she can take the matter, whether it is a particular family or a particular issue—fly-tipping, for example—to a local multi-agency problem-solving group. The groups do not deal exclusively with crime, but with the whole range of problems that an area faces, including crime, the criminal justice system and some issues that people regard as a blight on their lives but are not necessarily crime per se. The councillor who takes the issue forward can ultimately raise it with the police authority; the method is effective. Why, therefore, rush to this hasty, ill-considered approach, which has no support, without considering the damage that it could do to existing local partnership arrangements, particularly on issues that perhaps are less prominent but that really affect people’s lives, for example child protection and domestic and sexual violence? Will the police and crime commissioner be desperate to get votes off the back of fouling and litter, to the detriment of the less visible but incredibly important aspects of policing that sometimes are little understood but make a real difference and, in some families, save lives?

Visibility has been put forward as a reason to move to police and crime commissioners. In its submission to the Home Affairs Committee, Northumbria police authority stated that it carries out surveys of how local people view its work, and that between 2005 and 2010 there was an increase in visibility, in local people being aware of the police authority’s role and of what it could do, and in their feeling that the authority met their needs. If that is the case, why not look at improving the democratic accountability of police authorities, pushing to increase both accountability and visibility, without suddenly moving towards a completely different system? Why not pilot the alternative model of an independent police board that Northumbria police authority put forward in its submission, to see whether that works and whether it is the role that we see for police authorities?

My final point is on cost, and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak has covered the matter well. The cost is not clear, but if, through the pilots, we decide that the benefits outweigh the cost, let us proceed. If local people feel that it makes a difference to their lives and the cost is worth it, let us proceed. However, at a time when my constituents are facing huge cuts to policing budgets and damage could be done to front-line policing, I am not convinced that the change would be a priority for them. We talk about democratic accountability, so why can my constituents not have a say as to whether they would rather the money be wasted on pointless commissioner elections, or be spent on bobbies on the beat, which face being cut? I can tell hon. Members which they would prefer, and it would not be pointless elections.

Through the pilots, we could establish whether the new approach offers value for money, and we cannot establish that now because we do not have accurate costings. The briefing from the House of Commons Library suggests that it could be an additional cost, estimated at £136.5 million over 10 years. In our straitened financial circumstances, I can think of a far better way to spend more than £130 million, and that would be in maintaining front-line policing and the often unseen but very valuable work that police forces do. Before we press ahead, I ask the Government to reconsider and look at the evidence to see whether the new approach offers value for money or whether the solution simply does not fit what they are trying to achieve.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

May I, too, say what a pleasure it is to serve under your able and capable chairmanship, Mr Howarth?

I am a great believer in “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it”. I am at a loss to understand why the Con-Dem Government chose to push forward—or ram forward—this Bill at such an early stage in this Parliament. Consider all the problems that have accrued from the biggest international recession the world has seen since the 1930s, and the economic and social impact that that has had on this and other societies. The Government have chosen to focus on a massive change—the biggest we have seen in policing organisation for decades—and to push it through at speed as a top priority. I am not saying everything in the garden is perfect—there need to be changes at the edges—but if things are not broken, why change them in such a drastic way?

If changes are to be implemented, we should have pilots to monitor the changes. I mentioned the 43 police forces in England and Wales in my earlier intervention. In my constituency in the Vale of Clwyd, we have the North Wales police authority. It is one of the best functioning police authorities in the country. Out of the 376 crime and disorder partnerships in England and Wales, we were the third best in my county of Denbighshire. I fear that the system that we have in north Wales will be upset if a police and crime commissioner is thrust on us. His or her priorities may not be the priorities of my community. I mentioned that the 43 policing authorities are grouped into families. We need pilots on geographical areas. We also need to pilot different models. We should pilot a model that includes a list of things that the commissioner should do. A commissioner should visit other areas—I think we are going to visit that later. The commissioner should ensure that the articulate middle classes, who can read and write sufficiently, will not dominate the time and the agenda of a police and crime commissioner, because those are the people most likely to vote.

We need a pilot in which it is specified that the commissioner must visit every community and listen to them, especially the communities that may not articulate their concerns. In such a pilot, the commissioner would go to the most crime-ridden communities at least two or three times a year and attend to the people verbally and orally rather than in writing. They would go out at grass-roots level to see what those people’s concerns were and address them. If that is not specified, there will be a logical willingness on the part of the police and crime commissioner to go to the communities that elect him.

I fear the implementation of the legislation now—without piloting—at a time of massive economic and possibly social unrest. We have seen the figures today—gross domestic product has fallen by 0.5%. I think we are heading for a second recession, and we all know the consequences of recession—an increase in crime levels, especially among the young. The Government have made other changes—abolishing education maintenance allowances and the future jobs fund—affecting the very cohort that tends towards criminality. Those young people could be tempted to go back to a negative way of life instead of a positive one.

We must consider the timing of the introduction of the legislation and not rush. We need pilots in different geographical areas, using different models so that we can learn which is best. We might have different types of police commissioner and different rules in different areas of the country.

Again, the pace, temper and tone of the measures, which are being rammed down people’s throats without any pilots, will lead to poor legislation. The No. 1 concern of people in my constituency is not the structure or who is at the top; it is who is at the bottom dealing with them and their problems. As Rick Muir of the IPPR articulated in his evidence:

“the public are most concerned about…whether the police are responsive to their concerns. If they ring up, do the police respond quickly? Do the police deal with their problems adequately? The commissioner model does not tackle the whole set of issues around responsiveness, which is key to improving public confidence in the police.”––[Official Report, Police Reform and Social Responsibility Public Bill Committee, 18 January 2011; c. 48, Q58.]

Rick Muir was one of our key witnesses last week. Those are his concerns, and I echo them. If the police do not address issues on the ground, they will not win public confidence. According to Rick Muir, who is an expert on the subject, they do not do so at the moment, so let us tinker around with the system. Let us have pilots—hopefully in my area, if the Committee accepts our amendments—that deal with ensuring that police commissioners go to the communities that need them. The measures are totally rushed and flawed. We might learn from past rushed legislation: legislate in haste and repent at leisure.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I join the hon. Member for Gedling in welcoming you to the Chair of this Committee, Mr Howarth. I welcome hon. Members; I am sure that we are all looking forward immensely to more speeches like the ones that we heard this morning as we scrutinise this important Bill. I am still adjusting to finding myself on this side of the Committee Room. Given the average duration of a Home Office Minister, I suspect that I am at least half way through my tenure as a Minister of the Crown. I will enjoy it while it lasts.

A long time ago, I was sitting in the Public Gallery watching a young, up-and-coming rising star on the Labour Benches debating with the then Secretary of State for the Environment, Michael Howard, who is now Lord Howard of Lympne. The up-and-coming rising star on the Opposition Benches was Tony Blair. I am sure that he was fired by the same passion as the hon. Member for Gedling.

The hon. Gentleman’s case for pilots, which is really a case against police and crime commissioners in general, rested first on the suggestion that there is no crisis. He and other hon. Members asked what problem we are trying to fix. I do not think that hon. Members have understood the importance of our agenda to decentralise power in this country and release the grip of the centre and the Home Office over policing matters that should be local. To do so, we must enhance local accountability. Otherwise, we would effectively be allowing the use of capture.

Although the hon. Gentleman points to falling crime figures as evidence that the system is not broken, he did not attend to the figures showing that in spite of the fact that confidence in the police is rising, which I welcome, it is still too low. Roughly half the public—less than half—do not have confidence in the police. In particular, a recent opinion poll conducted by a reputable consumer research organisation found that one third of those members of the public who come into contact with the police are dissatisfied with their performance. No organisation can be satisfied or complacent with such a level of consumer dissatisfaction. Our contention is that there is an important need to rebuild the bridge between the police and the local public, and having direct accountability for the police, to give the public a greater say, is the right way in which to do so.

So we do not accept that there is nothing broken in the system. The hon. Gentleman did not seem able to make up his mind about whether he supports the status quo—he seems to be having it both ways. At times he seemed to be arguing—and certainly Labour Members argued—that there was nothing wrong with the system. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak has said, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” That has been his repeated line.

We know, however, that when the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) was Home Secretary for that brief and glorious tenure, he said that police authorities were sub-optimal. He conceded that they were not fit for purpose—he failed entirely, of course, to set out how they should be reformed.

Are Labour Members and, in particular, the Opposition spokesman saying that police authorities should be reformed? If he is saying that they should, we are entitled to know how. The force of his criticism of our proposals is affected if he agrees that they need to be reformed but just does not like the way in which we are doing that.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

It is true that I said, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” However, if the Minister was reading the other part, he cannot have missed that I also said:

“I invite any Conservative Member to show me a recent inspection report that raised major concerns about the functioning of police authorities.”—[Official Report, 13 December 2010; Vol. 520, c. 758.]

I am not saying that there are not matters that we could deal with, but there have not been major concerns. The problem is that the measures are too big a solution to a problem that is not clearly identified.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I am happy to answer that directly, and doing so takes me to my next point, because Opposition Front Benchers have also asked who supports the provisions. The first groups of people, whom the hon. Gentleman adduced in evidence of opposition to the measures, are police authorities. It is hardly surprising that police authorities, which the Bill will abolish, are not jumping with joy about the measures. Suggesting that they oppose the measures does not present a strong case.

By the way, that has not stopped a large number of the police authority chairs, who are publicly expressing opposition to the provisions, preparing their run for office as elected police and crime commissioners. Such chairs include two prominent Labour party representatives who chair major Metropolitan police force areas. We look forward to their having the courage publicly to declare that they intend to run.

In response to the point made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak, the problem is that, contrary to what he has said, police authorities are not performing properly. First, they are invisible to the public, so no one knows who the members are. I defy anyone to go to a public police authority meeting and ask people who the chair of their police authority is. I have done so on a number of occasions, and I have never found that people knew who they were. Cabinet Office research in 2008 found that only 7% of the public even know what a police authority does.

Bridget Phillipson (Labour, Houghton and Sunderland South)

I draw the Minister’s attention to a survey that was conducted in 2010 on behalf of Northumbria police authority, which identified that 88% of those surveyed knew about the existence and role of police authorities. Clearly, 88% of those surveyed in my area knew, so I am not clear what his case is.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I would take a close look at that survey evidence. Without pre-judging the issue, if the survey were conducted by Northumbria police authority itself for one of its publications, I wonder whether the authority got the answer that it wanted and how many people responded.

I want to answer the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak on the performance of police authorities, because here is a serious point. In Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and the Audit Commission’s recent survey and study of police authorities, only four out of 22 authorities inspected were performing well in setting strategic direction and ensuring value for money. A careful reading of that report will not lend confidence on either side of the Committee—perhaps underlying the fact that the Opposition do not think that police authorities are fit for purpose—that police authorities, as currently constituted, are capable of doing the job of ensuring effective and efficient policing, which is their statutory duty, at a time when the challenges facing police forces are very great.

Therefore, a second reason to drive forward this reform is that it is important to improve the governance of policing.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

I want to return to the Minister’s point about visibility. He has told us his second reason. His first reason for abolishing police authorities and instituting this paraphernalia is that most people do not know the members of their police authority. I asked a group of constituents on Friday night to name the Conservative home affairs team, but they were unable to do so. I am terribly sorry to report that they were unable to identify the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs, although in fairness they recognised the Home Secretary. Two of them were able to mention another member of the team. On that basis, would it be reasonable to conclude that we need to change the home affairs team, because it clearly has a visibility problem?

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I am wounded by the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. Were I to be allowed to remain in office for years, that position could be improved. If the public were asked to name their local MP, particularly long-standing and distinguished MPs, as we see facing us—I cannot count myself among that number—I think that the recognition would be much greater. Survey evidence backs that up. People know their local MP; they know how to get hold of them; and ultimately they have a choice whether to keep them in office.

That takes me to my next point. The Opposition’s case seems to be that the public did not want these positions. According to the Opposition, there was no demand for police and crime commissioners. However, in the survey evidence we know that there is a demand for greater democratic accountability for policing. The public are quite clear about that. It would be surprising if there were not demand for a greater say.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

Will the Minister name the survey and who paid for it?

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

Yes, the survey was conducted by the Association of Police Authorities, which cannot be charged with having an interest in that outcome. I am particularly grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s previous intervention. The survey was conducted by Ipsos MORI, a reputable polling firm. It found that 68% of the public like the idea of better and democratic accountability for policing.

All credit to the APA for publishing that survey result, even though it certainly did not support its case. My judgment is—

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I would not have another, if I were you. My judgment is that the public want a greater say over policing in their area, which can be achieved in lots of ways. It can be achieved through the greater development of community and neighbourhood policing, which was an important development under the previous Government, as I have always said, and one we must seek to protect. It can be achieved through the beat meetings that we have committed to in our coalition agreement, to ensure that the police have regular meetings with the public. All the forces which I talk to understand the importance of that. In the end, we have to answer the questions of who is going to hold forces to account and what say the public should directly have in that.

I do not believe that we differ from the Opposition to the extent that the hon. Member for Gedling has suggested, because, when he asked me who supports the principle, he implied that the policy is absolutely friendless and that nobody supports it. I want to adduce the support of somebody whose backing for the policy of direct accountability for policing I particularly value. It is somebody whom I am sure that the Committee will grow to love and respect. It is the hon. Member for Gedling, who, just two years ago, said that

“only direct election, based on geographic constituencies, will deliver the strong connection to the public which is critical.”

He went on to say that

“under the current system, 93 per cent of the country has no direct, elected representation. This is why we have proposed the Green Paper model; so that people know who to go to and are able to influence their policing through the ballot box.”

That was two years ago.

It was a different form of direct accountability, but it was direct accountability, which, of course, the hon. Gentleman did not mention in his speech. The previous Government twice proposed a form of direct accountability for policing, and they dropped it twice. They did not even pilot it. They simply encountered opposition and ran out of nerve. That is the wrong approach.

The Government share the view that police authority governance needs to be changed and that this democratic form of accountability is important. The difference is that we are determined to see it through. That is why we will not be derailed by the suggestion that there should be a pilot, because the real reason for that is not that Opposition Members think that it is a good idea. They did not really make a good case for it. Their entire case rested on opposition to this form of accountability, yet we know that, just a couple of years ago, they were standing up and proposing it. How convenient it is for them to have changed their minds so quickly.

We need, therefore, to reflect on the fact that the public have already had their say to this extent. It is an established principle in this country that, when political parties stand for office and place policy proposals in their manifestos, they are entitled to implement their programme. That is what the public expect. Indeed, there is a great row if parties do not implement their manifesto policies. [Interruption.]

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley)

Order.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

If hon. Members are patient, they will hear my point.

The Conservative party had a manifesto commitment to introduce directly elected individuals to replace police authorities.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

You did not win.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

The Liberal Democrats had a commitment to introduce directly elected police authorities, and that has been shaped into a coalition agreement to have directly elected police and crime commissioners subject to strict checks and balances. This is a perfectly straightforward point, and I am amazed that hon. Members are so astonished, as though this is news to them. It is important that they understand it. There is a dual mandate, from both parties, to have greater accountability in policing. We have two parties saying in their manifestos that there should be democratic accountability in policing, and another party, which twice proposed it before giving up when it ran into opposition.

It was in our manifestos that there should be greater democratic accountability. It is also in the coalition agreement, and that is why we are proceeding with the policy.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

Before the Minister leaves that point, I want to say that that was about as tenuous as one can get. First, will he accept that the parties stood on different manifestos? The Conservative party wanted directly elected individuals. It is reasonable to suppose that, if one voted Conservative, that is what one was voting for. If one voted Lib Dem, one was voting for a different form of election altogether.

Secondly, is it not also the case that, if the responsibility of parties is to implement their manifestos, the proposal is flawed, because it was not in either manifesto in the form that the coalition now proposes? The problem is that the coalition has come up with a new plan that was not subject to any electoral mandate.

I notice, by the way, that Opposition Members were not opposing the idea of police and crime panels outright. They were merely sniping at the policy, saying that they did not know what the PCPs were for. No doubt we will debate that later. The checks and balances are important.

I want to deal with a couple of the other points that hon. Members made along the way. The issue of Wales was introduced by the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd. Policing is a reserved matter. It is the responsibility of the Home Office to oversee policing in England and Wales. Nevertheless, we have taken great care to seek to protect the Welsh devolution arrangements in relation to wider community safety matters, which are devolved. I have therefore had several meetings, as have officials in my Department, with the Welsh Assembly Government and Ministers, to seek to reach an agreement that respects the particular position in Wales.

Mark Tami (Labour, Alyn and Deeside)

Were they in favour of elected police commissioners?

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

The Ministers in the Welsh Assembly Government are loyal Labour members and toeing the current party line, which is to oppose this form of democratic accountability. I do not know what their view is about the previous two Labour party lines. The Welsh Assembly Government Minister, Carl Sargeant, has been quite open about the fact that he does not support the policy. He recognises, as I do, that if the policy is going to be introduced—

Mark Tami (Labour, Alyn and Deeside)

Answer the question.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I have answered the hon. Member; there is no need for him to barrack.

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley)

Order. I have been trying to allow some latitude on sedentary interventions, but it is getting a little out of hand. Conducting our proceedings in good order needs to be in the forefront of everyone’s mind from now on.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I am grateful for your protection from the unbridled barracking from the Opposition Whip, Mr Howarth. I repeat that I have no problem agreeing that Carl Sargeant does not support the policy on police and crime commissioners, but we have been having sensible discussions about how these arrangements should apply to Wales—I wanted to reassure the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd about that. They include ensuring that a Welsh Assembly Government representative is appointed to the police and crime panel. I hope that, even though he does not agree with the policy, he will concede that we have been respectful in the way in which we have sought to address the issues around the devolved arrangement with Wales.

I want to remind the hon. Member for Gedling of what two of the people who gave evidence to the Committee said last week, since he mentioned their contribution. First, I do not agree that it was overwhelmingly the view of those who gave evidence that police and crime commissioners were a bad idea. I heard the two academics speak broadly in support of the idea of greater local accountability, albeit with reservations about this particular model. I heard a powerful intervention from the victims’ commissioner on the importance of building that bridge between the police and the public and representing the views of victims. I also note that the chairman of the Police Federation, who wisely kept out of the debate on how governance of policing might be changed, said that in his experience pilots were only precursors to the actuality of the reform and that they were a cause for delay—I agree with that. I also strongly agree with the victims’ commissioner, Louise Casey, who said that rather than running pilot schemes,

“People should be throwing their weight behind”

the reform

“to make sure that we get it right”.––[Official Report, Police Reform and Social Responsibility Public Bill Committee, 18 January 2011; c. 6, Q5.]

That would be a better focus. We should not confuse arguments against the reform as a whole with arguments against the pilot schemes.

Transitional arrangements were raised. I want to reassure hon. Members that we are fully addressing the transition. I am chairing a transition board, on which there are representatives from police authorities and chief constables. The Bill provides for transitions, and we shall deal with those when we reach the relevant debate.

I do not think that the transition argument is one that merits our having pilots, but I want to make this broad point. In a sense, we have already had a pilot, which took place in London. It seems to me that the introduction of the Mayor in London, with responsibility for the governance of policing, was a good policy, and it was one that, I remind Labour Members, they proposed when in government and hon. Members on this side, or at least Conservative Members, opposed. I think that we were wrong to do so. The policy has been a success. Londoners like it. They like the greater say that they have over policing, and I am sure that they would not want to reverse it. In addition, we have learned lots of lessons from the way in which policing governance has changed in London. I would argue, in response to the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Gedling that we are discussing an untried model, that to an extent it has been tried in London and therefore we can safely roll it out across the country.

I want to respond to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak, who said that it would not be possible for a single individual to represent the electors in the west midlands, because the West Midlands force would cover 2 million electors—he did not say that, but I am telling him that that is the number. I do not think that he would support the break-up of the West Midlands force into smaller units, so we have the situation in which the force is that big, and the chief constable has to work across that number of electors.

However, the Mayor of London has responsibility for policing with a far bigger electorate than any of the other force areas, even the big mets in the rest of England. He has responsibility for 5.6 million electors. I do not think that those electors feel disconnected from the Mayor and unable to express their point of view. We know that the volume of complaints to the Mayor increased. Therefore, simply citing the number and suggesting that it means that the individual cannot get around all those people completely misses the point. The direct line of accountability gives the public the knowledge that they have someone to whom they can go, who will answer to them. The reason why that person will answer to them is that they are elected and responsive. We should not be quite so disparaging of the idea that they will be elected. I rather disagreed, if I may say so, with the tone of the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South, who talked about pointless elections and a waste. We need to be careful not to show contempt for the electorate in this respect.

I believe that the public can be trusted, that they do know best—that point was made—and we can trust them by giving them the say in these elections. Were we not to proceed on a national basis, we would potentially create an uneven pattern across the country. That would prejudice a very important component of the reform, which I want hon. Members to understand. This is an exchange. We are seeking to reduce the burden of direction on police forces from the centre—from the Home Office and from others—and to do that, we have to exchange it for stronger local accountability. My concern is that if we reduced that burden without stronger local accountability, we would allow an element of producer capture. It would make the police more remote from the people, not less; it would give the people less of a say, not more, and it would therefore be a great mistake.

For all the reasons that I have given, I believe that it would be a mistake to accept the Opposition amendments. Hon. Members made many particular points that we shall come to later, because they relate to the detail of the Bill. We can certainly talk about the potential future role for police and crime commissioners and the criminal justice system, but that would not be picked up in a pilot because it will evolve over time anyway.

I absolutely disagree that the relationship between police and crime commissioners and police and crime panels is unclear. These are important checks and balances. The functions are set out in clause 28 and we can debate those properly at the relevant time. The provision is all about giving local authorities a voice. Individual local authorities in an area such as Northumbria will have a stake in the governance of policing because the unitaries that are, for example, in Northumberland will each have a representative on the police and crime panel. That answers the point about the extent to which we can ensure that those who are responsible for the governance of policing have a connection with the local area. That is one of the reasons why the developments on police and crime panels are important.

I disagree that police and crime commissioners will solely focus on local issues, although it will be a good thing if they do so and respond to local concerns. We are proposing that there will be strategic policing plans, for which the police and crime commissioner must hold the chief constables to account. That will reflect national and strategic policing priorities. I strongly disagree that there is a problem with the idea that extremists will stand. That is a complete red herring and I am happy to debate that any time. The idea was shot down in terms by Opposition Members when they were in government and made their own proposals for these elections. If we consider the performance of the British National party at the last general election or in local elections, it shows that it could not possibly poll sufficient votes to gain a constituency of the size that police and crime commissioners would be standing for, which would have a minimum of 400,000 electors. That is simply not a good argument and we should be wary about even airing it and giving it publicity because it does not deserve it.

The hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd said that he feared that the articulate middle classes would dominate the agenda of police and crime commissioners. Let me say this to him in response. It is true that crime affects the poorest in our society disproportionately. Hon. Members on my side and I are motivated to introduce this reform by a real concern about levels of crime and a desire to ensure that they are reduced because they particularly impact on the poorest. My driving ambition is to secure a better performance for the poorest in society. I do not accept that police and crime commissioners would behave in a way that ignores their constituents, any more than hon. Members ignore constituents in parts of their constituency just because they think that they did not vote for them. We can disagree about the effectiveness of the provisions and the merits of pilots.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I am going to end. I say to Labour Members that they should not misunderstand or misconstrue our motives. Our motives for introducing this reform are to ensure a better fight against crime and to help the poorest.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

To start with the last point, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak did not question any individual Committee member’s desire to reduce crime. Everyone accepts that the Government want to do that. No one thinks that the Government are deliberately introducing a reform that will worsen the situation. My hon. Friend’s point was that he believes that the opposite will be the case. It is a bit unfair—and uncharacteristic—of the Minister to suggest that my hon. Friend was saying that the intention of any Committee member was to worsen the situation, or that he was questioning anyone’s motives. That was not my hon. Friend’s intention.

May I deal with some of the points on pilots? I just want to say good luck to the right hon. Gentleman. I was in the Home Office for a few years, so we will see whether he lasts longer than me. I was trying to work out how long I was there, but I cannot remember.

James Brokenshire (Conservative, Old Bexley and Sidcup)

Three years.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

Three years was it. I walked out rather than being carried out, which is always a good sign for the Home Office. That is the other thing the right hon. Gentleman ought to aspire to.

I shall make a couple of points. First, in defence of myself on the mandate point, interestingly, I did what I am accusing the right hon. Gentleman of not doing. When I met with universal disapproval not just from self-interested parties but from a range of different bodies, I listened to what they said and was convinced by their arguments. The right hon. Gentleman does not believe in pilots, because he believes that he knows better and that the reform will make a difference. I was convinced by people that, notwithstanding the point that I had made, I did not know better. People change their minds.

I am slightly concerned that sometimes in politics we do not listen and change our minds when the evidence is put before us—we all do it and then we all get criticised for it. Then, when we change our minds, that is described as a weakness. All of us should reflect on that, because if that is the case nobody will ever change their mind or speak their mind, because all they will be worried about is what is said in the future.

If I ever get back into the position that the right hon. Gentleman is in, there are two things that I would not do. The first would be not to use things that people have said in different circumstances against them, because I realise now how things change and how people take different points of view. The second thing relates to pilots. The right hon. Gentleman was in opposition as we are now in opposition. Now that we are in opposition it is clear to me, having drafted the amendments on pilots, that any Opposition of any type or party need more resources to do their job than they get at the present time. I just want to put that on the record, because it is quite an important point.

I am absolutely astonished by the right hon. Gentleman. To be fair to him, he is usually intellectually rigorous, but the idea that the Government got a mandate from the British people at the last election to introduce commissioners—one individual who is directly elected—is complete and utter nonsense. [Interruption.] We lost the election; someone just said, “You lost”. Absolutely, we did lose. However, the Conservative party did not win and neither did the Liberal Democrat party. It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman to say that they cobbled together a deal after the election to come to an agreement about directly elected commissioners being a single individual, but to use the argument that he used—that the British people voted for what he is proposing—is simply and utterly not the case at all. So to pray in aid the British people for this reform is frankly absolutely astonishing and I am amazed by it.

We want pilots and the right hon. Gentleman responded to the issue of pilots, but again it was all high-level stuff, saying, “We are looking at what the transition will mean, we will look at what the accountability arrangements will be, we are looking at and trying to understand”—it is all about having high-powered arrangements in place to look at what the arrangements should be. They are not actually answers. The clarity that each and every one of the stakeholders is demanding was not there at all in the Minister’s answers. It was the stock-in-trade answer, “Yeah, that’s a fair point to make and we’re working on it”.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well what I said. I said that he was raising specific points that relate to later clauses in the Bill and we will come to them and debate them, whether they are about the police and crime panels or transition arrangements. I was simply avoiding going outside what I think are the terms of the debate on these amendments, which are about pilots, and being drawn into a discussion that—assuming we ever get there—we will have later in the Committee.

Before I sit down, I ask the hon. Gentleman to respond to a point that I made. Since his party agree that police authority governance is sub-optimal, what are his proposals to improve it?

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

Mr Howarth, you would rule me out of order if I went on to the next group of amendments. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman has prepared at great length for the next group of amendments. In that group, we have put forward an alternative model of police authority governance for consideration by the Committee. We actually laid amendments that produced another model. My hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South also talked about Northumbria being willing to host another pilot. All I am saying is that we have proposed an alternative. I am astonished that the hon. Gentleman has accused me of not laying an alternative, because we laid an alternative specifically so that he could not say that we have not laid an alternative; yet he now accuses me of not laying an alternative. We have tabled a shed-load of amendments that detail a different model, and we will consider those in the next group.

I am, again, astonished that the hon. Gentleman has frankly trashed the police authorities by saying, “Well, they’re police authorities. What do you expect them to say?” With his own police authority, and with the police authority of every hon. Member, one could argue, putting one’s views to one side, that, because the police authority has a vested interest and argues against this reform, pilots are not necessary. Why would turkeys vote for Christmas? My police authority is made up of dedicated people who have spent years working in policing, and they are sincere and genuine in their belief that this is a bad reform.

I asked the hon. Gentleman to reflect when he argued against pilots. It is fair enough to say that he does not agree with police authorities, but it is not fair to go on to say, as he did, “Well, they would disagree with the Government’s proposals.” On reflection he might concede that they are more sincere and genuine in their opposition than that.

With these amendments on pilots we are seeking to address some of the issues with PCCs and some of the issues that will come up later in the Bill. The Minister is quite right to say that we will be listening very carefully, because he has now said that he will not answer the points here about transition, cost, elections, collaboration, and other such things, because they will come up as we go through the Bill. We will look very carefully at that. With the reassurance that the Minister has given us that we will deal with some of those issues and address some of the specific points that I have made, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I beg to move amendment 82, in clause 1, page 1, line 7, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘commissioner’s office’.

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 83, in clause 1, page 1, line 9, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘commissioner’s office’.

Amendment 84, in clause 1, page 1, line 10, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘commissioner’s office’.

Amendment 85, in clause 1, page 1, line 11, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘commissioner’s office’.

Amendment 86, in clause 1, page 1, line 11, at end insert—

Amendment 87, in clause 28, page 20, line 9, leave out subsection (1).

Amendment 107, in clause 1, page 2, line 1, leave out subsection (5) and insert—

Amendment 108, in clause 1, page 2, line 6, leave out subsections (6) to (9).

Amendment 167, in clause 84, page 52, line 12, leave out ‘local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 168, in clause 84, page 52, line 18, leave out ‘local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 169, in clause 84, page 52, line 18, leave out ‘body’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 170, in clause 85, page 53, leave out lines 8 and 9.

Amendment 171, in clause 85, page 53, line 15, leave out ‘local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 172, in clause 85, page 53, line 16, leave out ‘body’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 173, in clause 85, page 53, line 18, leave out ‘local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 174, in clause 85, page 53, line 20, leave out ‘body’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 175, in clause 85, page 53, line 21, leave out ‘local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 176, in clause 90, page 56, line 7, leave out ‘policing bodies’ and insert ‘police and crime panels’.

Amendment 177, in clause 90, page 56, line 9, leave out ‘policing bodies’ and insert ‘police and crime panels’.

Amendment 178, in clause 90, page 56, leave out lines 14 to 18 and insert—

Amendment 179, in clause 90, page 56, line 23, leave out ‘policing body’ and insert ‘police and crime panel’.

Amendment 180, in clause 90, page 56, line 25, leave out ‘policing body’ and insert ‘police and crime panel’.

Amendment 181, in clause 90, page 56, line 27, leave out ‘policing body’ and insert ‘police and crime panel’.

Amendment 182, in clause 90, page 56, line 28, leave out ‘policing body’ and insert ‘police and crime panel’.

Amendment 183, in clause 90, page 56, leave out lines 31 and 32 and insert—

Amendment 184, in clause 90, page 56, line 35, leave out ‘policing body’ and insert ‘police and crime panel’.

Amendment 185, in clause 90, page 56, line 42, leave out ‘policing body’ and insert ‘police and crime panel’.

Amendment 186, in clause 90, page 57, line 5, leave out ‘policing body’ and insert ‘police and crime panel’.

Amendment 187, in clause 90, page 57, line 6, leave out ‘policing body’ and insert ‘police and crime panel’.

Amendment 188, in clause 90, page 57, leave out line 9 and insert ‘policing and crime panel or members of the staff of that panel, or’.

Amendment 189, in clause 90, page 57, line 10, leave out ‘policing body’ and insert ‘police and crime panel’.

Amendment 190, in clause 90, page 57, line 43, leave out ‘policing bodies’ and insert ‘police and crime panels’.

Amendment 191, in clause 94, page 60, line 40, leave out ‘commissioners’ and insert ‘panels’.

Amendment 192, in clause 95, page 61, line 10, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 193, in clause 102, page 63, line 25, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 194, in clause 102, page 63, line 30, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 195, in clause 102, page 63, line 31, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 196, in clause 102, page 65, line 5, leave out ‘commissioner’s’ and insert ‘panel’s’.

Amendment 197, in clause 102, page 65, line 7, leave out ‘commissioner’s’ and insert ‘panel’s’.

Amendment 198, in clause 102, page 65, line 8, leave out ‘commissioner’s’ and insert ‘panel’s’.

Amendment 222, in clause 36, page 25, line 9, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panels’.

Amendment 223, in clause 36, page 25, line 11, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panels’.

Amendment 224, in clause 36, page 25, line 13, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panels’.

Amendment 225, in clause 36, page 25, line 16, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panels’.

Amendment 226, in clause 39, page 26, line 11, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 227, in clause 39, page 26, line 14, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 228, in clause 40, page 26, line 31, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 229, in clause 41, page 27, line 34, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 230, in clause 38, page 25, line 32, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 267, in clause 38, page 25, line 34, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 271, in clause 38, page 25, line 36, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 312, page 122, line 7 [Schedule 7], after ‘must provide for’, insert ‘the remaining members of’.

Amendment 313, page 122, line 10 [Schedule 7], at end insert ‘the remaining members of’.

Amendment 314, page 122, line 18 [Schedule 7], at end insert ‘the remaining members of’.

Amendment 335, in clause 5, page 5, line 6, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 336, in clause 5, page 5, line 8, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 337, in clause 5, page 5, line 10, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 338, in clause 5, page 5, line 12, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 339, in clause 5, page 5, line 13, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 340, in clause 5, page 5, line 17, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 341, in clause 5, page 5, line 21, leave out paragraphs (c) to (f).

Amendment 342, in clause 5, page 5, line 26, leave out subsection (7).

Amendment 343, in clause 5, page 5, line 29, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 344, in clause 5, page 5, line 31, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 345, in clause 5, page 5, line 33, leave out paragraph (b) and insert—

Amendment 346, in clause 5, page 5, line 39, leave out ‘commissioner who’ and insert ‘panel which’.

Amendment 347, in clause 5, page 6, line 6, leave out subsection (12) and insert—

Amendment 348, in clause 5, page 6, line 13, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 349, in clause 7, page 7, line 35, leave out ‘elected local policing body’s’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’s’.

Amendment 350, in clause 7, page 7, line 38, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 351, in clause 7, page 7, line 41, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 352, in clause 7, page 7, line 45, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 353, in clause 7, page 8, line 1, leave out from beginning to end of line 3 and insert—

Amendment 354, in clause 7, page 8, line 9, leave out ‘elected local policing bodies’ and insert ‘local police and crime panels’.

Amendment 355, in clause 7, page 8, line 12, leave out ‘elected local policing bodies’ and insert ‘local police and crime panels’.

Amendment 356, in clause 7, page 8, line 14, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 357, in clause 8, page 9, line 2, leave out subsection (1) and insert—

Amendment 358, in clause 8, page 9, line 8, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 359, in clause 8, page 9, line 14, after ‘person’, insert ‘or panel’.

Amendment 360, in clause 8, page 9, line 16, after ‘person’, insert ‘or panel’.

Amendment 361, in clause 9, page 9, line 26, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 362, in clause 9, page 9, line 28, leave out from second ‘the’ to end of line 30 and insert ‘local police and crime panel will secure, or contribute to securing, crime and disorder reduction in the panel’s area.’.

Amendment 363, in clause 9, page 9, line 31, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 364, in clause 9, page 9, line 33, leave out body’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 365, in clause 10, page 9, line 35, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 366, in clause 10, page 9, line 39, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 367, in clause 10, page 10, line 6, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 368, in clause 11, page 10, line 29, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 369, in clause 11, page 10, line 35, leave out from beginning to end of line 38 and insert—

Amendment 370, in clause 11, page 10, line 43, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 371, in clause 11, page 10, line 45, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 372, in clause 11, page 11, line 1, leave out ‘body’s’ and insert ‘panel’s’.

Amendment 373, in clause 12, page 11, line 4, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 374, in clause 12, page 11, line 6, leave out ‘body’s’ and insert ‘panel’s’.

Amendment 375, in clause 12, page 11, line 8, leave out ‘body’s’ and insert ‘panel’s’.

Amendment 376, in clause 12, page 11, line 9, leave out subsections (2) to (7).

Amendment 377, in page 11, line 26, leave out Clause 13.

Amendment 378, in clause 14, page 12, line 17, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 379, in clause 14, page 12, line 21, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 380, in clause 14, page 12, line 34, leave out ‘body’ and insert ‘and crime panel’.

Amendment 381, in clause 14, page 12, line 39, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 382, in clause 14, page 12, line 45, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 383, in clause 15, page 13, line 6, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 384, in clause 15, page 13, line 9, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 385, in clause 15, page 13, line 10, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 386, in clause 16, page 13, line 17, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 387, in clause 16, page 13, line 19, leave out ‘body’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 388, in clause 16, page 13, line 21, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 389, in clause 17, page 13, line 26, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 390, in clause 17, page 13, line 27, leave out ‘body’s’ and insert ‘panel’s’.

Amendment 391, in clause 17, page 13, line 28, leave out subsections (2) to (4).

Amendment 392, in clause 18, page 14, line 2, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 393, in clause 18, page 14, line 3, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 394, in clause 18, page 14, line 4, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 395, in clause 18, page 14, line 17, leave out paragraphs (c) and (d).

Amendment 396, in clause 18, page 14, line 25, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 397, in clause 18, page 14, line 27, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 398, in clause 21, page 16, line 30, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 399, in clause 21, page 16, line 32, leave out ‘elected local policing body’s’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’s’.

Amendment 400, in clause 21, page 16, line 34, leave out ‘elected local policing body’s’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’s’.

Amendment 401, in clause 21, page 16, line 36, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 402, in clause 21, page 16, line 40, leave out ‘elected local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 403, in clause 21, page 16, line 41, leave out ‘body’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 404, in clause 22, page 17, line 6, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 405, in clause 22, page 17, line 7, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 406, in clause 22, page 17, line 8, leave out ‘commissioner’s’ and insert ‘panel’s’.

Amendment 407, in clause 22, page 17, line 12, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 408, in clause 22, page 17, line 17, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 409, in clause 22, page 17, line 18, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 410, in clause 24, page 18, line 2, leave out ‘commissioners’ and insert ‘panels’.

Amendment 411, in clause 24, page 18, line 4, leave out ‘commissioners’ and insert ‘panels’.

Amendment 412, in clause 24, page 18, line 5, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 413, in clause 24, page 18, line 6, leave out ‘commissioners’ and insert ‘panels’.

Amendment 414, in clause 24, page 18, leave out line 8 and insert ‘different panels or different classes of panel.’.

Amendment 415, in clause 24, page 18, line 9, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 416, in clause 24, page 18, line 15, leave out ‘commissioner’s’ and insert ‘panel’s’.

Amendment 417, in clause 24, page 18, line 16, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 418, in clause 24, page 18, line 17, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 419, in clause 25, page 18, line 24, leave out ‘commissioners’ and insert ‘panels’.

Amendment 420, in clause 25, page 18, line 32, leave out ‘commissioners’ and insert ‘panels’.

Amendment 421, in clause 25, page 18, line 41, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 422, in clause 25, page 19, line 2, leave out ‘local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 423, in clause 25, page 19, line 4, leave out ‘local policing body’ and insert ‘local police and crime panel’.

Amendment 424, in clause 25, page 19, line 8, leave out ‘commissioners’ and insert ‘panels’.

Amendment 425, in clause 25, page 19, line 11, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 426, in clause 25, page 19, line 12, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 427, in clause 25, page 19, line 15, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 428, in clause 25, page 19, line 16, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 429, in clause 25, page 19, line 17, leave out ‘commissioner’s’ and insert ‘panel’s’.

Amendment 430, in clause 25, page 19, line 19, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 431, in clause 25, page 19, line 20, leave out ‘commissioner’s’ and insert ‘panel’s’.

Amendment 432, in clause 25, page 19, line 22, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 433, in clause 25, page 19, line 23, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 434, in clause 26, page 19, line 29, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 435, in clause 26, page 19, line 32, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 436, in clause 27, page 19, line 40, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 437, in clause 27, page 20, line 4, leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 520, page 103, line 5 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘police and crime commissioners’ and insert ‘police and crime panels’.

Amendment 521, page 103, line 11 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘police and crime commissioners’ and insert ‘police and crime panels’.

Amendment 522, page 103, line 12 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘police and crime commissioner’ and insert ‘police and crime panel’.

Amendment 523, page 103, line 14 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘commissioner’s’ and insert ‘panel’s’.

Amendment 524, page 103, line 19 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘police and crime commissioner’ and insert ‘police and crime panel’.

Amendment 525, page 103, line 27 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘police and crime commissioner’ and insert ‘police and crime panel’.

Amendment 526, page 103, line 32 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘police and crime commissioner’ and insert ‘police and crime panel’.

Amendment 527, page 104, line 1 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘commissioner’s’ and insert ‘panel’s’.

Amendment 528, page 104, line 2 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘commissioner’s’ and insert ‘panel’s’.

Amendment 529, page 104, line 4 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘commissioner’s’ and insert ‘panel’s’.

Amendment 530, page 104, line 5 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘commissioner’s’ and insert ‘panel’s’.

Amendment 531, page 104, line 6 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘police and crime commissioner’ and insert ‘police and crime panel’.

Amendment 532, page 104, line 7 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 533, page 104, line 8 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘commissioner’ and insert ‘panel’.

Amendment 534, page 104, line 10 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘police and crime commissioner’ and insert ‘police and crime panel’.

Amendment 535, page 104, line 13 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘police and crime commissioner’ and insert ‘police and crime panel’.

Amendment 536, page 104, line 16 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘commissioner’s’ and insert ‘panel’s’.

Amendment 537, page 104, line 22 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘police and crime commissioner’ and insert ‘police and crime panel’.

Amendment 538, page 104, line 26 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘police and crime commissioner’ and insert ‘police and crime panel’.

Amendment 539, page 104, line 27 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘commissioner’s’ and insert ‘panel’s’.

Amendment 540, page 104, line 32 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘commissioner’s’ and insert ‘panel’s’.

Amendment 541, page 104, line 33 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘commissioner’s’ and insert ‘panel’s’.

Amendment 542, page 104, line 37 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘police and crime commissioner’ and insert ‘police and crime panel’.

Amendment 543, page 105, line 2 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘police and crime commissioners’ and insert ‘police and crime panels’.

Amendment 544, page 105, line 4 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘a person who is a police and crime commissioner’ and insert ‘a police and crime panel member’.

Amendment 545, page 105, line 6 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘commissioner’s’ and insert ‘panel’s’.

Amendment 546, page 105, line 8 [Schedule 1], leave out ‘police and crime commissioner’ and insert ‘police and crime panel’.

Amendment 547, page 104, line 6 [Schedule 1], leave out subsection (2) and insert—

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

For the convenience of the Committee, many of the amendments in this huge pile are consequential amendments. At its heart, this group seeks to replace the model of a single person being responsible for the role that the Minister envisages for the PCC. The fundamental point is to make the PCC the chair of the PCP. The PCC would still be directly elected, but the PCC would be encapsulated with the PCP. In other words, those two bodies would be merged. The Minister could, of course, keep the two separate and enhance the role of the PCP, but through this set of amendments we seek to address the concerns that people have with one person being responsible for the police commissioner role for the whole of an area. The model is a positive one.

I hesitate to quote police authorities whose opinions the Minister is not certain about, but Avon and Somerset police authority has said:

“Given the size, complexity, and diverse nature of the Avon and Somerset area, we have concerns that a single individual will be able to sensibly act as PCC”.

The Cheshire police authority has stated:

“The role is clearly too important and large for one person to perform”.

The Greater Manchester police authority is

“opposed to the proposal that the oversight and scrutiny of individual police forces by one Person”,

and the Lancashire police authority has noted:

“It is the strong view of Members that the role is unworkable for one individual.”

The West Yorkshire police authority also strongly opposes directly elected individuals, and so it goes on.

Moreover, I know that the big society is in trouble, but the House of Commons Library research paper on police reform and social responsibility shows the results of a big society survey. It asked half of the participants whether they supported the following statement:

“Currently the general public do not directly vote people on to the police authority. One suggestion that has been made is to replace these authorities with a directly-elected individual who would be responsible for setting the priorities for the local police force and would be accountable to local people.”

In response, 40% expressed support for that statement, 26% were opposed and 33% were either neutral or answered “Don’t know”.

The other half of the participants were asked the same question, but with the addition of the following sentence:

“However, some senior police officers say they are worried this will bring politics into the running of police forces.”

In response, 32% expressed support for that version of the statement, 37% were opposed and 32% were either neutral or answered “Don’t know”. Again, that is hardly a ringing endorsement of the Minister’s proposals.

Finally, Devon and Cornwall police authority—I do not want my examples of police authorities to be dominated by big, northern conurbations—has said that it will be the responsibility of the PCC to both collect and represent the views of all those people living within the force area, but how can that possibly be done by one person? How can one person sitting in, for example, Exeter, represent the views of a community in west Cornwall?

The amendment addresses that particular problem. Such areas are too big for one individual to act as the police and crime commissioner. However, if we made them a chair of the police and crime panel, that would start to address the problem. They would chair a panel of representatives that, according to the Government’s proposals, will be composed of at least one person from each of the local authorities in the police force area. Every single authority at every single level would therefore have one person on the panel. It will have a minimum of 10, or more if there are more local authorities within the area, plus two independent members who will be co-opted on to it.

One of the criticisms of the Minister’s proposals is that one person cannot cover the whole area, but linking the directly elected individual to the police and crime panel—I am trying to help the Minister—would maintain direct election and that person would still be responsible to the whole of the area through the ballot box. They are linked in to each of the areas—across, say, Devon and Cornwall, Wales, West Yorkshire, Merseyside and so on—much more tightly through the police and crime panel and the representative on that panel.

The Minister has asked me for an alternative and I am offering him one. It goes some way towards the direct election that the Minister wants, but also—particularly in amendment 107—helps to ensure that there is the local linkage that is so important, which my hon. Friends have mentioned. That proposal merits consideration, because it overcomes a number of problems, in particular how the services of local authorities, which are so important to the reduction and prevention of crime, will relate to the work of the police and crime commissioner. That is totally unclear to me in the Bill. If, instead of being a stand-alone figure, the PCC is part of the police and crime panel they will be able to talk to each of those local authority individuals who are part of the PCP. They will be able to discuss what is happening in their area and what needs to be done with respect to the services that are being provided, and they will be able to make a real difference there. A real concern is how the PCC will link to the local services, but my proposal overcomes that problem.

I talked earlier about people in Nottinghamshire who live very close to Leicester at one end of the county and very close to Sheffield at the other end. In a police and crime panel where all the functions of the police and crime commissioner and the police and crime panel are married together, they will be able both to work out the strategic plan for the whole of the police force area and to ensure that there is the local input, which is so important for the policing of an area.

The democratic accountability problem that the Minister says will be addressed as a result of direct election is still there. I continually point out to the Minister that it is the wrong level of accountability; in other words, having somebody at only a force-wide level does not address the local democratic problem in the sense that our constituents see it as a problem. In their particular village, town or area, they would know that through the police and crime panel representative for their area their views would be fed directly in to the police and crime commissioner.

That is nearer to what the hon. Member for Edinburgh West and the Liberal Democrats put forward at the most recent election. I know that that proposal concerned direct elections to the police authority en masse, but it is a closer model to the one on which he fought the election. He knows full well, although he will not say so in the Committee, that my arguments about the need for such decisions to be made by a group of people rather than an individual are dealt with in some ways by amendment 107. It addresses many of people’s real concerns about the one-person model, particularly regarding problems such as politicisation. It is much more difficult to believe that politicisation of the police will occur if control is exercised on the police and crime commissioner through the police and crime panel. It is much more difficult to believe that people will be so concerned about operational independence or operational responsibility vis-à-vis the PCC and the chief constable if the operation of that directly elected individual is through chairmanship of a police and crime panel rather than as a stand-alone figure.

For such reasons, the amendment is a genuine attempt to provide an alternative, and to give the Minister a different model so that he can at least start to address—as he will have to, specifically—the very real issues of linkage between one person and local communities. Why is having a directly elected chair of the police and crime panel to work with to deliver the greater accountability the Minister wants not a better model than what he is proposing?

With those brief remarks, I am interested to hear what the Committee and the Minister have to say. I will come back to them when I respond to the debate.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

I shall make a short speech to support my hon. Friend’s proposal for directly elected chairs of the panel. For a PCC to succeed, he needs local government buy-in. I mentioned in my previous contribution that Denbighshire, of the 376 crime and disorder partnerships, was third, and it was able to obtain that position because of co-operation with the local authority.

Given a problem on a council estate with a young lad or group of young people, the issue is not just for the police but for the local housing and education authorities and social services. Only by sitting round a table together can they face such problems in the round, drawing up specific measures for the individuals or groups involved and resolving the problem. That is how we obtained our position.

If a PCC—especially if newly elected, on a party political ticket—tries to force his philosophy down the throats of local government authorities, which might not be of the same political persuasion as him, that is a recipe for disaster. Working in partnership, getting the balance right and increasing co-operation will enable the PCC to fulfil his or her functions. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are not offering a policy for co-operation, but for confrontation. We definitely need local government buy-in, which the model proposed by my hon. Friend will allow us to achieve. I hope that the Government will listen.

Michael Crockart (Liberal Democrat, Edinburgh West)

I shall outline why we, as Liberal Democrats, oppose to such a model. The fundamental problem with what the hon. Member for Gedling said is that the Bill’s proposal is not a one-person model, but one person with significant checks and balances. The model in the amendment poses significant questions about legitimacy and accountability. On a police and crime panel, an elected police and crime commissioner, with a significant mandate in a police area with possibly millions of votes, would have only equal prominence with a representative appointed by a local authority. How would that equalise the legitimacy of all the members of the police and crime panel? How could police and crime commissioners, elected in such a way and with a potentially huge mandate, realistically be held accountable for being unable to push through the priorities on which they were elected? It leaves them in the situation four years down the line of saying, “I tried my best, but ultimately I simply did not have the power to push through the priorities that you wanted.” Where does that leave the electorate? Having identified priorities and having elected someone to push those priorities though, the system will effectively rob the elected representative of the ability to deal with those priorities.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I am trying to understand whether the support for the model is now the policy of the Labour party. It was certainly offered by the hon. Member for Gedling in the spirit of a genuine attempt to arrive at some new form of governance that he thought would work. Perhaps this is a probing amendment. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will explain it to me one way or another. He certainly told the Committee earlier that the reason why he was tabling the amendments was to avoid the charge that he had no alternative model of policing governance. We must therefore take his attempt at face value.

We are discussing the model of governance that the Labour party now proposes. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West briefly but effectively explained the absolutely key flaw in the proposal. An individual would still stand for office in an area such as the west midlands or Northumbria. They would stand on a mandate, but possibly be wholly unable to deliver it because in office they would only be the chair of a committee. The other members of the committee would not be elected, but nominated by local authorities, yet they would have an equal say, which would mean that the individual could simply find himself frustrated by the committee. Such a process would result in slower decision making and bureaucracy. It would not address any of the problems of police authorities in their current form, which we debated under the previous group of amendments.

I drew attention to the weaknesses that HMIC has identified in relation to the key role of exercising governance in relation to ensuring value for money. The proposal would have none of the advantages of creating the office of a directly elected individual such as we have seen in the Mayor of London, who can then set up an executive office to give him the necessary support and focus. It would also confuse the clarity of the governance arrangements that we have introduced under the Bill, which are to separate the police and crime commissioner from responsibility for holding the force to account and assuming all the responsibilities of the police authority. The police and crime panel will be a scrutiny body, which will hold the police and crime commissioner to account.

The amendment would undo the separation that is so important for the purposes of transparency and proper accountability. It would be a step in precisely the wrong direction for governance. It would undo the real advance under the Bill, which is that district councils will have a voice in the governance of policing for the first time. They will have a say on police and crime panels, which they do not have under existing police authorities.

The hon. Member for Gedling has proposed the worst of all worlds. It is not surprising that such a model was rejected by the previous Government. He was at great pains to explain why it was so important to learn from mistakes and how he had learned from the mistakes of the previous Government. I accept that, of course, yet he does not seem to have noticed that the model was rejected by the previous Government because it had all the flaws that I have set out.

Furthermore, over the past few weeks, and again today, we have heard a lot from Labour Members who have outlined their objections on the grounds of cost, for instance, to the democratic reforms that we have introduced. The hon. Gentleman is now proposing a model with a directly elected chair of the police authority, so the election costs will be precisely the same. Although he is complaining about the costs of this legislation, Labour proposes a model that introduces exactly the same cost. Let there be not one further word of criticism from the Labour party about the cost of our reforms because it has now proposed reforms that have exactly the same election cost, which is the first key point.

Secondly, the costs of the Labour model will actually be greater than ours. We have said that PCCs and panels together must cost no more—other than the election costs—than existing models of police authority governance. By keeping authorities in their current form with all the paraphernalia of allowances that police authority members claim, the hon. Gentleman’s model will cost more than the existing model of police authority governance. He has proposed a more expensive model of policing reform than the one that we have proposed.

Opposition Members complained that extremists would be elected to these positions. What is to stop an extremist being elected to the chair of a police authority? Opposition Members complained that a single person could not possibly represent a whole area. How could a chair of a police authority represent a whole area? Every single key argument that Opposition Members have advanced, and no doubt will advance again, against our reforms have been comprehensively shot down by the hon. Gentleman, who has made a great mistake in tabling this amendment. He has shot his own arguments down and he has shot himself in the foot with this amendment. It shows, I am afraid, that the Opposition are completely at sea when it comes to having a view about the proper form of policing governance. They do not know whether to keep the current system or to propose an alternative model. The hon. Gentleman, I think, has just proposed an alternative model; it is the wrong one and all the flaws that he claims to have identified in our measures would apply to his model, but a great deal more so on top.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

Well, that was an astonishing statement by the right hon. Gentleman. Let me give one example. Speaking of a directly elected individual, he says that the extremism argument is complete nonsense when applied to his model. When I get up and say that we can have one directly elected individual for the force area, he says that extremism is a real risk. It is exactly the same. It is one individual being elected for a force area. The right hon. Gentleman says that the extremism argument does not apply to his own model, yet it applies to my model, which is exactly the same as his—one individual for the whole force area.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

This really is not hard. I reject the arguments about extremism, cost of elections and the individual not being able to represent an area of a certain size. The hon. Gentleman was the one who was advancing those arguments. I am now making the point that he is proposing a model in which all of his own arguments apply. I want to understand why he has proposed a model of policing governance that includes all of the factors that, just a few minutes ago, he was so roundly criticising.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

The right hon. Gentleman is usually a lot calmer that he is at the moment. What I am proposing is a model that tries to address some of the real concerns that individual associations and groups have with the idea of one person being totally responsible for a whole area. What our proposed model seeks to do is overcome some of those problems. The right hon. Gentleman puts forward the notion that he is right and they are wrong. If we have a situation in which one individual is the chair of the police and crime panel, it is the one model that can be used to overcome some of the points that individual associations and groups have made to us. That individual, working with the police and crime panel, has, for example, the local linkage to local authorities and local communities that the right hon. Gentleman’s model, in which the PCP and the PCC are separated, does not have.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way in the spirit of debate over these measures. I am trying to understand his position. He proposes a directly elected chair of a police authority, so does he agree that there will be an election cost that will be exactly the same as the cost for the election of a PCC? Can he explain how he can simultaneously criticise us for introducing a model with an election cost, and yet propose one with the same cost himself?

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

We have discussed previously the difference between being in government and being in opposition, so the Minister knows that the Government, unless the Whip has not done his job properly, will vote through their proposals. I am, however, doing exactly as the Minister and his hon. Friends have done—I have heard them do it.

We fundamentally disagree with what the Government are doing, and with the concept of PCCs. We do not think that that is an appropriate way forward, and we recognise that to be a real Opposition we have to try to improve the legislation, raise issues that outside people and bodies are raising, and propose alternatives. We are proposing some alternatives and suggestions that people have made, to try to improve what the Government are doing.

The Minister can totally disregard everything that the Opposition say, but I know that he will not. He will not vote for our proposals, but he will reflect on them, and when he goes back to his Department he will say, “This wasn’t a very good point, but that was a reasonable one. What are we going to do about it?” He will reflect on what the outside bodies have said. However, if I did not come up with any alternative to what the Minister was proposing, he would say, “You’re clueless. You’ve got no idea. You present no alternative. All you’re doing is defending the status quo.” So either I face the attack that the Minister has just made on me, or I face the attack that I am clueless.

That is the reality, and the Minister knows that. Our alternative might not be the best model, and there are many others that we could put forward, so in that spirit, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment, but I wish to press amendment 107 to a vote.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I beg to move amendment 109, in clause 1, page 2, line 8, at end insert—

Good afternoon, Mr Howarth. We had a good discussion this morning. There are differences between the Government and the Opposition, but many issues were raised and points made in a way that aids the Bill. I know that we will continue in that vein.

This is a probing amendment that tries to understand a bit more about the relationship between the police and crime commissioner and the different areas that they represent, and how that will work. If the amendment were enacted, depending on the definition of a neighbourhood, the PCC could do nothing but attend public meetings. If they were somewhere in Devon and Cornwall and went to a public meeting every quarter in every ward, that would be hundreds of meetings. As much as I want to see PCCs become much more accountable at neighbourhood/ward/local level, even I think that would be unreasonable. Nonetheless, we have tabled the amendment to try to understand a little bit more about the Government’s thinking with respect to gathering information from police neighbourhoods. I know that the definition is left loose to be defined by the chief constable—I think that is right, and it is important to understand that.

The second part of the amendment deals with the need to encourage the views of the victims of crime and their families to be expressed. I have heard the Minister say that an important part of the function of the PCC is to gather information from victims of crime. We all say it, but it would be interesting to hear the Minister say how that is going to be brought about in practice. The relevant part of the Bill is clause 1(5)(b), which says a police and crime commissioner has

“the functions relating to community safety and crime prevention conferred by Chapter 3”.

If we turn to chapter 3, we find a great list of things that the PCC is required to do. However, there is very little detail about how that is to happen, so it would be interesting to hear some details from the Minister.

How does the Minister envisage the PCC keeping in touch with local neighbourhoods? What specifically does he think is going to happen to enable that? If it is not quarterly meetings—as I said, that would be unreasonable—what is a reasonable way in which the PCC could make himself accessible to local communities? For example, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak has made a point about the public not knowing the home affairs team. The Minister quite reasonably said that generally a high number of local MPs are recognised by their constituents. How does the Minister envisage that a police and crime commissioner responsible for a big area will be accessible to local communities if they do not hold quarterly meetings? On of our earlier amendments, which was defeated on a vote, said that the area was too big for one person. If the model is to have one person, it is legitimate for the Committee to want to understand a bit more about how it will work.

There is a responsibility to consult on police and crime plans and to receive feedback, but how will that happen? How will somebody concerned about crime in an area contact the PCC? To use an example from Devon and Cornwall, if the PCC’s office is in Exeter and someone in west Cornwall wants to contact them, will they write or phone? What is expected to happen then? How will they feel a connection with the PCC, so as to overcome the democratic deficit and the problem of accountability that the Minister has identified?

Visibility is an issue. The Minister is right to point it out, and it is why I made the point that we were not keen to defend the status quo. Police authorities have struggled, some more successfully than others, to raise visibility. Is he confident that the police and crime commissioner will be sufficiently visible, other than through the ballot box? Again, some forms of visibility involve the person’s name, but I think that the Minister wants more than that. If the commissioner does not hold meetings, how will they be visible? If the Minister does not agree with quarterly meetings, does he think that they should occur once a year or every six months? I am not trying to be smart about it, but there is a problem. What sort of visibility and accountability is he seeking to bring about by establishing one commissioner for a big area?

Chapter 3 gives the commissioner various functions. It is not clear exactly how one person will do all of them. Consulting on police and crime plans includes many different things. How will crime and disorder reduction grants work? Who will get them? How big will the budget be? I accept what the Minister says—I understand that the commissioner cannot dictate from London how that will happen—but what is the purpose of co-operative working if quarterly meetings are not held?

Our amendment deals with information and consultation. It is not clear to us exactly how information for the public will work better than it does at the moment. We have suggested quarterly meetings. As I said at the beginning, it is a probing amendment—we do not necessarily think that that is a sensible use of the commissioner’s time—but it raises other issues.

Each elected local policing body must produce an annual report, send it to the relevant police and crime panel and make arrangements for it to be published. Police authorities already publish annual reports. How will it make a difference to publish those annual reports and send them to a police and crime panel? There is a requirement to have public meetings, although not necessarily quarterly. Proposed new subsection (1B) of section 96 of the Police Act 1996 deals with arrangements for obtaining the views of the community on policing and sets out different things that are supposed to happen. The purpose of the amendment is to try to be helpful—it might not seem like it—otherwise we will recreate a system with the difficulties, frustrations and problems that the Minister is trying to overcome. Most police authorities would say that they have arrangements for obtaining the views of the community on policing. The fact that we might not think they are very successful does not mean that they do not have them. It will be interesting to see how they arrange that.

Proposed new subsection (1B) states that

“arrangements must include, in the case of a police area listed in Schedule 1, arrangements for obtaining, before the first precept…the views of…the people in that police area,”

and

“the relevant ratepayers’ representatives, on the proposals of the police and crime commissioner for expenditure (including capital expenditure) in that financial year.”

How is that going to happen? In a way, that is meaningful to Mr Smith in the middle of Plymouth dealing with somebody in Exeter, or, in my own constituency, somebody in Arnold dealing with the main police station in Carlton. How will it happen if we are not having meetings in a different way?

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

My hon. Friend has raised a genuine concern. I do not doubt that the Minister is sincere, but I have great trouble in understanding the scale of the change. In the West Midlands force, in the Birmingham area alone, local policing units have been broken down to constituency size. If we were to replicate that across the West Midlands force, we are probably talking about at least 20 LPUs with about 75,000 people in each one. When I go to a local police tasking meeting, I usually see a well-attended meeting with perhaps 25 to 30 people, although the police probably notify perhaps 2,000 people that it is going to happen. If the measure is to be representative and genuinely getting in touch with everyone who has an interest, how will it be managed on such a scale?

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It is a difficult question, but it is constructive. I am sure the Minister will see that the detailed and practical questions that we are now asking about this part of the Bill are part of the scrutiny process. Given that we lost the vote on amendment 107 this morning—we will vote later on clause 1 stand part—and given the Government’s intention to have one individual in this position, it is important that we test the issue. I have said it is a probing amendment—I will not press it to a vote. If quarterly meetings are not held, how will the new model ensure that local people’s opinions are taken into account, so not only can the police and crime commissioner say that their opinions are taken into account but our constituents feel that they have some influence or say in a way that has not happened before.

Bridget Phillipson (Labour, Houghton and Sunderland South)

If we accept that there is a problem with democratic accountability—I am sure that the Minister’s intentions are genuine—we run the risk of building up local people’s expectations so that they feel that they have a direct link to the commissioner. We heard during the evidence sessions that it can be difficult to manage the physical workload. If we are going to set up the system, it needs to work and to be effective. I hope that the Minister can offer some assurance so that local people are not disappointed. I know that the counter-argument is that they can express that choice through the ballot box, but no one wants to see a system that is set up to fail.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

That is an extremely good point about building expectations, but then disappointing people if we cannot fulfil the expectations that they were encouraged to have. The Minister will be aware that if we are not careful, we will build a huge bureaucracy to try to overcome the problem. Chapter 3 is about publishing plans, consulting on them and ensuring that information is available. All those things are very worthy, but they will end up costing a fortune and the PCC will have to employ a significant number of people. At least the face-to-face contact that we are talking about is relatively cheap, apart from the cost of travel. People only have to put up a poster saying, “We will be in this hall on this date. Please come and talk to us.” It is difficult to see how some of the things that are proposed will happen in practice.

I would be interested to hear how the Minister believes that PCCs will help with giving victims of crime more of a voice. We all think that there is much more work to be done in that area. There is no doubt that often—not always, but often—people who have been a victim of crime feel as if their concerns and their voice have not properly been heard. Sometimes the problems that they have had and the hurt that they have experienced mean that whatever anyone says, it will be difficult for them to feel that the system has responded to them adequately. Given the aim that the Minister has expressed, which I support, how does he envisage that a PCC will improve that situation? What does he think will happen that will make a difference? I think that it is about more than just being elected.

There is a further point. If we are talking about face-to-face meetings, as the amendment proposes, whom does the PCC meet who properly reflects the views of victims? How does the PCC know that the people they meet or contact speak for the majority? How do they know that they are a legitimate voice, rather than just an individual voice? I have said that this is a probing amendment, but it is extremely important. The heart of the problem is that the model that the Minister and the Government have established involves single individuals covering what are sometimes massive areas. The Government believe that that is right to improve accountability, but the fundamental question is, given the Government’s intention to legislate in this way, how will those individuals relate to particular communities and localities?

All the proposals are set out in chapter 3. Clause 1(5)(b) cites the functions of the commissioner conferred by chapter 3, which is a massive chapter, and includes worthy ideals and aims to which none of us could object: giving proper information to people, getting back to them, ensuring that they have the statistics that they need and so on. How does the Minister envisage that happening? Can he put some flesh on the bones? Who will be consulted and how—by letter, over the internet or at meetings? What does he think is an appropriate level of contact for the commissioner face to face, but also through other means?

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I appreciate the spirit in which the hon. Gentleman has moved the amendment, and the importance of ensuring that PCCs attend to the views of both the public and victims. That is the twin purpose of the amendment. I do not think that there is any disagreement between us about how important it will be for these new elected representatives to do that. The broad answer to his question is that we can fully expect these new representatives to take all the steps that they judge necessary to engage in this form of communication. There is no reason to expect that they will not, and there is the real issue, which he mentioned, of the extent to which we should be prescriptive in the legislation and say that the newly elected people should do certain things in certain ways.

If we think about our own position as Members of Parliament, no one tells us how often we should have surgeries, how often and where we should hold meetings in our constituencies or to which groups of people we should pay attention. There is nothing written in law, nor is there a code of practice or any guidance. So what is it left to? It is left to the judgment of the individual Member who, when first elected, will look at what his or her predecessor of whichever party did, and fashion his or her own arrangements, looking at what other Members of Parliament do, which will vary from constituency to constituency. The kinds of activities that I engage in, in representing my Arundel and South Downs constituents, are rather different from those that the hon. Members for Birmingham, Selly Oak or, especially, for Vale of Clwyd engage in. There will be some similarities with surgeries and so on, but there might also be some very different forms of activity. It is all left to our judgment.

What puts the pressure on us as individual Members of Parliament to respond in a certain way is the accountability that we have, the fact that we are elected and the sense that we are put in these positions by the people and have a duty to respond to our constituents, even if, in fact, the formal duty of a Member of Parliament is to vote on laws in this place. It is widely seen that Members of Parliament have a broader role, and for many that will be to consider the implications for re-election should we not do those things. However, I think that most Members of Parliament are driven by more than that, by conscience and by a desire to do the job properly.

We are also driven by public demands, by the number of e-mails and letters that we receive, and by the public wanting to see us, which we try to facilitate. I think that all hon. Members will agree that the volume of that demand is growing considerably. That is not the case, however, with police authorities, and that goes to the problem: police authorities are invisible. A series of freedom of information requests was recently made to police authorities by the think-tank Policy Exchange, including requests for information about how many letters and e-mails they had received over the past four years, from members of the public, not from the force or the Home Office, about their duties. A number of the authorities chose not to reply, but some did, and I particularly wish to draw the attention of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak to the West Midlands police authority’s response. I wonder whether he might like to take a stab at how many letters the authority received over the four years, from 2007 to 2010. It received 231, which is an average of one and a half a week. All the other police authorities that chose to respond—I am not surprised that others did not—had a similarly pitifully low rate of correspondence from the public. Why is that? It is because the public do not know that the authority is there, or who is involved.

Mark Tami (Labour, Alyn and Deeside)

The Minister seems to be obsessed with the public knowing exactly who the people are. In my North Wales area, we had a chief constable who everyone knew extremely well, and who was referred to as the mad mullah in the Daily Mail and various other tabloids. I would think, however, that most people in North Wales would struggle to name our current chief constable; I happen to think that he does an excellent job. I am sure that most people throughout the country could not name their chief constable, but that does not mean that those chief constables are not doing a good job. Notoriety does not necessarily mean that chief constables are more open to the public whom they defend.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I think that I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is making, but I am not going to be drawn into a discussion about the previous chief constable of North Wales. We would be here for a long time if we did so, tempting though it might be. My point is simple. If the public do not know who bodies and individuals are, it is unlikely that they will correspond with them, and the evidence is that they do not.

Of course the public correspond with chief constables. One thing that happened when the Mayor was introduced in London—an excellent policy pioneered by the previous Labour Government—

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

I am curious about the correspondence point. I am willing to accept that it is one measure of how well known an organisation is, or perhaps how well it does its job, but is there any comparable information for the same period in the same area showing how many people complained to an MP, a councillor, the Independent Police Complaints Commission or the local police themselves? Surely, in order to have some understanding of the numbers, we must be able to compare them with something.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

It would be useful to obtain that information. Perhaps we could ask the Library to do so for us. I would particularly like further information on what I am about to discuss. However, I think that it must be clear to us that the number of letters that Members of Parliament for the west midlands get and the number that the force is getting would exceed that by a huge margin.

In London, when the Mayor was introduced, as the deputy Mayor for policing has said, there was a substantial increase in the volume of correspondence received from the public by the Metropolitan Police Authority, because the Mayor had given the position greater visibility. I will attempt to obtain the figures for London, because I think that they will be instructive for the Committee.

Bridget Phillipson (Labour, Houghton and Sunderland South)

On the issue of people contacting the representative of the police authority, it is a challenge for all of us as Members of Parliament, as it will be a challenge for the new commissioners, to ensure that it is not simply a case of responding to correspondence from those already in a position to engage. Our challenge is to reach out to those who might not have a voice. The difference here is that the person involved will be seeking an electoral mandate. Some of the most vulnerable in our communities are often not registered to vote, but their voices should be heard. I am thinking particularly of crime. Victims of domestic violence, for example, are often unable to make their views known publicly, but those views should be made known, and it is important that the commissioner engages with vulnerable groups when drawing up the plans.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I fully accept that. I do not seek to make the argument purely on complaints; it is about something much wider, namely how police and crime commissioners will engage proactively with the public.

It would also be instructive to discover how the Mayor and the deputy Mayor go about their business in terms of engaging with the public, seeking their views and so on. Again, it goes back to our debate earlier today. We have a model in terms of what is happening in a large area of London. The Mayor, deputy Mayor and MPA must have a programme to facilitate such engagement, and it would be instructive for us and for future police and crime commissioners to learn how they go about it, particularly because the force is so big.

I do not think that we disagree about the importance of such activity. I will take the two issues in turn. First, on the question whether the police and crime commissioner should have public meetings, I am sure that a PCC will want to do so; I just do not think that we need to prescribe it in legislation, for all the reasons that have been set out.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

If the commissioner does not have face-to-face meetings with the public, how does someone who is functionally illiterate—something like 15% of the UK population is functionally illiterate—get their voice across to the commissioner? They may live in an area which has a massive crime level. They cannot put their words in writing because they cannot write. They cannot send e-mails because they probably do not have computers. How do those who are disconnected and disadvantaged in society get their voice across to the commissioner?

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

No doubt that person would attend meetings, or they would be represented by interest groups and people who support them. How would they get in touch with us, as Members of Parliament? Let me make it clear that I am not disagreeing about the value of public meetings. I do not think that it is necessary to prescribe in legislation that there should be quarterly meetings? Why quarterly? Why not have monthly meetings? Some police and crime commissioners might want to meet more often, and some less. It really is a matter for them. None of us is disagreeing about the value of such public meetings.

There is an area in which we have been more prescriptive, and that is in relation to the requirement on forces—not on police and crime commissioners—to conduct regular beat meetings. It is our long-standing view that there is a particular value in ensuring that the police have regular meetings in their local area and that the public know about them, so that the public have the opportunity to meet the police. I saw the power of that some time ago when, along with the members of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, I visited Chicago and saw its community alternative policing strategy and its meetings that were clearly of value, especially in areas in which there had been tension and in which minority groups felt that they had not had attention paid to them. Subsequently, we saw the growth of such a policy among police forces in this country.

We have taken the view that, along with the requirement for transparency, it is something that is so fundamental that it crosses the line that we want to prescribe. Therefore, clause 34 states:

“A chief officer of police must make arrangements for obtaining the views of persons within each neighbourhood”.

We can debate that issue when we get to clause 34, but it is also germane to this set of amendments. It does not say how they are to obtain the views or where, and it is not completely prescriptive about the time period—it would be unwise for it to be so. I hope that hon. Members see that we have put in place provisions, where they are necessary.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

That is the $1 million question—the size of the neighbourhood and how often views are obtained. I realise that quarterly meetings are ridiculous, which is the point that I made earlier. Although I appreciate that such a matter has been put in the Bill, it does not alter the fact that at some point or other—notwithstanding localism and police and crime commissioners being locally accountable through the ballot box—the Minister will be asked how he knows that the system is functioning well and that clause 34 is working. It may be when he is assessing the police and crime commissioners, or it may be when we get to clause 34. I accept that it is a dilemma.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

We will be keeping an eye on the effectiveness of the legislation. I am sure that there will be scrutiny by all sorts of bodies, including the Select Committee. I note now that when legislation is passed, we provide updates on how it has gone. The test will, of course, be in the success of these positions of police and crime commissioners. There is much to be optimistic about given the experience of London.

Including the provision that police and crime commissioners should also obtain the views of the victims of crime has been an important development. Hon. Members will know that that was something that the victims commissioner particularly praised in her evidence to the Committee. Again, why be so prescriptive about that? Is that not something that police and crime commissioners are bound to want to do anyway? Here, we wanted Parliament to send a clear signal to these newly elected individuals that thinking about the victims of crime should be one of the things that they do. Our general view is that we have a criminal justice system that does not think enough, at all points, about the victims of crime, and we therefore thought it proper to write in that provision. It would be unwise to be prescriptive about exactly how the commissioners should do it.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

If the Minister is not going to prescribe the ways in which they should do it, will there be a prescription that they must report back on a regular basis on what they have done? If we do not have some form of accountability on connectivity between the commissioner and their communities, they will play to their natural audience—the audience that selects them. The Minister has asked how we, as MPs, connect with ours. In total, 5,000 people have visited me in the House of Commons. I have sat them down on the Terrace, bought them a cup of tea and listened to them. I have 50 surgeries a year. My Welsh Assembly colleague, who is a Labour colleague, also has 50 surgeries. I have 200 visits a year. That is how I connect with my community, and I can prove it. Will the commissioner be able to prove it?

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

When we come to clauses 11 and 12, the hon. Gentleman will see that the police and crime commissioners must publish specified information for the public and set out an annual report. The function of the police and crime panel will be to scrutinise all that and ask questions. I expect that members will ask questions such as, “How much have you done in terms of obtaining the view in such and such an area?” The individual members of the police and crime panel will, of course, have a particular interest in their area.

In clause 12, a specific responsibility of the police and crime commissioners will be to produce a report on

“the exercise of the body’s functions”,

and one of the functions is to obtain the views of the victims of crime. There is sufficient provision in the Bill for regular beat meetings for the police and for obtaining the views of the victims of crime, and we have transparency arrangements, which mean that all the reports about what they must do have to be produced by the police and crime commissioner. Indeed, if a criticism were to be levelled at the policy, it would be that it is highly prescriptive about what a police and crime commissioner must do each year. We took the view that the public need the information to be able to hold the person they have elected to account, and the police and crime panel will need that information, too.

There is plenty of provision in the legislation. I do not think that there is any disagreement between us about its importance. We live in the age of accountability and transparency, so everything that the police and crime commissioner does will be seen. All the papers and so on will be seen, because the principle of transparency is embodied in the legislation. We live in a world where access to new technology makes communication much easier. Not everybody has access to it, but the numbers are growing, which is something that they will have to have regard to, just as we do as MPs. With the use of the web, e-mail, Twitter and Facebook, I am confident that police and crime commissioners will be able to put in place innovative arrangements to secure dialogue and engage with the public.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

That is quite helpful. It demonstrates some of the problems between the desire to have localism and the recognition that if we do not prescribe some things, then we are not quite sure what will happen. If something goes seriously wrong, it will not be the police and crime commissioner’s head on the block, so there is a tension there, but I understand the way in which the Minister is trying to reconcile that.

It is interesting to note that there are 28 order-making powers in the Bill, according to the Library. I am not sure whether that is a high or a low number for a Bill of this size. The Minister has made the point that one of the order-making powers concerns the information that police and crime commissioners will be required to issue. Our debates are important, because the Committee can at least try to influence the Government’s thinking on what those regulations should include. If we look through chapter 3—given the fact that the Minister is trying to promote the localism agenda, and, to be fair, he touched on it at the end—there are a significant number of “musts”, which effectively mean that the Minister is expecting the police and crime commissioner to do certain things.

Wherever arrangements are put in place and whatever model is finally passed by Parliament, I re-emphasise the Minister’s point about the importance of new media in contacting different groups, in particular the groups that do not always participate. People sometimes scoff at Twitter and Facebook, and there are sometimes issues around them. If used properly—for example, if the police and crime commissioner were to establish that—there would be an effective way to get information out to people instantaneously. When the Minister considers how the police and crime commissioner might relate to and connect with many more people than happens at the present time, the use of new media would be effective in doing that.

There is a place for face-to-face meetings, but the question of how many there should be is difficult. I agree that that cannot be prescribed, which is why we only put it as quarterly in the amendment. There is a case, given what I have said on new media, for face-to-face meetings as well. It has been an interesting debate, and I know that the Minister and others will take into account the points that have been made as they try to ensure that this aspect of the Bill works as it should. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I beg to move amendment 110, in clause 1, page 2, line 14, leave out ‘in particular’.

There is no need to spend long on this particular amendment. I was intrigued when I read the Bill—I am sure that everyone has noticed this—about why the words “in particular” were put in there. Why is it that those functions are “in particular”, and what are the other things that the PCC should not have particular regard to? It may sound a trivial point, but there is a list there. It is important, because the chief constable is held to account “in particular” for those things. What are the other things, which are not on the list, that they are held to account for, but not in a particular way? I do not understand it.

What I expected in the clause was that it would say, “The police and crime commissioner will hold the chief constable to account for—” with a catch-all part at the end, such as “anything else that is regarded reasonable by the commissioner in conjunction with the police and crime panel.” I do not understand why it is phrased in that way. Unless the Minister has a really good answer, there will be problems down the track, because someone will say, “It didn’t list it in the ‘in particular’.” The chief constable might say, “I am being held to account for things that are not listed. Why is the PCC giving such importance to a particular factor, which is not listed?” It is a simple question, and I am intrigued. I am not trying to trivialise it; I just wondered why it is there.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

The purpose of the words “in particular” is to ensure that the list of functions, which the PCC is holding the chief constable to account for, is not exhaustive. If the words “in particular” were not there, the chief constable could only be held to account for those functions by the PCC. Equally, it would not be practical to draw up a complete list of every function that chief constable might have. This precisely follows how police authorities work at the moment, where there is not an exhaustive list. We might have introduced a general provision for the PCC to hold the chief constable to account for the exercise of his duties. Instead, we have tried to set out, in particular, the principal duties for which the chief constable will be held to account, but it is not an exhaustive list.

A good example of such duties is complaints, which we have discussed, and how a force deals with those. I am not sure whether that is covered by subsection (8), but it is an important function of the police force. It might be argued that it comes under the general provision of effectiveness and efficiency in relation to arrangements with local people.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I do not quite understand the Minister—it is the first time in almost three and a half hours of debate that I am not sure what he is saying. He said that the list is not exhaustive, but if we look elsewhere concerns might be covered, and so on. I will beg leave to withdraw the amendment, but I want him to reflect on it.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

Of course I will. I am not explaining myself well, but my point is that if we remove the words “in particular,” it makes the list narrower not wider; the police and crime commissioner could hold the chief constable to account only for those listed functions. The forces will have other, unspecified functions and if we want, we can sit in Committee and keep thinking of all the things that the police force does.

I used the example of complaints, and clearly we want a PCC to hold the chief constable to account for how a force deals with those. If we were to remove the words “in particular” and not have a general provision that the force must be held to account for the exercise of its functions—which is, effectively, what this is—the police and crime commissioner would not be able to do so. That is the straightforward point; that is why the list must be non-exhaustive and the words “in particular” are included.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

We are going round a bit. I shall leave it there, Mr Howarth. I repeat, however, that I am not sure whether it would not be better to take out the words “in particular” and have a catch-all phrase. I understand the Minister’s point, but I worry that if we do not have such a phrase there will be a possibility of a chief constable saying to a police and crime commissioner, “I am being held to account for something that is not in the ‘in particular’ list.”

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point; we do not disagree about what we want to achieve. I am certain that the parliamentary counsel will have advised us to draft the Bill in this particular way. I am happy, however, to examine the drafting to ensure that we are fulfilling our intention and that there is no lacuna. I do not believe that there is; that is not the advice that I am being given, but we will take the opportunity to pay attention to the hon. Gentleman’s comments.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

That is very helpful and constructive. Sometimes such points seem almost trivial, but in the full glare of publicity or in a court they become fundamental. A big argument might ensue about a couple of words. With the Minister’s assurance that he will ensure that there is no unintended consequence or lacuna, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Michael Crockart (Liberal Democrat, Edinburgh West)

I beg to move amendment 50, in clause 1, page 2, line 31, at end insert—

The amendment is similar to many others in that it probes the powers of the PCC to hold the chief constable to account. It is proposed in a similar fashion to those that have just been debated, which were tabled by the Labour party, to challenge whether the list in subsection (8) deals with all the relevant duties of the chief constable.

I think we can agree that a key function of police and crime commissioners must be to increase the engagement of local people with their local police forces, as is expressly set out in subsection (8)(e). One of the major points of engagement between local police and local people is the process for dealing with complaints against the police. Indeed, the main time I see people in my surgery in relation to the police is when the interaction that has already taken place between police and public has failed, and either a complaint has been made formally or is about to be made.

It is clear that in a structure where a police and crime commissioner exists that would be the correct person to look at how that complaint is dealt with. To be clear, he or she would not be responsible for the individual complaint, but must surely be involved in monitoring the complaints process. It is one of the key points of interaction between public and police, and to exclude the PCC from scrutiny of that process would be completely wrong.

Many others agree with that opinion. One example that has been used many times and will come up in future, is the West Midlands police authority’s submission:

“The Authority would therefore propose that the complaints handling function, currently under the direction and control of the chief constable, becomes one of the functions of the PCC. This would give additional independence to the handling of complaints through what could be the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner. In addition it would also provide an invaluable source of detailed information to the PCC on the effectiveness and quality of service provision.”

I could not put it better myself. In particular, the point they make about giving a level of independence to the handling of complaints is an important one. I know there are many people who do not complain, precisely because they feel there is no point because of the lack of independence. There is a perception of its being an old boys club looking after its own. I stress that is a perception and not a reality, because I have significant professional, although not personal, knowledge of the complaints procedure. It is, nevertheless, a perception that has to be addressed. The adoption of this power by the commissioner would go some way to do that. I accept the point that it is not an exhaustive list, as the Minister has said, but the power to scrutinise the complaints procedure is central to the engagement between police and public. I would like to suggest that is something that the PCC should do in particular.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

We are in much the same area of discussion that we were with the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Gedling. The question is whether we can rely on the general provision in subsection (7) to ensure that the PCC will hold the chief constable to account for the exercising of his functions in how to deal with complaints, or whether a specific provision should be made in the non-exhaustive list in subsection (8), so that the PCC must in particular hold the chief constable to account for the way that complaints are dealt with. I have already said that we will go back and look at the drafting between subsections (7) and (8).

There is force in my hon. Friend’s argument that if there is to be this non-exhaustive list, which brings out particular duties that the chief constable has, complaints are a particularly important area—we know that it will be important for a PCC to ensure that complaints are dealt with properly. I do think that there will be a migration of complaints from the force to the police and crime commissioners themselves. That was the experience in London, and it will increasingly be the case. Indeed, the whole approach to complaints will change because of the visibility of the police and crime commissioners.

I entirely understand the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West. It seems reasonable, and I want to reassure him that, as drafted, the Bill definitely allows under the general provision in subsection (7) the police and crime commissioner to hold the chief constable to account for such functions. There is no doubt about that. It certainly allows it. There is no lacuna, as drafted. The only question is whether we want to draw particular attention to the handling of complaints in that way.

There is also reassurance under paragraph 145 of schedule 15 in that we have amended section 15 of the Police Reform Act 2002 so that it will apply to police and crime commissioners in the same way as it currently applies to police authorities. Commissioners will be under the same duty to keep themselves informed about the handling of complaints and conduct issues raised about the officers and staff in the force as police authorities are at the moment, so they will have to keep themselves informed. The combination of the two provisions and the fact that there is a general provision in subsection (7) and that they will be under the duties to keep themselves informed of complaints means that it is not actually necessary to make the amendment.

However, I have already said that I shall consider the concern of the hon. Member for Gedling about the use of the words “in particular.” I shall be very happy to reflect on whether they would add something to the signal that we want to send about the importance of complaints and whether they should be added to the non-exhaustive list. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West will be reassured by that commitment. I do not think that the amendment is necessary, but can I go away and discuss with officials the extent to which it would add something by being included in the Bill?

Michael Crockart (Liberal Democrat, Edinburgh West)

I thank the Minister for his comments. Given his commitment to look at the matter again, I am massively beginning to feel better. [Hon. Members: “Ah!] Thank you. It is lovely. I stress that such matters should be taken seriously. I press my right hon. Friend to consider that but, given what he has said, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I beg to move amendment 88, in clause 1, page 2, line 31, at end insert—

Again, there is no need to delay the Committee too long. I suppose that it is a continuation of our debate on functions. We have tabled the amendment because such issues are obviously important. However, such things could be automatic. The compliance with the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Race Relations Act 1976 might be automatic legal obligations that do not need to be specified as functions. Diversity has been raised as a worry in respect of police and crime commissioners and, as we know, is an issue for us all. We all want human rights respected. We all want diversity encouraged and the proper enforcement and implementation of various race relations measures.

The amendment is a probing amendment. It goes along the lines of similar debates that we have had on the previous two amendments about whether such a measure is needed, and whether it is implicit in other legislation that such duties are automatically held to account under the two laws or whether there is a need for such functions. It is amazing how the inclusion of a couple of words such as “in particular” causes more issues to arise in respect of what is actually meant than anything else. I notice that one or two hon. Members here with legal expertise are smiling to themselves because they also know that something drafted incorrectly causes real problems.

There is a real problem with the way in which the measure is drafted. The hon. Member for Edinburgh West drew attention to his particular concern. I am not sure what the answer is to my own question, about whether the measure needs to be in the Bill or whether there is an automatic application of the Acts to everyone, and I shall be interested to hear the Minister’s comments.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

Many of the arguments that we discussed in relation to the complaints procedure apply here. The first point is that clause 1(7) requires the police and crime commissioner to hold the chief constable to account for the exercise of all his functions, and it is a question of judgment as to what should be put in the list of functions, which I have already said we need to consider. The police and crime commissioner will hold the chief constable to account for the exercise of his functions under the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Children Act 2004, and there are statutory functions in any case.

On the commissioners’ duties, the intention behind the Bill is to ensure that the commissioners are subject to exactly the same duties as police authorities, and there is no intention to change that. In some legislation those duties are imposed on all public authorities, and since police and crime commissioners are public authorities they are included, whereas in other legislation the bodies to which it applies are listed, and the Bill replaces references to police authorities with references to police and crime commissioners. I assure the hon. Gentleman that it is my intention that his specific references to the Race Relations Act 1976, the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, the Disability Discrimination Act 2005, the Equality Act 2006 and the Equality Act 2010 will be captured within those duties.

There is a specific issue in relation to the Race Relations Act and the Equality Act, and I will be tabling an amendment to be debated in the Committee, to ensure that any gaps in the equality and diversity provisions, which the Government take very seriously, are addressed. I thank the hon. Gentleman for reminding the Committee how important it is that the new model pays due regard to that. Diversity is an issue that has been raised in relation to police and crime commissioners, and there are many ways other than the statutory means by which we propose to deal with that.

One opportunity for ensuring that diversity issues can be dealt with is the appointment of two independent members to the police and crime panels. That is one reason why I was persuaded that it might be a good idea to have independent members on those panels, as we have on police authorities at the moment. That might provide an important opportunity, as a potential route to tackling diversity issues that have not otherwise been addressed by the nomination of councillors to the police and crime panels.

The amendment also contains a provision on Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

I am pleased that the Minister has reserved places for two independents, but will it be specified what type of person they will be? All the people on the panel could ended up being middle-aged, grey and in suits—all male— [ Interruption. ]—like us, so will it be specified that the independents have to be different? Will the gender, race, youth or gay and lesbian issues be taken into account?

Mark Tami (Labour, Alyn and Deeside)

Class.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

Class, yes.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

Unless I receive a tap on my shoulder, I can be pretty certain that we have not specified that. The appointment of the independent members will be a matter for the councillor members to decide, and we can come back to that when we talk about how the police and crime panels will be drawn up. The debate on what kind of members should be independents is interesting, and it might be valuable to have them as people who can help with diversity, as is the case in a number of police authorities, where particular attempts are made to ensure that the authority can pick up on the issues. Indeed, I have just approved the extension of the appointment of police authority members in certain areas for precisely that reason, in order to take them up until the point at which the legislation will introduce PCPs.

There may be other reasons why it is a good idea to have independents, such as their particular expertise in relation to policing and so on. There is, again, an issue about how prescriptive we should be about that, but I think that we should have a further debate about it when we come to the PCPs.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

If I have understood correctly, the two independent people will be appointed by the panel itself. If that is the case, will they be independent of the panel?

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

They will be independent members. The point is that they will not be elected councillors, which is the case with police authorities at the moment. We have said that it is for the panel to decide, based on the skills and experience of the members—those are the considerations that we have set out. When we issue the general guidance on the legislation—assuming that it will be enacted—we may want to indicate the kinds of members that PCPs may wish to appoint. I think it would be perfectly proper for the Home Office to discuss that. We should also take account of the views expressed in this Committee and throughout the passage of the Bill. Independent members of police authorities are currently appointed by the authorities themselves, so there is no change to that procedure.

Julian Huppert (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

Does the Minister share my concern that one of the problems with police authorities is the number of independent members who are not accountable in any way? Would it be more sensible for representation to be based on other councillors? Alternatively, and to provide balance, perhaps independent members should not be able to vote so that we can have democratic accountability.

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley)

Order. The Minister has rightly said that this issue will be covered in greater detail later in the Committee. I think that we may be over-egging the pudding at the moment.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

Actually, I am rather grateful for your protection, Mr Howarth, except to say that I look forward to that debate. I have been caught once again between the devil and the deep blue sea of the ardent local democrat and others who wish to check local democracy. I will, of course, try to strike a careful and reasonable balance. I observe your stricture, Mr Howarth, so let us have that debate at a future point.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Gedling for his amendment. I have indicated that we need to table a further amendment to make sure that we comply with the duties, so I am grateful to him for drawing attention to that. In that spirit, I hope that he will withdraw his amendment.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I thank the Minister for his helpful response. It feels as though I am on a bit of a roll—we have discussed whether the drafting of the phrase “in particular” is right, and now the Minister has mentioned a further amendment. In opposition, that counts as a win away from home. I will not get carried away about other things, but the serious point is that I am grateful to the Minister. I understand the point about listing everything, but the debate about what should or should not be in that particular clause is important, as is the issue of diversity and so on. I am therefore grateful to the Minister for saying that the Government will table an amendment, and I look forward to seeing it in due course. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I beg to move amendment 111, in clause 1, page 2, line 31, at end insert—

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 328, in clause 2, page 2, line 40, at end insert—

Amendment 331, in clause 3, page 4, line 13, at end insert—

Amendment 332, in clause 4, page 4, line 34, at end insert—

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

The amendments seek further clarity from the Government about the relationship between the police and crime commissioner and the chief constable and about operational independence. The amendments mention the oath, and it was interesting for me, and would be interesting for the Committee, to find out what the attestation is. If you will indulge me, it is only a few lines, and it is important and interesting to hear it:

“I…of…do solemnly and sincerely declare and affirm that I will well and truly serve the Queen in the office of constable, with fairness, integrity, diligence and impartiality, upholding fundamental human rights and according equal respect to all people; and that I will, to the best of my power, cause the peace to be kept and preserved and prevent all offences against people and property; and that while I continue to hold the said office I will, to the best of my skill and knowledge, discharge all the duties thereof faithfully according to law.”

I can see the tears welling up in the eyes of the hon. Member for Edinburgh West as he raised his hand and remembered whenever it was that he took that.

It is an important issue, and the Government recognise it, but there is real concern that the relationship between the police and crime commissioner and the chief constable is such that there will be—whatever the protestations of the Minister and the Government—interference with operational independence. For good reason, the allegiance that an officer swears is not to the Government, but to the Crown—we all understand that—and the final words are “according to law”. The Government are sincere in their desire that chief constables will be able to operate effectively and professionally without interference and in accordance with their own judgment. Indeed, the Bill tries to make that clear, but every single witness and officer is, when spoken to in private, concerned about the relationship between the police and crime commissioner and the chief constable.

An important starting point is actually the definition that the Patten report used with respect to Northern Ireland, which stated that it was much better to talk about operational responsibility and not operational independence. Given the policing issues in Northern Ireland—you will remember the responsibilities that you had as a Minister, Mr Howarth—the Chief Constable being operationally responsible is important, and the Patten report has made a huge difference in that area of our country.

Bridget Phillipson (Labour, Houghton and Sunderland South)

My hon. Friend is no doubt aware that, in the report published by Home Affairs Committee, it was recommended that the concept of operational responsibility should be clearly set out in a memorandum of understanding. Given that it is a new concept for policing in this country and that we want to avoid, if the commissioners are brought in, any major disagreements that could lead to damage being done to their relationship or to policing in the community, it is important to clarify those aspects.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

My hon. Friend is a member of the Home Affairs Committee, as are several other members of the Committee, and I will refer to that report and that important point in a minute, but she is absolutely right.

It is much better to talk about operational responsibility and not operational independence. The police should not be in a situation where they are not accountable at all. That is the point that Patten made—the phrase “operational responsibility” means that those having responsibility for the police are not independent of everyone, but are accountable for what they do. The Patten report was excellent, and it has helped enormously in Northern Ireland. The use of that terminology has changed policing there and is something that we might reflect on here.

The purpose of our amendments is to say to the Government that there is not enough in the Bill that is certain, clear and emphatic about the division of responsibility between the police and crime commissioner and the chief constable. Every person to whom I speak is concerned about a police and crime commissioner being elected on local policing priorities. The hon. Member for Cambridge raised the example of a police and crime commissioner who says, when standing for election, “We should get rid of Tasers—I don’t believe in using them,” and is elected on a mandate for that. Other examples can be made up—one might be elected on a mandate of not believing in such-and-such a way of policing demonstrations, or in kettling and the use of horses.

I cannot see anything in the Bill that sets out what a police and crime commissioner can or cannot say when standing for election. All those things might be said, and if a commissioner is elected on such a mandate, what does he say to a chief constable who turns round and says that Tasers are an appropriate use of technology to tackle certain issues occurring on the streets? As the hon. Gentleman has pointed out, the police and crime commissioner might say, “But I have been elected on a mandate not to use them.”

I am sure that the Minister will argue that the police and crime commissioner will not be able to do that, as those are operational matters for the chief constable. That is all right in Committee Room 9 at 5.20 on a Tuesday. I can only say that out there in Exeter, Cambridge, Birmingham, Liverpool or Cardiff, when the police and crime commissioner meets the chief constable straight after an election, what is currently in the Bill does not do enough to enshrine that independence, which is part of the purpose of our amendments.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

May I give a further example of what is perhaps a populist cause that a populist candidate for commissioner might stand on, which is the abolition of speed cameras? That is very popular, and a candidate would probably get elected on that ticket, especially in north Wales, where they were pioneered. Even if the statistics proved that the cameras saved lives, the person elected with that mandate would be able to declare that he would abolish them in north Wales. Where does the buck stop—with the commissioner or with the chief constable?

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

Again, that is a further example of the points that I made. The Minister’s stock answer is that this is not a problem, as the Bill clearly lays out that they are matters of direction and control, which are down to the chief constable. Everybody we talk to asks what will happen, and the Minister cannot just assert his view; he has to take on our argument that the Bill is not clear.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South said, and I see members of the Home Affairs Committee all around the Committee Room, a recent report of the Home Affairs Committee stated:

“We recommend that the concept of operational independence should continue to apply in respect of the important work of the police in detection and law enforcement, including arrest, but that the concept of operational responsibility be developed and clarified in a memorandum of understanding between the Home Secretary, Chief Constables and Police and Crime Commissioners. It is important that arrangements are made for parliamentary scrutiny of the terms of any such memorandum and subsequently its impact on police work. The police and not politicians must, as now, be solely responsible for individual decisions with respect to arrest and investigation.”

I know that the Minister agrees that it is for the police to decide on investigations, arrests and so on. The Home Affairs Committee is one of the most highly respected and important Select Committees in this House and the Minister has to take its point on board—well, he does not have to, but I would advise him to do so.

When the chief constable of the west midlands came to give evidence, I specifically asked him whether he thinks that it would be important and helpful to the Committee and to Parliament if such a memorandum of understanding or code of practice, as some prefer, were published. Part of the purpose of the amendments under discussion is to inform the Minister of our belief that it is important that, at least at some point in the Bill’s progression through its House of Commons stages, we are informed of what the Minister and the Government expect to see in a draft. I know that it would be a draft of a draft, but it would be important for every member of the Committee to know whether he accepts the recommendation of the Home Affairs Committee. Perhaps he could specifically state whether he agrees that there should be a memorandum of understanding on this matter.

I apologise if the Minister has already said that he accepts that point. If he accepts that there should be such an undertaking at some point in the future, does he not agree that it would be extremely helpful for the Committee to see that code, a draft of it or a draft draft of it, so that we get some idea of what we can expect to be the responsibilities of the chief constable and the PCC? It would also give us an idea of the interface between the two of them, one being a professional police officer in charge of a police force, and the other being a PCC elected solely on the basis of a manifesto in which anything may be included.

Bridget Phillipson (Labour, Houghton and Sunderland South)

My hon. Friend makes a compelling point, and I think we all want to minimise the risk of disagreement. Disagreement would arise in a minority of cases, but where it does arise it is important that it can be resolved quickly and without detriment to the local community.

The president of ACPO raised the issue of someone being elected on a mandate of putting more bobbies on the beat. If that meant that officers were pulled out of specialist units, what effect would it have? At what point could the chief constable say, “I’m afraid that’s an operation matter,” even though it negates the mandate on which the commissioner had stood.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

That is an interesting example, and I do not know the answer to that question. At what point is it an operational matter, and at what point is it something on which the PCC can say he does not think the police force is doing enough? Let us say that somebody is elected on a manifesto of bobbies on the beat and says, “This is what I’ve been elected on. I don’t want officers in sexual violence units or domestic violence units. They can be more effective in helping people across this police force area by being out there on the beat.” I do not know how you then square that circle. The president of ACPO and every chief constable is concerned about that particular issue. The Minister says that there is no need to worry, because it is clarified in the Bill. Yet that has not satisfied any one.

There is no definition of direction and control. We will have a legal battle over what that means. There will be a PCC saying that they have the right to do something and a chief constable saying that they do not. What happens in such circumstances? How is that circle squared?

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

Might this be a way forward for the Minister? The Government believe in the right of recall for Members of Parliament. Why does the Bill not make the same provision for a police commissioner who makes such a mess of the job that he entirely disappoints the people who have elected him and makes the operation of policing virtually impossible?

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

That is a very good question and, again, I will leave the Minister to answer it. The Minister knows that when the original proposal was made for elected police and crime commissioners a couple of years ago, the Opposition policy at the time was that if an individual was elected whom the Minister or the Government regarded as unacceptable for whatever reason, there would be not only a power of recall once somebody was elected but the opportunity to demand that the election be run again. I know that is the case, because we had a debate with the Minister about it at the time. I can see from his face that he agrees with me; he thinks that that was daft and so did I, but that was the policy at the time. I will leave him to answer the issue of recall.

The amendment is one of the most important that we have debated.

Michael Ellis (Conservative, Northampton North)

The hon. Gentleman has just said that the amendment is important. Does it not strike him, even on first reading, that its drafting allows a considerable degree of latitude for dispute? For example, at the moment it is worded:

“In discharging functions under this Act the police and crime commissioner must not ask, require or encourage the chief constable to act in a manner”

that could put him under breach of his oath. Even the exploration of an issue about which the chief might come back and say—to coin a phrase used by one of the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues—“I do not think that is actually within your remit,” would in itself be a breach of this clause if it were part of the Bill. The mere request to do something that the chief does not believe is within the commissioner’s remit would be a breach.

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley)

Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman has made his point. I specified this morning that interventions should be brief and to the point, and that was not.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

It is interesting. The hon. Gentleman is obviously frustrated that he is not allowed to speak. Perhaps he can make a contribution after I have finished.

That was a good point and if, after discussion with the Minister and Government lawyers, the hon. Gentleman wanted to advance a better amendment to deal with the problem that he sees as a result of his legal experience, we would all be grateful. He made the point well that even with the amendment there is still cause for confusion, for debate and for uncertainty. We have tried to tighten that up and to test the Government regarding their intention to address the problems of direction and control and the competing mandates between a chief constable and a police and crime commissioner.

Michael Ellis (Conservative, Northampton North)

What happens with police authorities now? Is the hon. Gentleman not concerned that the existing police authorities open up the same avenue for dispute in the way that he has specified? This is much more democratic.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

It may be the case that a legal dispute can take place between a police authority and a chief constable; that goes without saying, because one can have a legal dispute between anybody. I am saying, and the ACPO and many others have said this, that the concern is where one individual is directly elected on a mandate. That is not the case with police authorities; as the hon. Gentleman knows, they are not directly elected at present. The difference is if a directly elected individual has put out a manifesto and a series of promises to a force area saying that they will do certain things, and that individual is competing with somebody else who wants to be elected as the police and crime commissioner in that area, who has promised other things. One can imagine another leaflet going out where people try to outbid each other in order to be elected as the police and crime commissioner, which leaves us with the problem of the mandate.

Mark Tami (Labour, Alyn and Deeside)

My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head because there is a big difference between what happens now.

Clearly, there are arguments and priorities and all those sorts of things. However, an elected person cannot currently say, “Look, this is what I was elected on and I’m going to do this regardless of whether you think it is possible or even whether you think it is a good idea or not.”

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

That is exactly the point I was making. The hon. Member for Northampton North was right to say that, of course, there can be disputes between the police authority and the chief constable now. However, in support of what my hon. Friend has just said, I say to the hon. Gentleman that it is a different kettle of fish from the sort of dispute there might be with someone who has been directly elected on a mandate.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

I want to see if I can understand the matter a bit more clearly. The hon. Member for Northampton North is objecting to the use of the words “must not ask.” It might be that his legal training is coming into play. However, as a non-legal person, I would have thought that if he was saying that it is okay to ask, he is actually saying that it would be all right for the commissioner to push the chief constable as far as he could. Is there not the likelihood of creating an intimidatory relationship, which is the very thing we do not want to happen?

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The measure has the potential to be an operational and legal nightmare that will confuse the lines of accountability and create a very real danger within our system.

We disagree with the creation of police and crime commissioners, but the Minister’s intention is to increase democratic accountability, whether that is right or wrong. There is no doubt that the issue of operational independence and the ability of the chief constable to be operationally responsible, without interference from a politician directly elected on a mandate, is of fundamental importance to all of us and to all of the people who have given evidence. The Minister’s response on the issue—saying that it is dealt with in the Bill and there is no problem—simply will not do. People do not accept that point.

I finish by saying that, through the amendments, we are attempting to tighten up the legislation and do something about the danger and tension that there will be. At the very least, I urge the Minister to put before us as soon as possible a draft document, so that we can see the sort of code of practice—the memorandum of understanding—that the Select Committee on Home Affairs has said is so important. Notwithstanding whether the Minister agrees with me that the matter should be dealt with sooner rather than later, does he agree with the Home Affairs Committee that a memorandum or code of practice should be introduced?

Bridget Phillipson (Labour, Houghton and Sunderland South)

I want to cover a few brief points further to the interventions that my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling kindly accepted.

On the issue of operational independence, I am concerned about some of the detail of the measure and I hope that the Minister can offer some assurance that those matters will be looked at carefully. I am sure that anybody who stands to be elected as a police commissioner will be motivated by the right reasons, as anyone who stands for public office will make sure that they fulfil their duties properly and do their best by the people who have elected them.

If I were looking to be elected as a commissioner, I would campaign very much on the ultra local issues that matter to people, such as antisocial behaviour. There would be nothing wrong with that. We want people to be responsive and we want politicians to listen to their local communities and make sure that they adequately address people’s concerns. I am fully aware of the important role that specialist units play in my area, having worked closely with them, but I am not sure that they are a vote winner. That is the tension at the heart of the matter.

As I say, I am confident that whoever is elected will discharge their duties properly and do their best to make sure that they address the wide range of policing that goes on in an area. It is not simply about the front-line response; it is often about the delicate and difficult work that officers do in specialist units and in relation to, for example, counter-terrorism. That is why it is all the more important that a chief constable can say to the elected individual, “Yes, I accept that you were elected on a mandate to put more police on the streets, but I feel it is more important to safeguard child protection services within police teams.” The chief constable has a professional job to do and should be able to say to the elected commissioner, “I am afraid that’s an operational matter; I can’t fulfil that”, even if it means that the commissioner cannot fulfil the mandate that they stood on.

I have made the only point I want to make. It is brief, but I hope that the Minister will tell us what help the Government will ensure is available, so that when such individuals are elected, they look at the broader range of policing in their area and do not simply focus on certain issues. Those issues may matter, but they are often raised by those who are most able to make their views known. That is not simply by those who are articulate; it is sometimes the “fearful safe”, as we heard in the Home Affairs Committee. With people who are most in need of help and support from the police service, it can be the same as it is with Members of Parliament. I am all too aware that sometimes people who would benefit from the support and help of a Member of Parliament do not contact them. Clearly, we all want to improve on that and do everything that we can to reach out to all our constituents, and not simply to those who are able or willing to make direct representations to us.

The Government need to look closely at operational independence, so that the risk of disagreement between the chief constable and the commissioner can be minimised. Therefore, if we have this system, it should work, and we should not constantly be dogged by disagreements and public spats, which, in the process, would damage the local service that people receive.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

Earlier in the debate, the Minister said that there was no fixed way for an MP to do their job, using that as an example of how people may approach things differently. I think he was talking particularly in the context of consultation and engagement with the public. It is true that no particular qualifications are required to be a Member of Parliament—[ Interruption. ] The Minister is being very smart, but I missed it. So, there are no fixed qualifications, or requirements about how to do the job. In reality, for the vast majority of Members of Parliament, until they reach the Minister’s exalted position, their responsibility is solely to the electorate as they carry out their job.

In this case, however, we are talking about someone with a much wider responsibility. The Minister and I might slightly quibble about the range of the West Midlands force, but we both agree that it serves a population of more than 2 million. My electorate is about 75,000; this person has responsibility to a much greater population than someone such as me, and of course, the West Midlands force also employs about 14,000 people. The difference is that if I am not very good at my job—perhaps that is some people’s view—it does not have a devastating effect on most people, and there is a relatively easy remedy for it at the next election. In this case, an individual, who is responsible to more than 2 million people and for the employment of more than 14,000, may have the potential to wreak havoc during their period of office. There is a much bigger emphasis to be placed on exactly what that person does, and how positive their contributions to policing are in a place such as the West Midlands, than on the difficulties that they may cause.

We took evidence from witnesses, and although quite a number of them said that the issue of operational independence was not particularly new, there was no agreement between them about how to safeguard it. In fact, the chief constable found himself at odds with some of the other witnesses, as well as the hon. Member for Cannock Chase, when they were trying to understand how to safeguard operational independence in such a situation.

Mark Tami (Labour, Alyn and Deeside)

If our previous chief constable in north Wales were still in post, I could imagine a candidate standing with the intention of reining him in, taking a confrontational view and changing priorities on which he did not agree with the chief constable. Is that the model we want across the rest of the country?

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

That would be a fear of mine. I do not think anyone who opted for election with the idea of settling a score or reopening an issue on which they were unable to succeed the first time would necessarily have the best interests of the community at heart. Equally, if I were a Conservative Minister, perhaps I would not be thrilled at the prospect that chairs of police authorities I have just abolished are likely to end up running the show. I am not sure that their instincts would automatically make them desperate to fit with the ambitions of the Minister for Policing.

As with other things in the proposals, we cannot afford to wait until it is happening to discover if there is a problem. If we create a crisis in a major police force because we have not thought through these problems in advance, it is too late. Surely the onus is on those proposing the changes to show that they have at least considered the eventualities and the things that might go wrong, and that they have answers to those problems. Perhaps the Minister has the answers, but he has not so far been willing to share them with people who have the concerns. That is not to say that the plan is entirely wrong or that there cannot be new ways of working, but he must share the doubts expressed by others. Surely, at this stage of Committee, it is reasonable to give us some understanding of how he thinks he would deal with the problems.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

The interplay between the chief constable and the commissioner is crucial. There will be clashes on policy, personality and, perhaps, politics, if the person elected with a political mandate tries to ram it down the commissioner’s throat. How we deal with this is important and it needs to be specified. Hampshire police authority dealt with accountability through the ballot box, and it rightly points out that if a candidate is standing for one term only, there is no accountability. He gets elected, and he will not get elected next time—he is not even going to stand. If he is going to stand for the full two terms, his accountability is at one point in eight years, which is when he stands for the second term.

Have the Minister and his team given any thought to recall, if there is a clash between the commissioner and the chief constable, and the commissioner is not doing their job? It is being considered for MPs if they are not doing a good job. As MPs we are analysed on the net with theyworkforyou.com, which says how many times an MP has spoken, what Committees he is on, how many times he has attended, what his interests are and what he has been active on, so we are accountable there. The Minister referred to MPs and accountability, but we are accountable, and there are moves afoot to make us accountable through recall if we do not do our job. Have the Minister and his team given any thought to what would happen if a commissioner was not up to the job? We should not have to wait for four years. This is an important issue, especially for those who have been affected by crime. We should have recall of a commissioner who is not doing a proper job.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

This is an important debate because it goes to a key issue that has arisen in relation to this legislation. I understand this is a probing amendment in order to open up the issue of operational independence. If the hon. Member for Gedling is shaking his head and proposing a substantive amendment, I think it gives rise to some serious issues, changing quite fundamentally the current balance in relation to the functions of the chief constable and the authority that holds the chief to account.

I want to repeat what the Government have said in the House, outside and in terms to the police: there is no intention on the part of the Government to interfere with the operational independence of the police. It is common ground that the police should be operationally independent. The question arises of what we mean by that and whether the Bill changes anything in the current arrangements.

First: what do we mean by operational independence? Strictly, operational independence is held to mean that, in Lord Denning’s dictum, the police are accountable only to the law, in the sense that no politician should, for instance, be able to tell a police officer whom to arrest. That goes to the issues that the hon. Gentleman raised in relation to the oath—that is, the independence of a sworn officer, his allegiance to the Crown and the exercise of his functions as an officer. Nevertheless, it is widely agreed that that definition of operational independence is very narrow, and that the police must be held to account by someone. In the end, a politician or a group of politicians will have to decide how much money a police force is to receive; will have to provide an input of the views of the public; will have to set the priorities of the public and so on.

The hon. Gentleman is right that the question whether operational independence is the right definition, or whether we should move to a definition of operational responsibility was discussed extensively by the Patten review in Northern Ireland. In the review it was decided that there should be a new definition of operational responsibility, and that “independence” was not the right word. That is currently being discussed in Northern Ireland, because it is not entirely popular with the police service, which perhaps unsurprisingly adheres to the concept of operational independence. It is also common ground between the Government and the police service—though I am not sure whether the Opposition will agree—that we should not attempt to define “operational independence” in this Bill. There is a great deal of case law here. The view of the police service is that it would not be helpful to cut across the growth in understanding about what the term means by seeking to rewrite it here in the legislation. The experience of the Patten Commission, with the considerable period of deliberation, the proposal for a new definition of operational responsibility, and the fact that it has not yet been implemented, might lend force to that argument.

The service itself is not asking us to define operational independence. It has sought, through debate such as this and discussions with the Government and more widely, an answer to the sort of perfectly fair questions raised by hon. Members. What happens if a politician who has a responsibility for the police stands on a platform of saying, “I would like the police to do something”, and that starts to cut into an operational matter? He could stand on a platform and say, for instance, that he wanted more community policing. A police and crime commissioner who is standing for office is very likely to say that he is committed to that and that he wants more of it within the available resource. Given that that appears to cut across a decision on deployment, that is a commitment for the chief constable to make.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

Will the Minister allow me to intervene?

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to develop my argument, which is important, I will give way. This is a grey area, which is precisely why the Committee would be unwise to try to define it too closely and why I do not wish us to do so.

Mark Tami (Labour, Alyn and Deeside)

Will the Minister give way on that point?

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

May I just complete this point, then I will give way to both hon. Gentlemen? I will illustrate it with a couple of examples. The Mayor of London stood for election on a platform of seeking to deal with knife crime and to put uniformed officers on public transport. It could be argued that both proposals cut across the operational independence of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner because they related to deployment. It is for the commissioner to decide when he undertakes a knife crime operation in London under Operation Blunt 2. It is for him to decide how to deploy officers on public transport. The commissioner sat down with the Mayor and devised a way to give effect to what the Mayor sought to do, because he recognised that the Mayor had a mandate, and that there was public concern about such issues. Had there been a dispute about that, it could have gone to the courts. There is a series of cases—there were some high-profile ones in the 1980s—that went to court because police authorities fell out with chief constables over issues such as whether it was their decision or the chief constable’s to have a police band or to keep a mounted police unit. In each case, the courts have indicated where the balance of that decision lay.

Let me give a further example to hon. Members. A few years ago, the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, became very concerned about street crime. He convened a street crime summit. He summoned—[Interruption.] This is a really important debate, so I should like hon. Members to pay attention. I am seeking to answer the points that hon. Members have made.

Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab) rose—

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I will give way in a second. I particularly want to draw this example to the attention of hon. Members. Tony Blair effectively summoned chief constables to Downing street and told them that something had to be done about street crime. It could be argued that that cut across their operational independence. They then went away and had to deploy a resource—at the time, they were given the resource—to deal with street crime. Any one of those chief constables could have argued that it was not right to be arraigned by the Prime Minister. It is possible to argue that the Government, through the Home Secretary, have a wider duty that enables them to talk to chief constables about this kind of thing, but it almost certainly strictly cuts across the operational independence of the police.

In most cases, therefore, these issues are settled by sensible debate and accommodation between the chief officer and the authority. The last point that I want to make before giving way to hon. Members is that we do not propose any change in the Bill to the functions of the chief constable and the police and crime commissioner that affects the issue of operational independence. It can be argued that there is a different kind of change because the elected individual—the police and crime commissioner—will be a more powerful person than the authority with a mandate. However, there is no change in the powers and duties that the commissioner has to secure an efficient and effective force, in relation to giving the chief constable control and direction of the force. Those are the established legal principles that apply to police authorities and chief constables at the moment. Every day, there are discussions between police authorities and chief constables as to what that means. There are often little skirmishes and wrangles, but that is the reality under the current system. It is a reflection of the tripartite arrangement, as between the powers of the centre—the Home Office—the powers of the chief constable and the powers of the police authority.

We have no intention of dismantling the tripartite system. We intend to rebalance it and to end the distortion of the centre, which means preserving the same principles of operational independence that have governed us until now.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

In passing, the chief constable of the West Midlands pointed out that, in relation to knife crime, he was not told what to do. That was the big distinction he drew.

The point on which I really wanted to intervene involves something that the hon. Member for Cannock Chase, who is a supporter of the Bill, has said. During the witness sessions, he illustrated beautifully his belief that it is perfectly possible to campaign to be a police and crime commissioner on the grounds that, in the interests of efficiency, officers must patrol by themselves, rather than in pairs. He was clear that that was a legitimate position for someone campaigning for the job of commissioner and that, if successful, that person would be entitled to put it into effect. The chief constable told him quite clearly that he regarded such a decision as operational, so he would not be prepared to pay heed to that proposal in such an eventuality. Does that not suggest, right at the start, a major problem? Who is right?

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

No, I do not think that that suggests a problem. The issue already exists. We have exactly that situation in London: the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has decided that single patrolling is a good idea—

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

That is not the point.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

That is exactly the point. It is extremely unlikely that any sensible chief constable would take such big decisions without discussing them with the police authority, even if a police authority did not have a formal role.

Conversely, it is unlikely, if a police authority or an elected individual such as a mayor had a particular policy, that the chief constable would not wish to discuss that sensibly in order to implement it. If the chief constable felt strongly that it was fundamentally wrong, he would have to make that point to the elected individual. Ultimately, it could become the subject of a dispute. Such decisions have resource implications, and the function of the elected individual, as with police authorities, is to set the budget and the plan and to appoint the chief constable in the first place. That is the existing position.

I would like to challenge the hypothetical argument that has been made, because we cannot allow it to run on: the idea that someone who runs for elected office is bound to want to denude all the specialist, less visible units under his command of police officers, so that he or she can put them out on the streets. Can someone tell me if that is what has happened in London? Has the Mayor attempted to denude specialist units? It would be perfectly legitimate for the Mayor and the deputy Mayor to have the discussion with the commissioner about how certain units should be resourced. I have no doubt that the commissioner would hold that the force is under his direction and control and, ultimately, that decision is his.

The whole point of accountability is that someone should be able to have that conversation and ask questions. I should point out that in its report “Valuing the Police”, the independent inspectorate of constabulary raised the question of whether some of those units were overmanned.

Mark Tami (Labour, Alyn and Deeside)

Surely the police commissioner is likely to stand on a platform of change in some form or other. Few people stand on the basis of leaving things pretty much as they are by saying, “We think things are going quite well, so we’re not really going to change anything.” Clearly the Minister is not actually listening to me, so I do not know whether it is worth—

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I am listening. I was taking advice.

Mark Tami (Labour, Alyn and Deeside)

I reiterate that a commissioner is likely to be elected after promising change. There might well be a bidding war among candidates over how far that change will go and the areas in which it will take place. It is possible that soon after the commissioner is elected, he will take a more confrontational approach. He will say, “I have the mandate for this change,” regardless of whether the chief constable sees it as being within his operational requirement. If that is not defined, surely the clash will be more difficult.

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley)

Order. I asked the hon. Member for Cannock Chase for brief interventions. I am not sure how many different ways I can put this before it sinks in, but I appeal to Members to make interventions brief and to try to stick to a single point. If anyone wants to make a speech, there is plenty of scope for them to do so. Perhaps Members should consider making a speech rather than a very long intervention, because from here on in they will not be allowed to intervene in such a way.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I thought that Whips were meant to be totally silent, but I welcome the intervention made by the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside.

It might come down to a judgment that we will all exercise about whether candidates standing for office who make unrealistic pledges will be found out in the course of public debates about their proposals, and how the public will react to that. I believe in trusting the public. I think that they see through pledges that are not realistic or grounded, particularly if comment has been made. Somebody making unrealistic pledges about the number of officers on the street would have to answer all sorts of questions about whether they would actually deliver that. That might lead to a wider debate about the nature of the candidates who stand.

The fundamental point is that we are not trying to alter the existing position or the balance between police authorities and chief constables. I do not see any evidence from London that the measures give rise to such catastrophic problems that they call into question whether such democratic accountability should be introduced at all. It is true that it gives the public a greater voice, and I make no apology for that. Part of the purpose of the reform is to ensure that the public have a greater voice and feel that their views are being reflected. However, it is important that we maintain the principle that the chief constable is not an employee of the police and crime commissioner and cannot be directed or controlled by the PCC. The balance that is achieved through such separation is maintained.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

The Minister challenged us to give examples of politicians interfering with chief constables or telling them to put bobbies on the beat. I think that he asked us to give examples from London. The example that I can give is the Prime Minister himself, who used the figure of 11% in relation to bobbies on the beat without any regard for specialist units—child protection, fraud, counter-terrorism—and with no appreciation or respect for those brave officers.

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley)

Order. The hon. Gentleman has made his point—and it was not a brief one.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

That is a poor point. Following the former shadow Home Secretary’s departure to become shadow Chancellor, I advise the Opposition to abandon that point, because it resulted in the chief inspector of constabulary arraigning the right hon. Gentleman about claims that he made on the Floor of the House about the independent inspector’s report. The report says—it is worth a read and I urge every hon. Member to read it—that the visibility and availability of police forces is, on average, 11% of force strength, and that that is too low. It is not us saying that it is too low, although I agree, but the independent inspector. That is being caused by the draw of officers into specialist units and the growth of regulation. The inspectorate suggests that that needs to be reversed and I agree.

There is a serious point about the way in which some specialist units are resourced. Such decisions will be precisely those that will be exercised by chief constables in the future because they are, at least in part, operational matters relating to deployment. PCCs will also be involved because they set overall budgets and plans. A PCC would want to have a discussion with a chief constable about how resources were allocated within the force, and any sensible chief constable would engage in that discussion. Any sensible police and crime commissioner would listen very carefully to what the experienced chief constable was telling him about the importance of those units.

I go back to what I have been saying. What elected individual would dismantle domestic violence units or missing persons units? Over the past few weeks, we have seen the most appalling case in relation to a missing person, which turned out to be an awful murder. The public are very concerned about missing persons. Domestic violence has been a growing issue. I do not accept that a credible elected individual who stands for office and seeks to oversee a force would be persuaded that it would be sensible to dismantle those units, given all the opprobrium that would fall on him. In any case, he would not have the power to do so, because direction and control come under the responsibility of the chief constable.

These are important issues because it is important that we reassure the police service that there is no intention that the reform will cut across operational independence. It is also important that operational independence is not used as a fig leaf to prevent chief constables and forces from being properly held to account. My concern about how the hon. Member for Gedling has drafted his amendment, in which he brings into play the oath of constable, which arises from common law, is that as a way of achieving the operational independence that he seeks, it would come dangerously close to giving the chief constable a free rein to act as he or she wishes. I do not think that that is the hon. Gentleman’s intention, but I am advised that that is the danger of the amendment. It is not the right way to try to define operational independence, and I repeat that the police service has not asked us not to make such provision in the Bill.

The hon. Gentleman asked specifically about the Home Affairs Committee’s proposal for a memorandum of understanding about how the relationship would work. I have been discussing a protocol to govern this arrangement, rather like the one being drawn up in Northern Ireland. I have already said on the Floor of the House that a memorandum of understanding would be a good idea. We should not envisage that this document will seek to define operational independence when we are being advised not to do so. However, it would help the service if we had clearly set out the principal role of police and crime commissioners and the role of the chief constable, and indeed the role of the Home Office, as the other member of the tripartite group, because it is not always clear where the responsibilities lie.

A number of recent issues have raised the question of where responsibility lies between the chief constable, police authorities under the current model and the Home Office. One very important example is the use of water cannon. Some chief constables were suggesting that the deployment of water cannon would be entirely a matter for them—I agree. If water cannons were to be permissible in this country, I think that it would be for a chief constable to decide. Such an operational decision should always be a decision made by a chief officer, not a politician. However, I think that a chief constable who took that kind of step would be very unwise if there had not been previous discussion with their police authority about the use of water cannon and the authority had then agreed to that use. Such previous discussion is required for the use of force such as Tasers, and some authorities do not permit the use of such force. Furthermore, the Home Secretary has pointed out that the use of water cannon has to be authorised by the Home Secretary in the first place. There is no definition of operational independence that says that these decisions are only for chief officers.

In the real world, no chief constable would ever want to take such a step without ensuring that his or her own police authority agreed with it because, frankly, it requires political imprimatur to take such a decision. Indeed, we find that the Home Office has a role in authorising the use of such equipment. The Home Office has an ongoing role in the governance of policing in a number of areas, another good example of which is surveillance.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

I do not think that we are talking about the same thing. The Minister quite rightly describes a situation of a chief constable seeking approval for an action that he thinks is justified, which I understand. The conflict that we are worried about is when the commissioner wishes to impose what he thinks is a political mandate, but the chief constable does not agree. As the Minister pointed out earlier, the chief constable can be sacked by the commissioner, so he is not exactly in an equal position.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I pointed to the real-world example of what happened in London. I accept that the commissioner of the police in London—effectively the chief constable—resigned, although that was not over a disagreement about deployment; it was simply that the Mayor had lost confidence in that individual. I happen to think that the Mayor was reflecting the view of Londoners and I do not think that most Londoners disagreed with that decision. The Mayor was absolutely entitled to exercise that view, and that was a strength of the system, not a weakness, because the system had previously not allowed the view of Londoners to be expressed because the then Home Secretary appeared to be determined to keep that particular individual.

While I doubt that many Londoners disagreed with that decision, they were happy about the decisions taken by the Mayor and the commissioner on knife crime and officers on the streets. Was there a problem? No. The new commissioner and the Mayor reached an accommodation and decided to put those policies into practice, which was healthy and positive.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

On what basis does the Minister claim to know the feelings of the people of London?

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I could review the polling evidence, but my judgment—I might be wrong—

Mark Tami (Labour, Alyn and Deeside)

You probably are.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I might be wrong, but my judgment is that the decision to remove the commissioner was broadly welcomed in London. That is certainly my recollection. If hon. Members have any polling evidence to the contrary, I will be happy to have a look at it, but my view is that the Mayor, who had just been elected to office, was entitled to deliver his promises and to take such action.

Clive Efford (Labour, Eltham)

The Minister has just explained that the Mayor for London was elected on a campaign to tackle knife crime. He then went on to say that, quite rightly, with the commissioner for the police the Mayor then implemented the policy. However, earlier on, when the right hon. Gentleman referred to the knife crime summit that Tony Blair held, he suggested that that was a criticism and an interference in the operation of the police. Will he explain his position? There seems to be a contradiction in the two views.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I am sorry; they are not contradictory at all. I was saying that in both cases we could argue strictly that the politicians concerned—the Prime Minister and the Mayor—were cutting across the operational independence of chief constables, who are free to decide how to deploy the resource in their force to deal with issues such as knife crime. In both cases sensibly, the chief officers had the conversation with the elected politician and discussed how to implement the proposals.

The hon. Member for Gedling was Minister with responsibility for the police for a longer period than I have been, but he will know—as I already do—that there are plenty of occasions when we have discussions with chief officers about policing issues. I am referring mainly to national policing issues, but in some cases we discuss local policing issues with ACPO leads on particular areas of crime. My hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup, the Minister for Crime Prevention, has had such conversations as well, and the chief officers discuss such issues with us. I am sure that they did so with the hon. Gentleman, too. There would have been occasions when what the previous Government were doing could have been cutting across the operational independence of chief officers by demanding that certain things were done in certain ways, but they were the elected Government with the responsibility to ensure efficient and effective policing and to keep the public safe. Chief officers knew that, and that is why they walked into the building in Marsham street to have such conversations.

I am arguing that when things go wrong there are established procedures and ultimately things can go to the courts, as they have in the past. In the main, such matters are settled by sensible British compromise. We need to be very careful not to interfere with that. ACPO asks us not to interfere. However, I want to address the concerns about operational independence, and I agree that a memorandum of understanding would be a helpful development.

Aidan Burley (Conservative, Cannock Chase)

In the past half-hour of debate there has been an assumption that, in some way, elected politicians might make their decisions on where to prioritise police resources for political reasons and politicise the police, whereas chief constables would always make decisions based purely on operational requirements. However, when Sir Ian Blair was first appointed to his post in London, he stated that one of his top priorities was to crack down on middle-class drug-taking. I remember thinking at the time that that could not be a priority for London. Is it not the case that actually senior police officers have been making political decisions for years, and that these changes will actually bring policing back to the people because they will have someone representing the concerns of the many, expressing those concerns to the senior police officers at the top.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I stand by what I said, which is that the proposals give the public a greater say—a greater voice, and that voice will be heard. The reform attempts to do that in a way that does not cut across the conventions and the legal position of the chief constable and those who hold the force to account. The bigger problem, actually, has been that chief constables have tended to look to Whitehall and Westminster for such political direction, when what the tripartite arrangement should have achieved until it was distorted was that chief constables were attending to the views of local people. That is the change that we wish to introduce.

Julian Huppert (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

Will the Minister give way?

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

Will the Minister give way?

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I give way to my hon. Friend because I have given way so many times to the hon. Gentleman.

Julian Huppert (Liberal Democrat, Cambridge)

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the proposals might be better than the current position in less assertive police authorities such as Cambridgeshire? What often happens at the police authority is that members are told that there is an ACPO directive on some issue, which they must follow.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I agree with my hon. Friend. I said that there is always a danger of chief constables hiding under the fig leaf of operational independence. There is certainly that danger where police authorities may not be strong or self-confident enough to hold chief constables properly to account. The dangers do not all go the way that hon. Members suggest they do. They can go the other way, too. Policing is a monopoly service. It is very important that we do not allow chief constables to exercise any element of producer capture, or not to be held to account for the way in which policing is conducted. It is right that the public should have a greater voice and right that we should not attempt to define operational independence.

The hon. Gentleman’s amendment, while well-intentioned in provoking a debate and seeking to establish the importance of operational independence, would be a serious mistake in handing too much power to chief constables through the device of the oath.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

We have only ever had one example of an elected representative to oversee policing, and that is, as has been mentioned, in London. The first action of the elected representative was to chase out the chief constable, with whom he disagreed. What message does that send to the new commissioners—“If you want, you can go and chase out chief constables”? And what message does it send to the chief constables? “Mess with the Tories and you’re out.”

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I am not sure it was wise of me to accept an intervention from the hon. Gentleman. Police authorities already have the ability to appoint and dismiss chief constables. Police and crime commissioners will have that ability, too, subject to the checks and balances that we have set out. That is part of the reassurance that we have given on operational independence. We have put in place measures—I am sure we will come to this in later debates—that will be some kind of check against capricious decisions being taken by the elected individual. We have again wanted to reassure ACPO about that.

So, I want to reassure the Committee that the Government have thought about the issues very carefully. They are being extensively debated outside this place. It is right that they should be debated here, but the amendment would be the wrong way to secure operational independence. For that reason, I urge the hon. Member for Gedling, in spite of his good intentions, to ask leave to withdraw it.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

It has been a good debate. There is clearly a difference in the Committee. The Minister, for all the reasons that he has just articulated, believes that the new model will not create any more difficulty than can be overcome by a good deal of common sense, stiff upper lip and away we go—all sorted. We are moving into a fundamentally different environment with directly elected people in every police force area, as I have said, with a mandate. To get elected, people will make promises. Other people will make promises. There will be a manifesto competition. When people are elected on that mandate, they will seek to implement it. The Minister says that that is not a problem, because they will sit down and talk about it and come to an agreement. He quoted a couple of examples of when that had happened, including in the 1980s.

The fact of the matter is, there is a very real problem here. We have heard evidence galore that there is a very real problem. The Home Affairs Committee has said it is such a problem that there needs to be a memorandum of understanding. The police prefer a code of practice, but it amounts to the same thing. The Minister clearly thinks there is an issue, because he has agreed that we need a memorandum to clarify the respective roles of the police and crime commissioner and the chief constable. If it was as clear as the Minister made out in the arguments he articulated, there would not be a need for it, because everyone would understand what was going to happen. I am glad that he has agreed to it. It would be churlish of me not to be pleased that the Minister has agreed that there is a need for it. If it was all sweetness and light, there would not be a need for a memorandum of understanding and a code of practice.

I will conclude my comments, because we have more amendments to debate. One of them points out the real dangers of the situation and the conflict in two separate parts of the Bill that will lead to tension between the PCC and the chief constable over who controls and directs personnel.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

Is not the problem with the Minister’s response that he has based his argument on the fact that we are dealing with the familiar problem of police authorities and operational independence? He bases his argument for the Bill’s provisions, however, on the fact that he is going to do something radical, new and different that will empower PCCs. He is sweeping away police authorities and introducing a much more powerful body. How can he use one argument to justify his defence when his argument for the Bill is the exact opposite?

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

The point is that each area has somebody with a mandate who has been elected as a result of making certain promises. The Minister must be worried about that, otherwise there would be no need for a memorandum of understanding or a code of practice, and the existing arrangements and good, common sense would be okay.

The Minister did not respond to one point. It is important that an elementary draft of the memorandum of understanding or code of practice should be placed before the Committee and Parliament, so that we can look at what the Minister, along with his officials and based on discussions with others, is trying to put together to help to resolve the tension. This debate is important and I would like to test the opinion of the Committee on the amendment.

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley)

I have formed a judgment that, after four hours on clause 1, we have covered all the issues exhaustively. I do not, therefore, think that there is any need for a clause stand part debate.

Schedule 1

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I beg to move amendment 112, in schedule 1, page 104, line 8, at end insert—

George Howarth (Labour, Knowsley)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 113, in schedule 1, page 104, line 8, at end insert—

Amendment 114, in schedule 1, page 104, line 8, at end insert—

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

I will be brief. For the information of the Minister and the Committee, these are probing amendments.

Would the Minister say a little more about the staffing arrangements that he expects for the PCC? We have made reference in the amendment to the possible need for a staffing plan, and it would be interesting to know what salaries he expects. From my reading of the Bill I understand that the PCC must appoint a chief executive, a chief financial officer and so on. What does the Minister envisage as the salary of the commissioner himself? Is £120,000 the accurate staffing figure for a PCC? What salaries does he expect for the chief executive and the chief financial officer? Will there be a maximum budget? Will staffing be regulated? Is there a limit on the number of staff that a PCC may have, or does that depend on circumstances? I am not clear about where the budget comes from and how much they can actually have.

I also want to raise some issues that have been mentioned by a number of organisations. One is diversity, which the Minister addressed earlier. We need to have diversity within this structure. If a PCC establishes an office that functions well, what does he envisage happening to those staff when the PCC stands down or is not returned? Would all the staff working for the PCC automatically be made redundant? As he knows, there is a concern about the loss of expertise in such circumstances. I am trying to find out a little more about the staffing structure for the PCC.

Mark Tami (Labour, Alyn and Deeside)

The cost is a very important point, because we are told by the Government—I do not know whether they still cling to this ludicrous point—that it will not cost more than the present system. As I said earlier, I think the cost is likely to mushroom with the number of people working for PCCs. We will see that money is spent on that, rather than on front-line policing, which is what we want.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

That is a fair and interesting point. It is not clear what we are talking about in terms of cost. How many people can be employed? What are the salaries? What is going on? There is no clarity. I want to give the Minister the opportunity to include in the Bill something about staffing; something about costs; something about how many staff will be employed; something about where that budget will come from; and something in answer to the other questions about the transition.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

Is my hon. Friend as disappointed as I am that the Minister has not taken advantage of this opportunity to give effect to the Prime Minister’s belief that there should be a multiple on salaries? So the commissioner’s salary should be the Prime Minister’s multiple of the salary of the lowest paid employee of the force.

Vernon Coaker (Labour, Gedling)

That is a good point. The Minister has heard it, and no doubt he is willing to address it. Would the Minister respond to the series of questions that have been asked about staffing?

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I welcome the opportunity to respond to the question of the salaries of PCCs. The salaries have not been set in the Bill. We have made it clear that we will take advice from the SSRB on the level of these salaries. That was the established practice when new posts were set out under the previous Government, and the Home Secretary has just written to the chairman of the SSRB to ask for advice on that matter.

There was speculation as to the size of the salaries, because, for the purposes of providing the regulatory impact assessment, we had to indicate what the salary might be to work out what the costs of the new organisation would be. That is all in the regulatory impact assessment, but that was in no way setting any kind of benchmark or indicating that the Government’s view was that that total amount of £120,000 per annum, which included the cost of national insurance and so on, would be given to police and crime commissioners.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

The Minister is right that the previous Government used the SSRB, although not, as I recall, for elected posts. Will the public know beforehand how much the commissioner they are being asked to elect is going to cost them? Will that decision have been made and will it be available to the public before the election, or will they find out after they have made their decision?

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

It will certainly be available to the public beforehand, because it would not be right for the directly elected police and crime commissioners to be able to set their own salary in the same way that Members of Parliament have salaries set centrally. We felt that it was right in relation to police and crime commissioners. [ Interruption. ] I perhaps should not have opened that particular can of worms—or vale of tears.

I reaffirm that it is absolutely the determination of the Government that police and crime commissioners and police and crime panels together should not cost more than the existing arrangements. With having to deal with the deficit and to ensure that public spending is properly controlled, it is important that they do not.

Mark Tami (Labour, Alyn and Deeside)

As I understand it, the Government do not include the cost of election in the figures. That is clearly a cost, and one cannot pretend otherwise. Why is that not included? Even the Government would accept that it will cost more than the present system.

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

I was about to go on to say that I am talking about the running costs of the police and crime commissioners. I have always conceded, including on the Floor of the House on several occasions, that there will, in this democratic reform, be a cost to holding the elections, and I will make several points about that.

First, our estimate means that the provision that the Chancellor gave, which was in addition to the amount that the Home Secretary secured for policing, for the election in 2012 means that the £50 million that has been provided will not come out of police force budgets.

Chris Ruane rose—

Steve McCabe rose—

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

May I complete the points I was making?

Secondly, it is a one-off cost every four years, which averages out at some £12.5 million a year. To put it in context, that is less than 0.1% of police spend every year. Those figures are all set out in the regulatory impact assessment.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

If there is a referendum on increasing the police precept, it can cost £700,000 or £1 million. Has that been factored into the costs?

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

No, that is not factored into the costs of police and crime commissioners, so that would have to be dealt with separately. We are talking about the costs of PCCs, and whether the running costs would be more than those of the police authorities. We are determined that they should not be. The third point—

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

On that point—

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

Just hold on. My third point, on the cost of holding the elections, relates to the proposal from the hon. Member for Gedling for directly elected chairs of police authorities, which we heard this morning. The cost of those elections would be exactly the same, so I do not think that that was ever a strong argument from the Opposition. It is actually an argument against democracy; it says that we should not have an election simply because of its cost. That is a very poor argument indeed for democrats to advance. It is now a doubly poor argument for the Opposition to prosecute, because their policy would involve exactly the same cost in holding an election for a directly elected chair of a police authority.

Steve McCabe (Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak)

I just wanted to seek a bit of clarity from the Minister. If I understood him correctly, it is his expectation and wish that the costs should not be any greater than the current ones. I am not clear where in the Bill there is any mechanism to prevent the cost from rising. Does he have a plan for reserved powers or capping? It is all right to wish it, and I share his wish, but things happen that we do not foresee. What will happen if the costs rise? How will that be stopped?

Nick Herbert (Conservative, Arundel and South Downs)

Let me come directly to that important point. In designing the policy, we considered carefully whether it would be right to set a limit on the amount that the police and crime commissioner could spend on the organisation, which gave rise to a number of issues. First, there are differing costs for the different police authorities—costs that relate not only to their size. Secondly, that assumes that police and crime commissioners would continue to exercise all the functions that police authorities exercise, in the same way. The issue of complaints is a very good example of an area where the functions of the police and crime commissioner might increase, because the police and crime commissioner might start taking more of the complaints that are currently made to the force. An adjustment of resource might be needed to accommodate that.

The bigger point, however, is whether the answer is to cap those costs, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak suggests. We all agree that we must bear down on administrative overheads, but is it best to prescribe that in the legislation, which I think would be difficult? Alternatively, is it best to do as we have done, and to have transparency—to reveal the costs by providing that they must be published and scrutinised by the police and crime panel, so that the public will know? Of course, there will be league tables of the police and crime commissioners, showing how much they are costing.

Journalists will raise serious questions about the overheads of the organisation. Any police and crime commissioner who sought to increase the overhead would have to explain why that money was being taken from the policing budget, and they would be scrutinised by the police and crime panel. In the current environment, the public expect answerability on costs such as these, as they have had in the House, as we all know; transparency will allow that. It will be very hard for a PCC to increase costs in a way that is out of tune with what the public want, and in a way that appears to be denuding the policing budget.

Mark Tami (Labour, Alyn and Deeside)

So what the Minister is really saying is that he hopes that the police and crime commissioner will not exceed the costs, but he is not prepared to put any mechanism in place to ensure that that does not happen.

The rest of the debate is in Hansard.