The Police Act 1964

HL Deb 13 April 1981 vol 419 cc838-55

8.30 p.m.

Lord Allen of Abbeydale rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied that the provisions of the Police Act 1964 dealing with the functions, duties and accountability of police authorities and chief officers of police are working as Parliament intended.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this evening we embark on a discussion about the police against a sombre background. Come what may, I believe that our police service can stand comparison with any other in the world. But leaving aside the results of the inquiry which has been announced today, which links up with issues going well beyond the concern of the police themselves, I suspect that before very long we shall be engaged in a debate on police powers in the light of the report of the recent Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure. However, that report hardly touches on the question of police accountability, a subject which has itself aroused a good deal of public comment and some disquiet, and indeed an attempt at legislation in another place. So I thought it opportune to have quite a short discussion on this issue in your Lordships' House today.

I remember a judge rebuking a witness for saying that at a certain scene he had observed three civilians and a police officer. The judge, quite rightly, pointed out that the police officer was a civilian too. Indeed, it is a basic concept that a policeman is a citizen who is discharging certain duties on behalf of his fellow citizens. The question is how the views of the community on law enforcement are to be conveyed to those who are carrying out these duties on their behalf, and how those so charged are to account to the communitity's chosen representatives.

The Police Act 1964, which is the subject of my Question, sets the present pattern. This Act followed the report of a Royal Commission, this being one of the rare occasions when a Royal Commission report was followed by legislation, and legislation at that which bore some relation to what the Royal Commission had said. As a member of two more recent Royal Commissions, I can only comment si sic omnia!

The Royal Commission report recommended the continuance of separate local forces, even though in passing it successfully demolished the usual arguments against a national police force; and, in its turn, the Act duly reiterated the pattern, which was by then pretty familiar, of sharing responsibility between central and local government. But it was the declared aim of the legislation that the police should be brought under more effective supervision and made more accountable, and that the balance between central and local government should be tilted towards the centre.

The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, who was Home Secretary at the time and whom I had the great privilege of serving in two Ministries—although not, I hasten to add, at the time that this particular legislation was being passed—put it like this on Second Reading. He said that the Bill carried Parliament a long distance beyond the old concept of separate and autonomous forces by superimposing on the system a measure of firm central supervision, but sought to do this without derogating from local initiative and local interest. This evening I should like to pose one or two questions aimed at ascertaining whether those aims have been achieved.

But the Act of 1964 cannot be considered in splendid isolation. For one thing, it barely touched the biggest force of all, the Metropolitan Police Force, where the Home Secretary remained as the police authority, and the sole privilege which the local authorities had was of footing part of the Bill. Then powers, which were set out in the Act for amalgamating police forces, were but a continuous part of a long-established story. The need to have forces big enough to command the resources needed for modern policing had resulted, over the years, in various amalgamations carried out in advance, as it were, of the reorganisation of local government itself; and even now we have a number of forces which cover more than one county. I cannot help thinking that all this must have put something of a strain on the traditional relationship between the police and local government.

Also, some of the policies in which the police are involved have taken on new dimensions since 1964. I have in mind, for example, the use of computers and the storage of information; the role of special branches and the use of firearms by the police; also the control of riots and relations with the ethnic minorities—problems which were tragically highlighted in the events which we were discussing earlier today.

Against this general background, I should like to pick out just four questions from the many which could be asked. My first one is the quite general question whether, in the Government's view, since 1964 police authorities have been able to exercise a substantial policy responsibility going beyond a concern for housekeeping, if I could put it that way; whether it is a general practice for chief constables to give really informative accounts to the police authorities of their policing policies and to listen to what the authorities have to say about them; whether the traditional partnership between central and local government is thought to be alive and well; and whether the Government remain committed to the maintenance of that partnership as the essential feature of our police service.

I should also like to ask whether the present financial stringency—when I am sure that many a chief constable has been careful to explain to the county treasurer that he is not as other men are—has given rise to friction at local level. Is the Home Office itself still attached to preserving the separate police grant when the practice of stopping it seems to have fallen into desuetude, and there must be some doubt whether it is still, realistically, a nuclear-type deterrent?

As it happens, my second question also relates to a topic which has been a good deal in the news recently, and that is the handling of complaints against the police. The provisions of the 1964 Act on this point, I think, led to some increase in the practice of calling in investigating officers from another force, but certainly the relevant provisions in the Act did not prove to be very satisfactory, and since then we have seen new legislation and the setting up of the Police Complaints Board.

However, the problem has not really been solved. The board itself recently suggested that there was need for a more independent element in investigating serious complaints, in particular perhaps those involving unexplained injuries when people were arrested or kept in police custody. Although a working party with a strong police representation would not go along with the board's own course of action, as it suggested, the working party did acquiesce, rather reluctantly, in plans for developing the existing arrangements for bringing in investigating officers from another force, possibly with some supervisory role for the chairman of the complaints board or, as a rather surprising alternative, the Director of Public Prosecutions. But, as I read the report, the police representatives themselves saw no real need for any change at all and thought that all concerned would be satisfied if only they understood how thorough police investigations into complaints were. So that it was not altogether surprising that there was what one could, without too much exaggeration, describe as a howl of anguish when The Times the other day discovered a draft report from the Home Office Research Unit which suggested that, after all, police inquiries were not always quite as thorough as they might be.

I think that this is the first opportunity to ask a Home Office Minister about all this. Although obviously when the noble Lord replies he will not be able to give a final view, perhaps he could tell us what the present thinking is about the report of the working party and about the possibility of publishing this research report when it is finished—I understand that it is not a complete document—so that we can then all assess it for ourselves. One other comment, too. I noticed that the working party had no representatives of the police authorities on it at all. I wonder what the Home Office think that the role of the authorities is on this extremely important issue.

My third question—and this will take but a moment—relates to one area where the recent Royal Commission did make proposals bearing on accountability, and that is the responsibility for prosecutions. I am in no doubt that the Minister will say that it is too soon to expect a Government pronouncement on the Commission's idea of a new prosecution service, the rightness of which is not completely self-evident, and I shall content myself with drawing attention to this issue as being important in any review of police accountability.

My fourth and final question is this: for reasons I can well understand, the police service is now headed by individuals who have come up through the ranks. It was not always so. When I first had dealings with the police the Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner and two of the four Assistant Commissioners in the Metropolitan Police were not professional policemen, nor were a good many of the provincial chief constables. But while there is no going back to anything like that, I am bound to say that during the time I was chairman of the board of governors of the police college at Bramshill—a centralised service for which the 1964 Act, as I recall, made specific provision—I was never really sure in my mind that the college had succeeded in doing what we had hoped in identifying and training the leaders of the service. Nor was I indeed satisfied that the service was attracting, and retaining, enough people of high intellectual quality and good academic qualifications.

I must ask whether the Government think that the position is now better; that enough able people are being attracted to the service and are being encouraged to stay there; that the likely future leaders are being spotted, and that they are being trained to be sufficiently alive to relevant issues affecting the community they serve; and going beyond professional police instruction which, of itself, is not enough for those who fill the highest posts. I put my point briefly, but it is crucial to the future of the service. I end, as I began, by paying tribute to the high reputation and competence of the police, and by saying that they have nothing to fear from the public discussion of questions of the kind I have been touching on this evening.

8.45 p.m.

Lord Plant

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Allen, for putting down this Question. It is very appropriate. I intervene because I was a member of the Lord Edmund-Davies police inquiry and have followed closely many of the recommendations that that committee made. Of course accountability and complaints are bound together. The noble Lord, Lord Allen, said that the issue of complaints had not been solved even by the latest working party. I find it somewhat strange that the working party had 12 members and, reading the report, seven of them were opposed to its recommendations.

In a free society, bureaucracy has to expect that it will be attacked from time to time. The difficult task of enforcing law and order falls on the police. It is a tendency of anyone subject to discipline against his wishes to complain against those people who are enforcing law and order. Many complaints against the police are fictitious and highly coloured, and that is why most are not proceeded with.

In the current issue of the Police Magazine the editor said: there is no reason at all why the [Complaints] Board should not seek to discover why so many complaints, anything between a third and a half of the total, are withdrawn. The explanation, in a great majority of cases, will simply be that tempers have cooled and explanations have been accepted. Some complainants are appalled at the forces they have unleashed. They have rushed to a police station to get their opinions off their chests, not realising that they were setting in motion a long and painstaking procedure to probe the rights and wrongs of a trivial incident. All this stems from the requirement to record and investigate every complaint and although everyone agrees that trivial complaints should not have to go through the full treatment, no one has succeeded in defining what is trivial". The police are the only group of workers I know who can be fined by their senior officers anything up to £500. The chief constable and the deputy chief constable investigate internal complaints with great thoroughness and demotion and fines of a considerable amount are not unknown. In fact, one of the complaints of the police at the moment is that the very success of the Edmund-Davies committee in putting right their pay has meant more vicious fines by some chief constables.

Very few policemen are deliberately going to encounter disciplinary procedures. Errors of judgment of course take place. They do among Governments, too, but they are not demoted or fined. There is an appeals procedure on fines and other actions, but men who pound the pavements seem to have little confidence in this appeals system. The Home Office and the Police Advisory Board should re-examine the fines procedure.

The number of justified complaints is small, but the time taken to investigate them is very great. The police on the beat feel the administration leans over backwards to protect the citizen, and that is as it should be. I hope no one will be charged for excessive force or dereliction of duty over last week-end in Brixton. I agree with the views of the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Superintendents' Association and the Police Federation in the Working Party report to which the noble Lord, Lord Allen, referred. The Association of Chief Police Officers have a standing committee and close liaison with the complaints board. I believe that should be tightened. I also believe that investigations take too long. It may be they are being done very thoroughly, but the longer they go on the more difficulty occurs.

On the question of training, the police college, now under the control of Sir Kenneth Newman, who was at one time in Northern Ireland where he did outstanding work, is doing extraordinarily good work in training people to take the highest posts in the police service. One of the questions the noble Lord, Lord Allen asked, was whether able people were being attracted to the police service and, once attracted, were they being retained. I am in no doubt, having probed this question in some depth, that the reasonable pay offered since Edmund-Davies reported is not only attracting but keeping able people, and university entrants are being put on the express train for advancement, as is the case in the Civil Service.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Allen, that everything should be done to attract the best brains to fill the top posts in the police service. There is a training council on which the staff associations have membership. It is an ongoing thing and I believe the Home Office is doing everything possible to expedite the training of the brightest prospects in the police service for holding top posts in the future.

The Edmund-Davies Committee made some outstanding proposals in Part III of their report which is now in the process of implementation, and I would call the attention of noble Lords to a few of them because they affect some of the points mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Allen. One recommendation was that there should be a joint negotiating and consultative committee on which the three police staff associations would serve. Being chaired by the chief constable, it would deal with consultative problems. The report said that consultative problems are forced policy—not negotiable items but consultative issues which are force policy. Therefore, for the first time, force policy—which really means everything which hitherto has been in the sole control of the chief constable—can now be shared with the three staff associations and the chief constable, hammering out the best approach to some of the issues which hitherto have been considered only in the giving of the chief constable. The minutes of the JNCC are to be monitored by Her Majesty's Inspectors of Constabulary. The report went on to say that if there was disagreement shown in the minutes, it was the job of HM Inspectors to try to resolve the disagreement between the two sides. The Home Office therefore will know what is being discussed in a consultative capacity on the JNCC, will know the areas of disagreement and in my view that will take industrial relations within the police force a great step forward.

Another recommendation was that the police authority could be attended by staff association representatives. Up to the time of Edmund-Davies, staff association representatives could attend only as members of the public and had to leave the police authority when the open agenda had concluded. Most, if not all, police authorities have now accepted that staff association representatives—and they are small in number—can be present in both parts of the agenda, the open and confidential agenda, though there may be a super confidential part when they must leave. They can attend as a matter of right in duty time; previously they could attend only the public part in their own time.

The more important point in relation to the police authority is that the three staff associations will meet privately with the clerk of the authority, the chairman of the police authority and members of the authority jointly to discuss items of interest, the policing of the area and some of the issues which the noble Lord, Lord Allen, mentioned. The associations will be able to let the police authority membership know of their aspirations and objectives, and that will be very useful in relation to some of the problems highlighted by Lord Allen.

The Edmund-Davies Committee also recommended that there should be regional meetings of forces. At present, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Superintendents' Association may have regional meetings in duty time, probably several forces meeting, but the Police Federation does not have that opportunity, except for its women members who meet on a regional basis to elect their representatives to go to their conference. It is strange to me, coming from the trade union movement, that I find that 60 per cent. of the forces allow regional meetings in duty time while 40 per cent. do not. I find it incredible that at the same regional meeting more than half will be there in duty time and the remainder in their own time.

I was greatly impressed when I heard Sir Philip Knights of the West Midlands Constabulary talking about violence and law and order, and he was tracing the question of law and order from medieval times to the present day; the influence of the Church, the squire, voluntary bodies, the police and of course the sad influence of television. He said that in the West Midlands they had opened six houses where surgeries would be held by constables in their patches to receive constituents and talk to them about problems affecting their everyday lives and the policing of the area. I am told that in the West Midlands there will eventually be 200 of these surgeries, when money is available. I was told by one constable who is operating surgeries on his patch that he has had no callers and all that his parishioners" have done is let down the tyres on his car. That is a sad commentary, and such a situation must be looked at, because here the police are trying to help the community, trying to bring in a community spirit; yet somehow they cannot get through. What is to be done? How can we further help the police?—not by continually attacking them. They need our support, and I know that this House has given them full support.

Those are some of the problems that I feel have to be raised. There is nothing conclusive about them, but I am quite certain that the Edmund-Davies Report is now giving the police associations a better opportunity to put their points of view to the chief constable and to the police authority, and indeed through the Police Advisory Board, to the Home Secretary—which has never happened before. I believe that in 12 months' time there will be a different outlook and indeed a better police service.

9.1 p.m.

Lord Inglewood

My Lords, I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Allen, has raised this subject, because it is very timely. I should have liked to take up some of the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Plant. I agree with some of what he said, though not all of it, but I think that at this time of the evening I ought to stick to the notes that I have prepared and speak about accountability, which is one of the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Allen. Accountability has for long been a grey area, a great uncertainty, and I hope that the Home Office will take the point and act where possible to clear up uncertainties.

I do not want to seem overcritical this evening. I am very proud of my police associations and of those who have helped me here and abroad. They have infected me with a large part of their irresistible loyalty, but I have never been attracted by the police party line. I am far too independent; I have an independent mind. I admire their strong points—and they have very many. I agree with the noble Lord who opened the debate that there is no other police force with which I should like to exchange ours. I admire their strong points, but I am not blind to their weaker ones.

First, I should like to speak, briefly, about the accountability of police authorities, and then I wish to say something about the accountability of chief constables. So far as I can see, police authorities are in a very awkward position because among other things they are responsible for something which is very important—efficiency. This responsibility is written into the 1964 Act, but no one has yet defined what is efficiency in this sense and what the relevant subsection of the Act really means. I have spoken to members of different authorities in various parts of the country and one thing that they have in common is that they all seem to be unhappy because they are used to such a large extent as rubber stamps They do not know where their power and responsibility begin or end, and, as like as not, today chief constables pay as much—or more—attention to the federation as they do to the police authorities. Really they are different kinds of animals; neither should take the place of the other. The police authority has a very important role laid down in the statute and I submit that it is not always allowed to carry it out.

I wonder how many members of police authorities thought of looking at the living conditions in the police station cells for which they are responsible during the unhappy weeks of the prison officers' strike; I should think that very few did. An efficient county police force depends on a partnership between the authority and the police, and I submit that mostly that partnership is not as close as it ought to be. The key to this is the quality of the chairman of the authority. Top-class councillors and magistrates will want to serve on police authorities only if they have a real job and a real share of responsibility. They do not want to take over someone else's job, but they want the job which Parliament intended that they should have. The chairman should be chosen by the authority itself, not by the party caucus of the county council outside, which nominates someone on the authority, and then lobbies the authority to elect that person. I consider that that is very wrong, but the state has been reached where 19 out of 20 chairmen of authorities are nominated by the caucus of the majority party of the county council.

I now wish to turn briefly to the question of chief officers, and here I am referring to ACPO members in general, not just to chief constables. Chief constables and ACPO members are not all equal, any more than are men forming any other group, or as was said earlier today, than we, the Members of this House. There are some in ACPO whom all of us must admire unreservedly, and there are some few under whom would not care to serve—I shall not say any more. Generally speaking, they are over-sensitive about their position and their "kingdom". They are paranoid about whom they call politicians—it is really humorous—and so they discourage many good friends, which is a tragedy. They fail to see the wide difference between close co-operation and understanding and attempts at interference. They still dream dreams about watch committee interference over promotions and other smaller points. But that is all of the past, and none of us, I am sure, wants to see it brought back.

Mr. Anderton, the chief constable of Greater Manchester, the other day wrote an article in one of the police magazines, and it was reprinted in some of the others. It was a terrific outpouring. He really went to town on the question of accountability and freedom from political interference—and he is very muddled about it. It is a pity. He is not the only chief officer who misses few opportunities of criticising those whom he calls politicians, and so I do not think that they can complain when we lob back a little of it, because they started it.

It is obviously very desirable for individuals with police powers to be clearly accountable to the law, but it is not so simple to achieve that in practice. What happens if a chief constable's conduct brings his headquarters into disrepute, and yet he breaks no law? I think that something must have been in the mind of the Home Office when, in December 1978, it produced a memorandum, as a basis for discussion, of the procedures for dealing with allegations about the conduct of chief officers of police. The memorandum was circulated rather over two years ago, and I believe I am right in saying that absolutely nothing has happened since, except that every attempt to make progress has been blocked by one so-called consultation or another. Perhaps the Minister could tell us something about that when he replies.

As an example of what I have in mind, take heavy drinking. It is not a crime to drink heavily in this country, and yet we all know that in all classes there are some men who do; and whether you are the chairman of a company, a chief constable or the head of any other organisation, it brings that organisation into disrepute. That is the sort of thing, I imagine, that was in the mind of the Home Office when they produced this memorandum. In this field, HMIs appear to me to be quite powerless. There are no regular confidential reports on senior officers, who serve until they are 65. That is worth noticing: it is five years longer than senior civil servants or ambassadors, and 10 years longer than major-generals. It is also believed by those down the line and more junior that it blocks promotion, and that it would be a happier service if this age was brought more in line with the retiring age of other comparable servants of the Crown.

I am not the only person who has been gravely worried over recent years by the lack of interest, I could almost say neglect, shown by chief constables in special constables, whose numbers have fallen steadily over the years. I would have expected them to fall over the years immediately after the war, but that fall has continued. They even fell after the first working party reported and was thought to be giving the special constabulary a new start. They are still falling, to the best of my belief, and this during the time when the second working party is sitting. The number is falling at the rate of about 1,000 a year, and I think we could say that if this continued, then in two years or so the special constabulary would no longer be any significant national force.

One could hardly imagine a time when it would be more urgently needed than it is at present or when special constabulary could perform a more valuable service, not just in terms of civil defence in the case of major disasters but even in policing parts of London over this past weekend. I wonder very much what steps have been taken to mobilise special constables over these days, when regulars have been drawn from their normal divisions and concentrated in Brixton, but I do not want to pursue that now. The numbers are still falling; and one has to admit that this is something to be expected when so little encouragement has been shown by so many regulars. This is an ill service to the community in the difficult times in which we live.

My reading of the Act is that if any chief constable decided overnight to have no more special constables, he could dismiss them there and then—the whole lot. That power is found in Section 16 of the 1964 Act. If all chief constables thought the same, we might wake up tomorrow and find that the entire special constabulary had been dismissed—all within the perfectly proper exercise of powers which we have given to chief constables in the 1964 Act. I have mentioned that in this House before. The last time I mentioned it, the Minister did not refer to it in his reply, so I am hoping tonight to be a little more fortunate. This is not really so far-fetched, because, after the report of the first working party on special constables, when an effort was made to bring their ages more into line with those of the regular service, which I think is not necessarily a good idea, one chief constable in this country, in a night of the long knives, sacked 133 there and then. Needless to say, he gave the morale of that force a blow from which it has not yet recovered. The HMI whom I asked about this thought it was all right, when I would have thought it was all wrong.

My Lords, for this decline in the special constabulary—and this neglect, if I can use a stronger word—the greater part of the blame must be borne by chief constables, and I cannot think of a single one who has spoken up for them in public. Chief constables speak often enough in ordinary conversation about how useful special constables are, but I cannot think of one who has come out into the open and spoken boldly in support of special constabulary and followed up his words with action. The police authorities are to blame, too, although I would say in smaller measure; and so is the Home Office, who must have known about these falling figures over the years and have never, I think, made any national appeal. They are all accountable to a greater or lesser extent.

In conclusion, may I repeat that I am sure it is right, and we all agree that it is right, to defend the independence of the police from political interference. But we also want to make them accountable to the law. Today there are gaps, which have to be examined. It may be that these gaps should be filled by amendments to the disciplinary code. In any event, we do not want to see too much secrecy about these things. The tradition in Britain is to be over-secretive about the police. Compared with one country whose police I know fairly well, Germany, this country is far more secretive, and I cannot see why.

Equally, in this country we do not want imperium in imperi. The police, as the noble Lord has said, are civilians doing a special job for their fellow men. Much of their work is exacting, much of it is confidential, but a great deal of it need not be surrounded with secrecy in the way that much of it is today. All power tends to corrupt. We must not forget that. There was a delicate balance built into the 1964 Act, a truly British device, which needs readjustment. I hope that the Home Office will not fail us but will take the necessary lead.

9.15 p.m.

Lord Boston of Faversham

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, has raised an important subject tonight and I am sure that we are grateful to him for that. As a former Permanent Secretary at the Home Office, he speaks with great authority on these matters. In the course of his remarks, he raised a number of particularly important matters within this whole subject: the extent to which chief constables pay attention to police authorities, accountability (to which the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, has also addressed his remarks) and the system of prosecutions. All are matters on which we could have major debates. I should like to follow him as far as all those particular parts of this subject are concerned, but I shall resist the temptation in view of the hour.

The point on which I should like to follow him is his other major point, the question of complaints against the police, to which my noble friend Lord Plant also referred. I should like to say first of all that we have been immensely fortunate in the chairmanship of the Police Complaints Board. We have had, in its first year, a most distinguished and widely respected chairman in the noble Lord, Lord Plowden, and now, in Sir Cyril Philips, we have as his successor another highly respected and knowledgeable figure. One of their most important attributes, especially in the context of this work, is the board's independence and independent-mindedness.

It needs also to be acknowledged at the outset that the police are in a peculiarly influential and powerful position for many of them are specially well placed to know the circumstances surrounding the subject matter of complaints against them. They are also the best placed and most experienced body of people when it comes to carrying out investigations of various kinds, not just into complaints; and they are also experienced in assembling evidence. But it also needs to be emphasised that the police are peculiarly vulnerable to all kinds of wholly unmeritorious, trivial, fabricated complaints from, for example, cranks or vindictive defendants disgruntled at being found out and found guilty. It cannot be passed without notice that many complaints come from people who are hardly the most reliable sources of fact and truth. That vulnerability must be taken into account in any system for investigating complaints that is devised, so as to ensure that that vulnerability is not allowed to place them at a disadvantage. They need to be no better but also no worse placed than the rest of us. At the same time—and, I believe that this is for the benefit of the police as well as for everyone else—there needs to be as great an independent element in investigating complaints as possible, consistent with recognising those principles that I have referred to, for this will help safeguard the credibility of that system.

The Police Complaints Board, in the triennial review report published on 15th July 1980, to which the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, referred, looked thoroughly into the system and came up with a series of suggested improvements to which he has also made reference in his remarks. It is fair to say that the report was generally reassuring about the way that the system as a whole was working. The most important of those recommendations for improvement was the proposal in Chapter 5 of the report to which the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, referred that complaints of serious injury should be investigated by a specialist body of investigating officers answerable to an independent lawyer, and preferably one who has exercised judicial office. The board said that before a final decision was taken a number of important issues needed further consideration; namely, practical matters concerning the relationships between the proposed investigating body, the Director of Public Prosecutions, chief officers of police and the complaints board itself. The board's report also contained a number of other useful recommendations which I do not intend to go into now.

The Home Secretary immediately announced that he was setting up the working party to which the noble Lord, Lord Allen, and my noble friend Lord Plant referred, to consider the implementation of the board's main recommendation. That working party, as we know, reported last month and Lord Belstead's right honourable friend the Home Secretary at once invited comments upon it.

Although the working party's report contains some valuable further thoughts and suggestions, especially to widen somewhat the nature of the serious cases to be subjected to a new form of investigation—corruption cases were mentioned, for example—it is disappointing that the working party's report does not endorse the principal point in the board's proposal for greater independence in the procedure for investigating complaints: the recommendations for an independent supervisor and for a specialist team of investigating officers.

It is worth noting that the terms of reference given to the working party by the Home Secretary were: To consider in detail how it might be possible to implement the recommendation"— not whether it might be possible but how it might be possible to implement the recommendation. We have no means, outside the words of the working party's report, of knowing whether—and, if so, to what extent—there was disagreement between members of the working party in the course of their discussions. What we do know is that they did not feel able to put forward detailed proposals stating how it might be possible to implement the board's actual recommendation.

We also know that the working party came up with a unanimous report. I know that there were reservations expressed in the body of the report on certain matters: nevertheless, so far as the conclusions and recommendations were concerned, it was a unanimous report. That is a considerable tribute to the skilled chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Plowden. We know, too, that while rejecting on various grounds—and because of certain specified problems—the board's idea for a specialist team of investigating officers, the working party's report noted at paragraph 19: These problems, though difficult, are not necessarily insuperable". We know that, while rejecting on certain grounds—including financial and administrative ones—the board's proposal for an independent person with judicial experience, the working party's report noted at paragraph 36 that: a completely new appointment would not be impracticable". Again, I suspect that we can probably detect in the terms in which the report is drawn—though I must say immediately that I have not discussed any of these matters with anyone connected with either the working party or the board—the painstaking and experienced chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Plowden.

I hope that the Minister and his right honourable friend the Home Secretary will bear very much in mind the view that, although there are difficulties—there usually are difficulties in matters which require investigation, otherwise they would not be subjected to it—they are difficulties which can be overcome. Also I hope that the Ministers will keep firmly in mind the board's original proposals put forward in the triennial review after much thought.

Finally, I turn briefly to another matter which was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale: this was the report in The Times last week about the unpublished Home Office research department's report on studies by the department of investigations by the police of complaints against officers of assault. I am not going to repeat any of the contents of the report in The Times because I do not see that any special purpose is served by repeating any of the claims said to be made in the research reports without having seen the full report itself. I am concerned, I confess, about certain aspects of the matter.

First, I hope very much—and here I join strongly with what the noble Lord, Lord Allen, has said that the report will be published. I believe that it should be open to examination—and if it is not complete yet then it should be open as soon as possible after it is.

Next, at a time when we are considering all possible changes in the complaints procedure, it is surely additionally important for us to see any relevant material. Again, I do feel that it is a pity that all the members of the Home Office working party whose report we have been discussing tonight were not at least told of the existence or preparation of the research report, including Mr. James Jardine, the chairman of the Police Federation. In these circumstances I can well understand the reaction of the police to the reported contents of the research report. Certainly my own direct experience of the investigation by the police of complaints against officers is that those investigations are carried out with great thoroughness and, if there is any evidence of shortcomings within the police service on the part of officers, those shortcomings are most rigorously rooted out.

One of the reasons why I feel sure that the report of the research department should be published and made available to the police, among others, is that, if indeed it does reveal any shortcomings on the part of the police service, the police themselves would wish to take action to correct them, as it would indeed be their duty to do. In any event, while the Minister may not be able to say now that the report will be published, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, will be able to say that it will be made available to the Police Complaints Board now or as soon as it is complete.

Finally, I would join with the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, and with other noble Lords in the tribute they have paid to the police service. I believe it is the finest police service, and when something unfortunate does occasionally happen I do not believe we should forget the splendid routine and often dangerous work the police do; nor should we forget their part in happenings such as the Iranian Embassy siege—not so very long ago, after all—and their other anti-terrorist activities. These are actions which I believe deserve our full and strong support.

9.27 p.m.

Lord Belstead

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, for giving us the opportunity to hold this important short debate today. It is an important debate, for the noble Lord reminded us, in a brief story he told, of the tradition which we have in this country of identifying with the police force of the area in which each of us lives; and of course the events of this weekend remind us forcibly of the disastrous course people embark upon if they turn their backs on this tradition.

The system of policing in this country—I think it is fair to claim—is not the product of statute. Rather, the legislation is the expression of what has evolved historically. I believe, as I know that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary also believes, that the process of historical development has provided us with a constitutional framework which is basically sound and which can meet the many demands made upon it.

The Police Act 1964 gave effect to the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Police, which sat from 1960 to 1962. The Royal Commission identified two salient features of the structure of policing which were needed, as they thought, for each community. The first of those salient features was that chief officers of police had complete discretion in directing and deploying their forces. The Royal Commission accepted that must be so if the criminal law was to be enforced impartially.

The second feature was that the structure of forces was based on the local community. The Royal Commission noted that the local body responsible for administering the service—the police authority—could give advice and guidance to a chief constable on local problems, without detracting from his operational independence. And the Royal Commission considered that the lack of control which this relationship implied could be offset by increasing a chief constable's accountability for his actions. It was this delicate balance of interests which the Royal Commission sought to preserve in making its recommendations. Its conclusions were generally accepted by the Government of the day and, as the noble Lord reminded us, were enshrined by Parliament in the Police Act 1964.

That Act recognises the three elements which need to combine to provide effective policing arrangements—professional expertise, the interest of the local community and the national interest. These are reflected in the responsibilities and powers given by the Act to the chief constable, the police authority and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. There have been many changes in our society since 1964, but these essential elements remain. I should just like to comment briefly on a few aspects which are of particular significance in trying to answer the questions which have been put in this short debate.

The Royal Commission acknowledged the need for chief constables to be operationally independent. Neither the Home Secretary nor the police authority may instruct them to institute proceedings in a particular case, or direct them in the deployment of their forces. This is one of the key elements in our policing arrangements. There can be no room for political interference from either central or local government. The operational independence of chief officers is essential to the confidence of Parliament and people in the police in discharging their duty. But this does not mean that the chief constable is not accountable. He is first, after all, accountable to the law and is answerable, ultimately, for his actions in the courts. The chief constable is responsible to his police authority for the general efficiency of his force and is required to submit an annual report to the authority on the policing of his area. Under Section 12 of the 1964 Act, he may also be required to report to his authority on any matter connected with the policing of the area.

In listening to the speech of my noble friend Lord Inglewood, I reflected that this is quite a packet of powers. I think that a police authority which is fully aware, as I am sure authorities are, of those powers, has only to decide that the authority ought to use them, for the authority to feel that it has quite a considerable influence—a proper influence—so far as the policing of its local area is concerned; putting that always, of course, in the context of the operational independence of the chief constable. Incidentally, of course, the Home Secretary also has power to call for reports and Her Majesty's inspectors are appointed to report to my right honourable friend on the efficiency of each force.

A further element in the accountability of the police was added by the arrangements for dealing with complaints, through the establishment of the Police Complaints Board in 1976. I was very interested in the speech which the noble Lord, Lord Boston, made and, if I may, I should just like to add this. The working of the police complaints system is under review, as we all know, in the light of the board's triennial report review. The report of the working party, under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Plowden, was published on 18th March.

It is, of course, true, as the noble Lords, Lord Allen and Lord Boston, said, that the local authorities were not part of that working party. But this was because, since the working party was concerned with the practicability, rather than the desirability, of the original recommendation which had been made in the triennial report for an independent element in police complaints, it seemed right to limit membership of the working party to those most directly concerned with the actual process of investigating complaints. The matter will be considered in July by the Police Advisory Board upon which the police authorities are represented.

Having said that, I would emphasise that police authorities continue, under Section 50 of the 1964 Act, to have a general duty to keep themselves informed about the manner in which complaints from the public against members of the force are dealt with. I think that this is an important function of authorities. But the primary responsibility of a police authority is to provide an efficient police force for its area. The authority must ensure that the force is properly housed and equipped. The Royal Commission attached importance to the principle that the ratepayer, through his elected representatives, should have a voice in the scale and cost of the policing of the community in which he lives.

Lord Inglewood

But not in London.

Lord Belstead

No, my Lords, not in London because, so far as London is concerned, it is the one case where people living in the metropolis have the good fortune, if I may put it that way, to have their police authority directly responsible to Parliament, in that the police authority is my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. I believe that that is absolutely the right system for the metropolis.

If I may talk about the housekeeping to which the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, referred, since the Edmund-Davies Report recommendations on police pay were implemented in full—implementation was going to take place but it was brought forward somewhat by my right honourable friend and was implemented in full in May 1979—there has been an increase in England and Wales of over 6,300 in police strength. However, we recognise that the service cannot be wholly exempt from the general search for economies which are necessary.

The noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, asked whether the need for financial stringency had given rise to any friction at local level. In reply to that question I can say that in this respect there is, I know, a constructive sense of realism. I know that my right honourable friend welcomes the initiative of many chief constables in exploring how to use their resources more efficiently. The use of resources everywhere must be subjected to scrutiny so as to ensure maximum cost effectiveness at the present time. In all this, Her Majesty's Inspectors of Constabulary have a key role to play. They call on the resources of the Home Office for advice upon technical matters (a point which was mentioned also by the noble Lord) such as communications or computers.

My noble friend Lord Inglewood mentioned that there are no standards for the efficiency of police forces in this country. Of course that is true, but we rely upon the inspectorate. In general we are satisfied that the terms of the 1964 Act have ensured that efficient forces are maintained. The Home Office has not had to withhold a specific grant under the 1964 Act, nor has a police authority needed to call upon a chief constable to retire on grounds of inefficiency. But I have no doubt that the existence of these powers is wise and that they should remain upon the Statute Book.

My noble friend mentioned the metropolitan police. It is true, of course, that for historical reasons the metropolitan police, for which my right honourable friend is the police authority, is not inspected by Her Majesty's Inspectors of Constabulary. Let us recognise, however, that the present commissioner set up in 1979 a greatly strengthened internal inspectorate under a deputy assistant commissioner. This inspectorate has made encouraging progress and has close links with Her Majesty's Inspectorate.

The responsibility of the inspectorates to conduct annual inspections of forces and to advise my right honourable friend on police efficiency is evidence that the police service cannot be run on precisely the same basis as are other local services. It is the police authority's responsibility to administer the force budget, which it naturally does in liaison with the chief constable. In doing this, the police authorities are obviously in close contact with their local authorities. In each area, the county council's allocation of resources to the police has to take account of both national priorities and local needs, while fulfilling the obligation to maintain an efficient force. Once the authority has concluded, with the police authority, how much can be made available for the police force, it is then the responsibility of the police authority and the chief constable to consider how best to allocate the resources and to make any savings which may be necessary.

The police authority also has a special role as a link between the police and the local community. In terms of the Police Act, this is expressed through the duty of chief constables to submit annual reports, when the authority asks, on any matter connected with the policing of the area. Of course, one cannot create good working relationships by legislation. Within the statutory framework there will always be room for development and improvement. Police authorities have a vital role to play as the link between the police and the people's elected representatives. But, if this is to develop usefully, they must respect the chief constables' independence in enforcing the law and deploying their officers.

The noble Lord, Lord Allen, asked me a general question at the very beginning of his speech, which was whether since 1964 police authorities have been able to exercise influence on policing responsibilities. I should like to answer that question by quoting some words which were spoken by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary a few months ago. In a speech my right honourable friend said: it has become increasingly desirable that police authorities should see themselves not just as providers of resources but as a means whereby the chief constable can give account of his policing policy to the democratically elected representatives of the community and, in turn, they can express to him the views of the community on those policies". That is the way in which my right honourable friend wishes to see the responsibilities of police authorities continuing to develop.

Lord Allen of Abbeydale

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, and in fact I am familiar with that quotation; but is that an expression of what ought to happen or is it an account of what does actually happen?

Lord Belstead

My Lords, the whole burden of my speech has been trying to underpin the case that this is an expression of what is happening and that, so far as in any parts of the country it may not be happening, it is the desire of my right honourable friend, with his general overall responsibility, to draw to the attention of authorities that this should be the situation and this is the way he would wish to see it develop.

Finally, at national level the local authority associations play their part on the police advisory board and in the work which it initiates: for example, the current working parties on police cadets and upon the special constabulary, which my noble friend Lord Inglewood mentioned, and the report on the special constabulary I hope will be concluded very shortly. Similarly the local authorities are fully involved in the work of the Police Training Council.

May I turn aside just for a moment before I finish in order to answer four specific questions which were put to me. The noble Lord, Lord Boston, and the noble Lord, Lord Allen, mentioned the articles which appeared a few days ago in The Times and which referred to an uncompleted research study begun in 1978 on the way in which the Metropolitan Police deal with complaints from both black and white people. The research study is intended to compare two years—1973 and 1978—before and after the establishment of the Police Complaints Board. On completion it will be the subject of discussion with the Commissioner, and the timing, about which the noble Lord, Lord Boston, asked, and the form of publication will be considered at that stage.

My noble friend Lord Inglewood mentioned the review which was carried out in 1978 by the Home Office on possible changes in existing disciplinary arrangements for senior police officers. It is true, as my noble friend recorded, that a memorandum was sent out by the Home Office at that time proposing in essence that the Secretary of State should be given a responsibility to oversee the exercise of functions by police authorities in this respect. My right honourable friend has asked the local authority associations to put forward their views on this matter. Comments have been received at the end of last year and these are now under consideration.

Both the noble Lord, Lord Allen, and the noble Lord, Lord Plant, referred to police training at Bramshill, and the noble Lord, Lord Allen, asked whether police training at the college is identifying and training leaders of the police service for the future. I happened to be at the police college at the end of last week and I was able to hear at first hand about changes which are being introduced at the college from January 1982 which follow recommendations by a working party of the Police Training Council. On all courses there will be emphasis on practical policing issues, with an increasing range of specialist options, such as manpower deployment and good financial management. From January 1982 all command courses are going to prepare experienced senior police officers before promotion for the responsibilities of their next higher rank. The junior, intermediate and senior command courses will respectively prepare officers for their duties as superintendent, chief superintendent and chief officer level. Consequent reductions in the number of places on command courses will enable the college to develop, however, a programme of short specialist courses, and in addition there will be a programme of seminars and conferences for senior officers on broad professional and policy matters. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Plant, for the recognition in his speech of the work which is being done at Bramshill by the commandant, Sir Kenneth Newman. I am sure much is being done to draw on the most able officers for higher training.

Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Plant, asked me about what, in shorthand, I would call Edmund-Davies Part 3. The Police Advisory Board has considered the recommendations of the Edmund-Davies Report on the structure and role of the police staff associations. The board consider the recommendations dealing with consultation and negotiating procedures at force level to be particularly important. The board accepted the recommendations as a basic framework while emphasising that the exact nature of the procedure should be decided at local level, and indeed some of these negotiating procedures recommended by Edmund-Davies have been in operation in some forces for some time. My right honourable friend has accepted the board's advice on these matters and has commended these recommendations for immediate implementation.

My Lords, the Government believe that the Police Act 1964 continues to provide the right framework for policing in this country. By its very nature the constitutional balance of responsibilities is a delicate one. The precise way in which it is achieved can be adjusted, as it has been in the past, to suit changing circumstances as well as local needs. But we are convinced that within the basic structure provided by the Act the role of the three elements which compose it and the relationship between them can develop in a constructive way which enables each police force to discharge its duty.