Police Reform Bill [H.L.]

HL Deb 15 April 2002 vol 633 cc725-66

4.54 p.m.

Report received.

Clause 1 [National Policing Plan]:

Lord Dixon-Smith

moved Amendment No. 1: Page 1, line 6, at beginning insert "After consultation with relevant persons, The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving this amendment, it is necessary to refer to the Bill "as drafted". We tabled these amendments not knowing what amendments the Government would bring forward. The Bill, as drafted, permitted the Secretary of State to put forward proposals for a plan without consulting anyone. We felt that that was wrong and that consultation should take place. Our amendments were designed to give effect to that aim. I am delighted to welcome the fact that the Government have seen the light on consultation and are introducing their own amendments, which are included in this grouping.

There is a further question wrapped up in this proposal as regards the timing with which these plans should be brought forward. The House will recall that, in Committee, we proposed the end of October. The Government have now tabled an amendment that would make the due date for the normal provision of these plans the end of November. That is a great move in the right direction—and, again, it is most welcome.

However, I am bound to point out that the six months' period was not suggested without regard to practicality: it was a valid point. It has just occurred to me that we shall now have a much greater degree of consultation on the preparation of such plans. Perhaps the consultations will take care of the extra months, so to speak, because everyone will know what is coming. I look forward to hearing the Minister's introductory remarks when he speaks to his amendments in this group. I beg to move.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Rooker)

My Lords, I am grateful for the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith. Given the amendments that we now bring forward on Report, I believe that I shall be able to show during this evening's proceedings that we have been the most open and the most listening government ever in respect of this Bill in that we took note of what was said in your Lordships' House in Committee. I mean that genuinely. Many issues were raised in Committee that required some thought. Indeed, because of the configuration of recesses, I also accept the fact that, when tabling amendments, it was necessary for the Opposition to set out their stall somewhat earlier without advance knowledge of what the Government proposed. I hope that I shall be able to satisfy noble Lords.

The Government have brought forward Amendments Nos. 3, 5, 8 and 10 in the light of the debates in Committee. Genuine questions about timing were raised as regards laying the plan before Parliament. In order to be able to take the national policing plan into account when developing local plans, we recognise that police authorities and chief officers need to have sight of it in good time. We believe that 30th November is sufficiently far in advance. I repeat the point I made in Committee. The drafting of the plan will have been discussed over a number of months. As such, police authorities will have plenty of warning in advance of the formal publication date of its likely content—not every dot and comma, but "its likely content".

In the amendments we have allowed for delayed publication in exceptional circumstances. This country has lost the habit of having October elections, which used to be the traditional time of the year for general elections. At least, that was so in my younger days. If a new administration is faced with different priorities for the police service, or, indeed, with a major incident like 11th September of last year, this may lead to a reassessment of policing priorities.

In developing the national policing plan, we made clear in the White Paper that we would consult widely with our tripartite partners, and other interested bodies, via the national policing forum. Certain individual elements of the plan are also the subject of extensive consultation in their own right, as was made clear in Committee. For example, Section 37 of the Police Act 1996 requires the Home Secretary to consult on the national objectives for police authorities.

The national policing forum will be a non-statutory body to advise the Home Secretary on policing matters in general and, in particular, on the national policing plan. Its membership will include representatives of the Association of Police Authorities, the Association of Chief Police Officers and other police staff associations as well as victims' and ethnic minority groups.

To allow—so that there is no misunderstanding about the drafting—for the future flexibility in the membership and the role of the national policing forum, we do not propose to establish it by statute. But we are more than happy to confirm on the face of the Bill that in drawing up the annual plan there should be consultation with the tripartite partners, namely the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Police Authorities.

Government Amendments Nos. 5 and 10 pick up on points made in Committee about the strategic nature of the national policing plan. In its briefing paper to Peers the Association of Police Authorities pointed out that the list of matters to be included in the plan made no mention of best value performance indicators set out in the Local Government Act 1999. We are happy to correct that omission and also to include any general performance targets set under Section 38 of the Police Act 1996. These additions reinforce the strategic nature of the national policing plan. We are emphatically not concerned here—unlike what the BBC alleged this morning—with the micro-management and the day-to-day management of police operations. We have said that repeatedly. I hope that, for the avoidance of doubt, the amendments make that abundantly clear.

I turn to Amendment No. 7. On the contents of the plan, the words that the noble Lords, Lord Dholakia and Lord Bradshaw, and the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, seek to delete allow flexibility for the contents of the plan to include matters not specifically mentioned elsewhere. The words should be retained.

The focus of the plan is on the 43 forces in England and Wales. New Section 36A(2) refers to the strategic policing priorities generally for the police forces maintained for police areas. The National Criminal Intelligence Service and the National Crime Squad are not police forces. They are governed by separate legislation and have different lines of accountability. They are national organisations and their priorities are, in effect, already national priorities. That means that it would be inappropriate to include the objectives set for NCIS and NCS in the national policing plan, as proposed by Amendment No. 6.

The noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, mentioned the timing of the consultation. I hope that noble Lords will agree that the government amendments address what were, I accept, genuine concerns raised by the Opposition Benches in Committee. Therefore, I hope that they will not press their amendments but will allow the government amendments to be inserted in the Bill.

5.3 p.m.

Baroness Harris of Richmond

My Lords, the Minister has anticipated our amendments. I should like to speak to Amendments Nos. 4, 6 and 7. I apologise to the House for attaching myself so late to the Bill. I assure your Lordships that I have followed very closely its progress and the proceedings quite minutely. I have read every word that has been uttered. I am happy to join, although belatedly.

The Minister has addressed Amendment No. 4. We welcome the Government's recognition that the Bill should specify the date for the Home Secretary to publish the national policing plan. We wanted to make sure that the Government took a close look at its timing. In my experience—which is not little—by the end of November police authorities' local policing plans are well advanced in their preparation. They will not be able to use the national plan as a strategic framework. So, as the Minister said, it is important and extremely welcome that there is consultation on the national plan with the APA and the ACPO.

The Minister suggested that the consultation will mean that police authorities have a good idea of what might be in the national plan, long before it is published. I am sure that that will be the case. But until it is actually finalised, authorities will not be able to proceed with any certainty. It is not unknown for the ministerial priorities to change between conception, consultation and finalisation. In fact they did this year. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, asks for the national plan to be published by 30th September. The Government have gone for 30th November. Our amendment offers the House a sensible compromise—perhaps the third way. It is 31st October. What difference does a month make? At that stage in the planning it makes quite a lot.

Police authorities desperately want to work with the Government to ensure that local plans reflect both national and local needs.

I turn to Amendment No. 6. The Minister talked about the National Crime Squad and the NCIS. I hear what he says, but our amendment seeks to bring the two together. There must be a coherency between national and local efforts. The Home Secretary is responsible for setting the national policing priorities both for local police authorities and for NCIS and NCS. But there are two separate parallel exercises needed to do that. Indeed, this year the proposed priorities for them were not received for consultation until March. They were finalised only at the beginning of April. In order for the national plan to be effective, it should seek to draw those separate exercises together. The plan should set the strategic policing picture. I hope that the Minister will take that point away and rethink it.

Finally, I turn to Amendment No. 7. It seeks to leave out the words "plans and advice". They effectively would give the Government scope to include anything it wanted in the national plan. It is important that the Government think through more fully what that national plan needs to cover and to set that out precisely in legislation.

Lord Fowler

My Lords, I should like one point of clarification from the Minister. He was forthcoming so far as concerns the police forum. Can he state further the bodies that the Home Secretary will consult before setting out the national policing plan? One of the bodies which it would be sensible to consult is the Police Federation. It has vast experience. It represents rank and file officers in this country. It would be foolish to proceed without its input.

The Home Secretary's statement in February that the Police Federation had been, resisting change for decades", does not exactly lead to confidence that its voice will be listened to. I personally do not agree with what the Home Secretary said; nor, I imagine, do many others. I can certainly believe that at times the Police Federation represents a view which is not in line with Home Office thinking; for example, on community support officers, which we come to later in the Bill, or on police recruiting. But, goodness knows, it is not alone in taking that view. So it would be absurd if the Police Federation were to be excluded. I hope that I can infer from what the Minister is saying that not only will the Government consult with a body that includes the Police Federation, but that there is no question of its view simply being cast to one side.

It was an unjust remark by the Home Secretary. I hope that the Minister will think again on the Government's attitude and will confirm that that view— perhaps put at a particular time—does not represent a disdainful view of the Police Federation's contribution to this debate.

Lord Peyton of Yeovil

My Lords, I want to make a few comments. The noble Lord was dealing with the government amendments in the first group of amendments. There are two amendments to which I should like to draw attention. The first is Amendment No. 5, which states: the specification, under section 4 of the Local Government Act 1999 (performance indicators), of performance indicators (within the meaning of that section) for police authorities". That is a fairly ghastly piece of drafting—ugly is a polite word to use about it—but I shall return to performance indicators in a moment. Amendment No. 10 raises a similar point. It states: 'general direction' means a direction under section 38 establishing performance targets for all police authorities to which section 37 applies". After some of the Minister's comments in Committee, I am absolutely sure that he will have done his best to push, influence, squeeze or press the Home Office, which is not always responsive to Ministers, into some sort of positive action. When amendments deal with matters such as performance indicators and performance targets, I begin to shake in my shoes with fear and horror.

I should be grateful to the Minister if, when he replies, he could tell us in some detail what are meant by performance targets, how they are measured and what are the indicators that will show whether the targets have been reached. One could easily joke about the matter, but performance indicators and performance targets, when applied to the immense complexities of operations such as that of the police in the difficult climate of crime with which they must contend today, are likely to prove unhelpful rather than the reverse. I hope that the noble Lord will do his best to set at rest my real doubts about those two matters.

Earl Ferrers

My Lords, when the Minister is trying to put at rest the doubts of my noble friend Lord Peyton, perhaps he may also put my doubts to rest. I have a great deal of sympathy for what my noble friend has said. Nowadays, everything is about setting targets. Targets must be set for people to achieve. In the case of policing, that is difficult, as it is in the case of the National Health Service. People end up trying to chase the target and ensure that they achieve it. That becomes the pre-eminent factor, whereas the people being served are secondary.

I remember when one of the targets was the number of cases resolved. The police have been known to go to people in prison to ask if they did this or that. If they said yes, the number of cases solved rose and the target was achieved. That is not the right way to proceed. I am concerned that the police will find themselves fettered by the targets and that all their efforts will go to achieving them, as opposed to achieving better policing. I hope that the Minister will give a great deal of thought to that.

5.15 p.m.

Lord Borrie

My Lords, I am not sure that I share the anxieties and concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, and the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, about performance indicators or performance targets, which may be just as good for policemen as they are for other parts of the public sector—and, indeed, the private sector.

I wonder whether one of the objections of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, to Amendment No. 5 was the sheer duplication of the phrase "performance indicators". First, we are told in parentheses that that is what Section 4 of the 1999 Act is all about; we are then told that the words "performance indicators" are to be understood within the meaning of that section. There seems to be a duplication there, which I hope can be avoided.

Lord Dholakia

My Lords, I have much sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, for asking precisely what the Home Office has in mind for performance targets. I chaired a group called Policing for London, which published its report only last week, and on which both the Home Office and the police were represented. A key finding of the report stated: The current emphasis on narrow numerical performance measures in police management is distorting performance and reducing the quality of service". That is the most recent research in which the Home Office has participated. Will the Minister therefore elaborate on what is likely to happen about performance indicators?

Lord Rooker

My Lords, tempted though I am by noble Lords who may want to change the basis of the debate, I shall not go into detail about the indicators.

Perhaps I may deal first with the important point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler. I listed the representatives on the National Policing Forum, but may have omitted some in the interests of brevity. They include the Association of Police Authorities, the Association of Chief Police Officers, other police staff associations—namely, the Police Federation and other bodies such as the Police Superintendents' Association—representatives of victims and of ethnic minorities. I might add Unison, the trade union for civilian staff. So no battle lines have been drawn, as it were. It is quite unfair of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler to drag up things that were said in February; it is now April and we have moved on a little since then.

The noble Lord, Lord Peyton, picked on Amendment No. 5 because he thought that its drafting was ugly. I am sucking up to everyone to get this Bill through. The parliamentary draftsman has done an excellent job and your Lordships' House has done an excellent job of scrutiny of his original drafting. Not having the Local Government Act 1999 in front of me, I should imagine that the words that appear to be duplicated are not effectively so, it is just legalese. Reference is made to Section 4, which must have a side title, "performance indicators", which I suspect is given for declaratory purposes.

I am not sure whether the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, was in the Chamber—he may have been arriving at his seat—when I made the point that the provision is being added to the Bill now, having been omitted from the first draft, because the Association of Police Authorities, which, I have discovered, is well represented in this House, drew to our attention during Committee that we had not mentioned best value performance indicators in the Bill. The amendment is to correct that omission, because they concern general, strategic matters.

The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, is quite right: if one does not manage properly, one can be obsessed with the indicators to the point of failing at the main job. That means that we must be careful how we set the indicators. During my time at the Home Office, we have drastically reduced the number of best value indicators. I know that because I was discussing one indicator relating to the Immigration Service with my ministerial colleagues. It was thought that it was not strictly necessary. We were trying to cut down on indicators so that those responsible could agree targets and indicators and have a number of them such that their management did not become an obsession to the extent of falling down on the main job.

Noble Lords have given an important warning about the issue, but, on the other hand, no private sector company, in the marketplace or anywhere else, that wants to deliver quality services to its customers and use quality staff will do so without some measure of performance as it goes along. It will not wait until it discovers that it has a failure on its hands and say, "We didn't measure what we were doing at the time". Most firms will set a budget; this is like a budget for management.

The performance indicators are subject to consultation with the Association of Police Authorities and the Association of Chief Police Officers before publication. Examples include a 25 per cent reduction in burglaries per thousand households; a 30 per cent reduction in vehicle crime per thousand of population; and a 14 per cent reduction in robberies by 2005 in five of the major metropolitan areas. Those are generalised; they are not micro-management indicators. It would be difficult for anyone to argue against them, although they might argue about the actual figures. It is useful to have a target.

I hope that I have answered the question about duplication, perhaps not to the total satisfaction of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton of Yeovil, as he is, I think, about to point out.

Lord Peyton of Yeovil

My Lords, the Minister is completely correct. He said that I was not present for the beginning of his remarks. That is possible; I was elsewhere when he first started, waiting while that weary measure wound its awful, lengthy way through your Lordships' House. I must say that I was slightly surprised when, eventually, we actually got to the Bill that we were meant to have started on an hour and a half before.

I hope that the Minister will not spend too much time on the ugliness of the drafting; I put that in by the way. The point that I am dealing with is the supreme unreality of applying performance indicators and having performance targets for anything as complicated and varied as a police operation. Fixing them will be a matter of great grief. I am pleased to hear that it will be a matter for consultation, but those consultations will be either sour or infinitely drawn-out.

Lord Rooker

My Lords, the best answer that I can give to the noble Lord is that we are not inventing the wheel. The Bill does not introduce performance targets or indicators—I must make that abundantly clear. They are already in operation. It is not new. What we have done, for setting the National Policing Plan, is correct an omission that was drawn to our attention by the Association of Police Authorities in respect of a generalised statement about performance indicators. The indicators are already in place, with the co-operation of and in consultation with the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Police Authorities.

Lord Dixon-Smith

My Lords, I have no doubt that we could argue about the detail for a long time, but it would not carry us much further forward. This part of the Bill is, in fact, considerably improved from what it was when we first saw it. That is a compliment to the work of all Members of the House and to the Government. We have done something useful.

It may be that, on further study, we shall wish to return to the matter. For now, however, we have taken it as far as we can. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendment No. 2 not moved.]

The Deputy Speaker (Lord Murton of Lindisfarne)

My Lords, in calling Amendment No. 3, I should point out that, if this government amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment No. 4, owing to pre-emption.

Lord Rooker

moved Amendment No. 3: Page 1, line 8, leave out from "year" to end of line 9 and insert— (1A) The Secretary of State shall lay the National Policing Plan for a financial year before Parliament. (1B) Subject to subsection (1C), any such plan must be laid before Parliament not later than 30th November in the preceding financial year. (1C) If there are exceptional circumstances, any such plan may be laid before Parliament after the date mentioned in subsection (1B); but it must be so laid before the beginning of the financial year to which it relates. (1D) If a plan is laid before Parliament after the date mentioned in subsection (1B), the plan must contain a statement of the exceptional circumstances that gave rise to its being so laid. On Question, amendment agreed to.

[Amendment No. 4 not moved.]

Lord Rooker

moved Amendment No. 5: Page 2, line 4, at end insert "and the giving of general directions in relation to any objective so set; (ia) the specification, under section 4 of the Local Government Act 1999 (performance indicators), of performance indicators (within the meaning of that section) for police authorities; On Question, amendment agreed to.

[Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 not moved.]

Lord Rooker

moved Amendment No. 8: Page 2, line 16, at end insert— () Before laying the National Policing Plan for a financial year, before Parliament, the Secretary of State shall consult with—

1. (a) persons whom he considers to represent the interests of police authorities;
2. (b) persons whom he considers to represent the interests of chief officers of police; and
3. (c) such other persons as he thinks fit."

On Question, amendment agreed to.

[Amendment No. 9 not moved.]

Lord Rooker

moved Amendment No. 10: Page 2, line 18, at end inset"; and `general direction' means a direction under section 38 establishing performance targets for all police authorities to which section 37 applies. On Question, amendment agreed to.

Clause 2 [Codes of practice for chief officers]:

Lord Dixon-Smith

moved Amendment No. 11: Page 2, line 27, at end insert "relating to those matters that are not appropriate to be in the public domain The noble Lord said: My Lords, these amendments were put down in advance of our seeing what the Government intended. They reveal a slight difference of opinion as to how such matters should be taken forward. On principle, I think that matters that are suitable to the public domain should go to the chief officers through the police authority.

The Government have, again, brought forward amendments that will greatly improve the situation and for which I am grateful. This is essentially a probing amendment, designed to move matters forward. I beg to move.

Baroness Harris of Richmond

My Lords, I speak to Amendment No. 12. We welcome the Government's amendments to Clause 2. The codes will rightly be laid before Parliament, and the CPTDA will be required to consult APA and ACPO. We are delighted that the Government have seen the light and been converted into enthusiastic proponents of consultation, not just on that issue but throughout the Bill.

Although we do not wish to appear ungrateful, we still believe that it is necessary to pursue the amendment that we tabled. There is a significant difference between it and that tabled by the Government. The Government's amendments put the obligation on the CPTDA to consult APA and ACPO. The CPTDA will draft the codes, so that consultation is likely to be about the content or details of what might go in any given code. Our amendment would place on the Home Secretary an obligation to consult the APA and ACPO. That is still necessary because that consultation would be rather different. It would be consultation about whether a code is needed or a particular issue and the general nature of that code. The Government have recognised the significance of that point in their proposed amendments to Clause 7. We shall discuss those later, but I simply draw the House's attention to the fact that the Government's amendments to that clause provide for consultation with the APA and ACPO by both the Home Secretary and by the CPTDA at appropriate stages in the process.

We do not wish to build in unnecessary consultation processes or bureaucratic procedures. We assume— perhaps the Minister can confirm it—that there is unlikely to be more than a handful of codes in total, so that what we propose should not be too onerous. We seek to ensure that, in deciding how and to what extent to make use of the considerable new powers that he will have under the provision, the Home Secretary consults the tripartite partners and listens to their views.

5.30 p.m.

Lord Rooker

My Lords, I am grateful for the response to the government amendments. If the theme of our debate is to be that the Government have seen the light, I am happy with that. I should say that this is my best effort; there is no way that I can now go back to the Home Secretary. I have done my best.

From this group of amendments, by and large—I shall put it no more strongly than that—we can see that there is a broad consensus between us on the codes of practice and the requirements for laying codes of practice before Parliament. However, the amendments are not identical. Perhaps I may dwell on the similarities rather than on the differences.

On the question of consultation, Amendments Nos. 14, 53 and 56 tabled in my name require the Central Police Training and Development Authority—I still do not have a decent acronym for that body—to consult persons whom it considers to represent the interests of chief officers and police authorities and such other persons as it thinks fit. This will ensure that there is always a duty to consult the representatives of chief officers and police authorities, whatever they may be called and however they are constituted. That is the reason why that form of words has been used throughout the amendments and is the reason why we have not used the titles of the two organisations.

Earl Ferrers

My Lords, perhaps I may interrupt the Minister for a moment. I hope that he will not spend too much time exerting himself in trying to find an acronym for the body he has just named. If we have an acronym, no one will understand it. At least one can understand the Minister when he speaks English.

Lord Rooker

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Earl. I always try to avoid using acronyms. Earlier I used the acronym NCIS. I used it once, but then I spelt it out because it looks bad to those outside who follow our proceedings.

I turn to Amendment No. 13, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith. The noble Lord made the point that the amendment was tabled before the government amendments, but broadly speaking it seeks to achieve the same end.

Amendment No. 12, spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, would place a duty on the Secretary of State to consult bodies representing chief officers and police authorities, but the effect would be to introduce a further round of consultation with the same people who had already been consulted by the Central Police Training and Development Authority. That would add an unnecessary stage to the process of drawing up the codes of practice. Consultation would be most relevant and appropriate at the point at which the Central Police Training and Development Authority was drawing up a draft code. Therefore the duty to consult properly rests with that authority.

With regard to the publication of any codes of practice, government Amendments Nos. 15, 54 and 57 provide for codes to be laid before Parliament, subject to a sensitivity test. A code, or the relevant parts of a code, would not be laid before Parliament where to do so would compromise national security, would hamper the tackling of crime or would endanger individuals' personal safety.

Amendments Nos. 16, 55 and 58, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, are in a similar vein, albeit that they do not contain a sensitivity test. I am perfectly prepared to discuss in detail why some of the probing amendments do not quite fit, but since they are probing it would be futile to go over them, for the reasons already given by the noble Lord. However, I ought to make it clear that Amendment No. 16, which would introduce a requirement to lay the codes before Parliament, if codes cover only issues not appropriate to be in the public domain, we have to ask what would be the purpose of setting down a requirement that they should be placed in the public domain.

It does not make sense for codes of practice only to cover areas of policing that ought to be kept out of the public domain. The purpose of such codes is to spread good practice in policing and to assist all forces to achieve the standards of the best by using tried and tested methods of policing.

There will be codes, or parts of codes, which can be placed in the public domain. Therefore we are prepared to lay those codes before Parliament. We see no sense in restricting the making of codes to restricted areas of policing. Obviously there is a need to keep certain sensitive matters out of the public domain. That is readily acknowledged in the existing Police Act 1996. Section 55 of that Act, which relates to the publication of reports by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, exempts from the duty to publish any part of a report where the publication would be against the interests of national security or jeopardise the safety of any person. That is the precedent on which I rely for the sensitivity test set out in the government amendments.

Lord Dixon-Smith

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for explaining his amendments and, to a certain extent, for his marginal demolition of ours, which was only to be expected. Again, the Bill has been improved and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 12 and 13 not moved.]

Lord Rooker

moved Amendments Nos. 14 and 15 en bloc: Page 2, line 38, leave out "such" and insert "—

1. (a) persons whom it considers to represent the interests of police authorities;
2. (b) persons whom it considers to represent the interests of chief officers of police; and
3. (c) such other"

Page 2, line 38, at end insert— (4A) The Secretary of State shall lay any code of practice issued by him under this section, and any revision of any such code, before Parliament. (4B) The Secretary of State shall not be required by subsection (4A) to lay before Parliament, or may exclude from what he does so lay, anything the publication of which, in his opinion—

1. (a) would be against the interests of national security;
2. (b) could prejudice the prevention or detection of crime or the apprehension or prosecution of offenders; or
3. (c) could jeopardise the safety of any person."

On Question, amendments agreed to.

[Amendments Nos. 16 and 17 not moved.]

Clause 3 [Powers to require inspection and report]:

[Amendment No. 18 not moved.]

Clause 4 [Directions to police authorities]:

Lord Dixon-Smith

moved Amendment No. 19: Page 3, line 35, leave out "the whole or any part of The noble Lord said: My Lords, here we come to the wretched words on the face of the Bill which deal with the "whole or any part of a force" and "whether generally or in particular". It seems to me that these words are unnecessary. If a part of a force is inefficient then the force is inefficient. We believe that in this part of the Bill a great many words are superfluous.

A further problem with this part of the Bill is that, as drafted, it confers too wide a possibility for the Secretary of State to direct police authorities. However, if I have understood it correctly, then I am delighted to note that government Amendment No. 23 confines actions taken under this clause to remedial actions as a result of a report. That being the case, once again I welcome the fact that this improvement—this limitation—is being made in acknowledgement of points that were raised in this House during our debates in Committee. Again, in Clause 24, the Secretary of State will be confined to reports or relevant matters.

Amendments Nos. 30 to 34 apply the same deletions to the wording used in Clause 5. Amendments Nos. 75, 76 and 86 again apply the same deletions both to the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the National Crime Squad. Here I shall follow the good practice of the Minister and set out the names in full, even if it takes a moment longer.

I accept that those bodies have a different status and therefore they act under different legislation, but I wonder whether, even though that is the case, we should not try to keep in place similar principles throughout the Bill. That is the reasoning behind Amendments Nos. 75, 76 and 86. I beg to move.

Lord Bassam of Brighton

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, has made clear, these amendments seek to remove all reference to under-performance being confined to part of a force or in any particular respect rather than in general. They would cover Clauses 4 and 5.

We take a different view from the noble Lord. As we see it, there is no good reason why the Secretary of State should not be able to require remedial measures—that is what we are referring to here—to be taken in relation to under-performance in a part of a force or in relation to a particular aspect of its work or functions.

Where under-performance has been identified in a geographical area, such as in a basic command unit or in one particular area of policing—for example, the reduction of burglary—the Home Secretary should be able to stop the rot before it spreads. He should be able to require early and effective remedial action to be taken rather than have to sit back powerless while the performance of the force as a whole begins to suffer.

This is particularly true of the larger forces. I am sure that the noble Lord will appreciate that in the Met the basic command units can be bigger than some of the smaller forces across England and Wales. Certainly there will be problems in basic command units in London which will affect local service provision, but which will never spread to cause the entire force to be inefficient or ineffective.

We have to accept that variations exist in large forces. For example, one of the large metropolitan forces saw an overall reduction in crime of 2.2 per cent in the 12 months to March 2001, as well as very welcome reductions in burglary of 13 per cent and in vehicle crime of 4 per cent. Over that same period of time, one of the basic command units within that force saw burglary rise by 2.8 per cent, theft from vehicles rise by 2.9 per cent and the theft of vehicles rise by 16.3 per cent. Those are not impressive statistics. In that force, robbery rose by 13 per cent over the previous year, but in the particular basic command unit it went up by nearly 20 per cent.

Our argument is simple: the Secretary of State should be able to suggest that that basic command unit be looked at to see what problems exist within it which are particular to its area and not shared across the force. Why should he not be able to insist that remedial action be taken within that area? It compares to using an Armalite where otherwise the Secretary of State would have to use a blunderbuss, which would be entirely inappropriate. Local people in that under-performing area would wish to see—they have a right to see—the very highest standards of policing.

In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, made the point that the Secretary of State was taking this power unto himself simply for the sake of it. That is not the case. We want to ensure that there is a speedy and effective way of making an early intervention in particular areas without disrupting the activities of a whole force. That is what we seek to achieve. It is appropriate, proportionate, targeted and focused, and it enables close attention to be paid to the particular problems of a small part of a larger force. That is the rationale behind our position.

I accept that it differs from the position of the noble Lord, but if we were to follow the route he suggests we would end up looking at a whole force area where tie problem persists only in a small part of it. That would not be a sensible use of time in trying to put matters right. In view of that explanation, I hope that the noble Lord will reconsider the matter and withdraw his amendment.

Earl Ferrers

My Lords, as I understand it, if something is going wrong in a police service, the Secretary of State can say that it is happening in a particular area and that action should be taken. Is that not the responsibility of the police authority? Why should not the police authority do that as opposed to the Home Secretary? The Government seem to be gathering more power unto themselves.

It is particularly pertinent that I should ask this because I was responsible for taking the Police and Magistrates' Courts Bill through the House in 1994. We then had a problem in regard to making the police authorities bigger and deciding whether their members should consist of elected or appointed people. There was an appalling row about it. People said that the Government had got it wrong and that the Home Secretary was taking powers unto himself and overriding the elected people. One noble Lord said: all this is part of the continuing destruction of local authorities. It is all part of gathering more power, whatever may be said by the Government about their intentions, into the hands of Whitehall and of Ministers who at the moment will be Conservative but who very shortly, I think, are likely to be Labour. That is an argument that ought to appeal to noble Lords opposite, if nothing else does".—[Official Report, 15/2/94; col. 120.] The person who spoke those words was the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan of Cardiff. I was at the butt end of those remarks, which was, in its way, painful.

The Government are now seeking to do exactly the same. They are gathering unto the Home Secretary the power to tell police services what they should do and why they themselves have not done it. That is a dangerous road down which to go.

Lord Bassam of Brighton

My Lords, I am interested that the noble Earl is now gathering support behind something with which he disagreed some time ago when the argument was put by the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan.

Let me deal with the noble Earl's point. Yes, we are seeking to ensure that the Secretary of State can make an effective remedial intervention. But, rather than trying to create a wide power to enable the Secretary of State to come in and look only at the whole of a force with the overall objective of looking at a small part of it, we are seeking a narrower provision to enable attention to be paid to a specific part of under-performance in a geographical force area or in a particular service so that the whole force is not disrupted when measures to put right something which is clearly not working are sought.

We have to look at this problem through the mind's eye of the public. They want to see something which is patently failing put right. How that is achieved may be of secondary interest, but they will not want to see the whole of a police force area disrupted when changes are required only in a small part of it. That is why we seek this specific provision. If we were to go along the course promoted by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, we would be undermining an important measure to improve the quality of policing in a particular area. I cannot believe that the public or your Lordships would support that proposition.

Earl Ferrers

My Lords, the Minister said that he was surprised that I was now taking the view that the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, had taken some years ago. I should remind him that I was obliged to take back the first eight clauses of my police Bill because it was considered too dictatorial and too government oriented. The noble Lord should not be too worried if he has to take back a few clauses.

5.45 p.m.

Lord Dixon-Smith

My Lords, in this House we should not allow the noble Lord to get away with the implication that the issuing of directions or codes of practice by a Minister improves policing. What it does do is satisfy the egos of the relevant government departments and gives them the feeling that they are doing something. There is a clear distinction.

However, as a result of later amendments, the Bill will be improved by the time we have finished our proceedings. Therefore, at this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 20 and 21 not moved.]

Baroness Harris of Richmond

moved Amendment No. 22: Page 3, line 41, leave out from "State" to "to" in line 42 and insert ", after consulting the police authority responsible for maintaining that force, may direct that authority". The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 22, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 27, which concerns Clause 4 and is the substantive amendment on which I wish to speak. I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 35 and 38—it would have been better had they been grouped separately—which deal with similar issues under Clause 5, and to Amendments Nos. 59, 62 and 67 and their application to the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the National Crime Squad. I hope that is clear.

Amendment No. 27 stands in my name and that of my namesake and former APA colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey. He regrets that he is unable to be in his place today. It stands also in the names of my noble friends Lord Dholakia and Lord Bradshaw.

I followed your Lordships' discussions in Committee very carefully and with close interest. It was striking that a similar amendment to this one, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, received widespread support. Even the Minister felt moved to remark that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, had done the House a service in tabling the amendment—which was praise indeed—and he undertook to take away a number of the issues raised in the debate on Clause 4. True to his word, he has come back with substantive proposals and we warmly welcome government Amendments Nos. 23, 24, 25 and 42. They considerably improve the provisions of Section 40 of the Police Act 1996, on which Clause 4 is based.

Welcome though the amendments are, Amendment No. 27 and Amendment No. 41, which relates to Clause 5, are designed to cure a rather different problem—the problem being Clause 5 itself. Indeed, Amendment No. 27 aims to help the Government to find a way through the difficulties that they have created for themselves in the clause. I trust that your Lordships will bear with me if, in addressing Amendment No. 27, I pre-empt some of the discussions that we may have later about Clause 5, about which I shall speak only briefly.

This amendment is intended to replace Clause 5. I hope that that is clear. Clauses 4 and 5 both give the Home Secretary powers to intervene directly where a force or part of it is identified as ineffective or inefficient. Clause 4 provides for the Home Secretary to make such intervention through the local police authority. Under Clause 5, the Home Secretary would intervene directly in the force, presumably using his new police standards unit. That is the fundamental objection to Clause 5. It represents a substantial change in the current tripartite arrangements.

The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, put the point admirably in Committee. The amendment seeks to replicate part of what is proposed in Clause 5; but it does so in such a way as to support and enhance the tripartite relationship rather than undermining it. The Minister has assured us that it will not be the intention of the Home Secretary to intervene in and seek to micro-manage forces. He nevertheless intends to impose targets, time-scales and action plans. The amendment makes that the responsibility of the local police authority. After all, that is precisely what the police authority is there to do. However, the amendment recognises the Home Secretary's legitimate interest and gives him a chance to work with and through the police authority to put matters right. The amendment does away with the need for Clause 5, unpalatable as it clearly is to your Lordships.

I read with considerable interest, and no small surprise, the Minister's response to the amendment in Committee. I do not want to put the Minister on the spot, but his response bears some examination. We may find that it helps us to identify whether our amendments can resolve the problems which both Clauses 4 and 5 seek to cure.

The Minister's objection to the amendment was that the police authority should be kept away from operational matters because it administers funding. He went on to say that this represented a fundamental difference between police authorities and the Secretary of State, who, he suggested, could therefore have a role in operational matters. That concerned me somewhat. It seemed to suggest a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of police authorities and the concept of operational independence.

I shall make three brief points—although I could make many more. First, the Home Secretary is responsible for the overall allocation of resources to the police service. His role at national level is the same as that of the police authority in allocating resources locally. Secondly, the police authority's role as set out in the Police Act 1996 is not limited to administering funding. It is the job of the police authority to ensure that the style and nature of local policing reflects the views of local people; to set the strategic direction for local policing; to decide what the local policing priorities should be—including operational policies; and to monitor and manage the forces formally.

Thirdly, I am absolutely confident that everyone in the House will agree that the operational independence of the police service is the bedrock of our policing system. None of us wants that undermined in any way. The Home Secretary is in exactly the same position as the local police authority. The Home Secretary must not interfere in operational decisions on particular cases or events. They are a matter for the chief officer. But both the police authority locally and the Home Secretary nationally have a role in setting operational policy. Therefore, it is not clear to me why the powers available to the Home Secretary under Clause 4, as supplemented by the amendment, are insufficient; or why the Home Secretary should bypass the police authority and intervene directly in forces.

The Minister has said previously that the Home Secretary wants more levers to impact on police performance, and that he needs them because of variations in performance across forces and BCUs. There were a great many discussions in Committee about whether the Minister was in a position to make those judgments. We all know the difficulty of comparing like with like. But that said, we all want our local communities to have the best possible policing services. We can do that without undermining the constitutional settlement and the tripartite relationship.

Local police authorities are responsible for managing and monitoring local police performance. It is they who must answer and are accountable on the ground, day in, day out, to their communities for the policing services provided. The amendment enables the Home Secretary to work through and with the local police authority to improve performance if there are deficiencies, and to give his views on what needs to be done. Ultimately, the amendment would ensure that the action taken reflected the needs of local communities which the local police authority and the chief officer are best placed to judge.

I am sorry to have taken up so much time, but we are dealing with the most critical part of the Bill. I hope that your Lordships will agree that the Government's proposal and the constructive alternatives that we have sought to bring forward should be fully explored. I beg to move.

Lord Dixon-Smith

My Lords, before the Minister responds, perhaps I may speak briefly, for the record, to my amendments in the grouping.

The proposal in Amendment No. 40—repeated in Amendments Nos. 83 and 93—provides an amendment to government Amendment No. 39 and other instances where the provision applies. It is a repeat amendment which will appear six or seven times in the Bill.

Amendment No. 39 provides that, If the Secretary of State exercises his power to give a direction … he shall prepare a report … and … lay that report before Parliament". That is an enormous improvement and such a provision is very welcome. However, proposed new subsection (13) states that any such report, shall be prepared at such time as the Secretary of State considers appropriate; and … may relate to more than one exercise of the power". The provision is all right; but the words, at such time as the Secretary of State considers appropriate", are an open-ended time limit. Indeed, it is not a time limit at all. The report could be prepared—or it might not be prepared—before a general election. There might be a change of government and all kinds of things might happen. We ought, as a matter of precaution, to place a reasonable time limit on the preparation of the report. The amendment suggests six months as a reasonable time limit for what is a fairly routine matter. I hope that the Minister may find it possible to agree with the principle behind the amendment.

The other amendments in the group apply the proposal to the National Criminal Intelligence Service and to the National Crime Squad. We believe that that is perfectly reasonable. We believe also that the director of the National Criminal Intelligence Service ought to have the agreement of his service authority before putting in place any plan to implement a direction from the Home Secretary. This, again, is a matter of natural, good internal administrative relationships. The Government could concede these amendments without any difficulty or embarrassment. I hope that they will. I beg to move.

6 p.m.

Lord Rooker

My Lords, given not just the number of government and opposition amendments in the group, but the debates we had in Committee, I imagine that many noble Lords regard this as the most important debate today. I shall set out the Government's approach to the points made in Committee. We have taken issues on board and have tried to find an acceptable solution indicating exactly what we are seeking to do. A further group of government amendments, not contained in this group, remove the words "operational procedures and practices" from Clause 7. Those words sent the wrong signals. That is not what we are about. We think that the content is OK, but even the title gave all the wrong vibrations when we discussed the issue. To the extent that we have tried to get the message, I hope that we have come up with a package that can be viewed as a whole, and I trust that your Lordships will see that we are at one.

The amendments that would require the Secretary of State to consult the National Criminal Intelligence Service or the National Crime Squad's service authority before issuing a direction are grouped with some lengthy amendments in my name. Some of the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, and others are superseded by the government amendments. I shall set out the broad thrust of our amendments and comment on the others.

As we explained in the White Paper, it has always been the Government's intention that the use of the direction powers in relation to police authorities, chief officers, the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the National Crime Squad would be governed by a protocol, which would set out clearly the steps that must be taken before the Secretary of State could issue a direction.

Noble Lords from all sides—including those behind me, to my left and my right—expressed grave reservations about the permanence of such a protocol, even were it to be negotiated and signed up to by all three of the tripartite partners. That is why we have tabled amendments to place those steps on the face of the Bill. The key amendment in the group is the lengthy Amendment No. 42, which inserts a new clause after the present Clause 5. It governs the procedures for giving directions under the revised Section 40 of the Police Act and the new Section 41A. In shorthand—lawyers should not take too much notice—the new clause inserted by Amendment No. 42 will govern how the Home Secretary proceeds.

The amendment was put together as a result of your Lordships' deliberations in Committee. It requires the Home Secretary to put the evidence that a force or a part of a force is not efficient or effective to the chief officer and the police authority and to afford them the opportunity to make representations. The Home Secretary will be obliged to have regard to any such representations.

The amendment further requires the Home Secretary to afford the chief officer or the police authority the opportunity to put in place their own remedial measures before they are directed to do so. It is almost a long stop to a long stop. As I have said repeatedly, this is a last resort action by the Home Secretary and it would constitute almost a failure of local policing by the chief officer, the force or the police authority for the whole of the force or particular parts or functions. We want them to put their own house in order. It would not be a surprise to the locality that there was a problem.

The amendment provides a further impetus on the face of the Bill to give all the bodies involved on the ground the chance to put their own remedial measures—not the Home Secretary's—into force before they are directed to do so. The Home Secretary would move to a direction only if the measures proposed by the police authority or the chief officer were considered inadequate or if those measures failed to remedy the poor performance. Further procedural steps could be laid down in regulations, subject to affirmative procedure. Matters that could not be dealt with on the face of the Bill and had to done through secondary legislation would be dealt with by the affirmative procedure.

Also in response to arguments made in Committee, amendments have been tabled to amend the current Clause 5 to ensure that progress reports on any action plan from the chief officer must be submitted to the police authority as well as to the Home Secretary. I think your Lordships will agree that we are proposing a robust and effective system to ensure that powers of direction cannot be used lightly. The proposals will not enable any Home Secretary to operate on a whim or a hunch. We have said that that cannot happen and that we do not want it to happen, but we have repeatedly been told that perhaps not all future Home Secretaries will be as nice and benign as the present Home Secretary. We are locking in that process. The powers of direction cannot be used lightly. We have given assurances time and again that they will not be used lightly and that provision is now being put on the face of the Bill. These are powers to be used in the last resort when all other mechanisms have failed—and are clearly seen to have failed—to deliver at local level. That is why we have no problem in transparently operating the powers by a clearly set out process that gives the police authority or the chief officer every opportunity to correct the under-performance at issue.

We are also happy to be held to account for those powers. That is why I propose that the Home Secretary—or Scottish Ministers, where they have the power to direct in relation to the National Criminal Intelligence Service—should be required to report the use of those powers to Parliament. I accept that that is important. My colleagues in government agreed in discussion that being accountable to Parliament means more than just answering Questions or being subject to written Questions and Statements. There must be a requirement to report on the use of the powers to Parliament. We intend to produce the reports as early as is practical after exercising the powers of direction, if those powers are used.

However, the opposition amendments would require the Home Secretary to prepare his report in six months. I am not nit-picking about a technical deficiency. Under the amendments, he would not be required to lay the report before Parliament within six months. That is an important point. If the powers are ever used and there is a sniff that the report to Parliament has been delayed for what I might call political purposes, all hell will break out in both Houses of Parliament, given the nature of the amendments under consideration. The amendments spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, would not lock in the Home Secretary in respect of the reports being laid before Parliament.

I respect the absence of my noble friend Lord Harris. His initial amendment was very important and gave us an opportunity to look at another way of dealing with a very difficult issue. However, we think that Amendment No. 27 is the wrong approach to use of the powers. It would be more time-consuming, routing the direction and the action plan via the police authority, rather than the Home Secretary agreeing the form of direction and the contents of the action plan in consultation with the police authority. There are two stages to the process under Amendment No. 27. Two individual parts of the tripartite partnership sending action plans back and forth for revision and amendment has the potential for delay in the delivery of the plans. Our fellow citizens want those action plans to be delivered if it has been accepted that they are required.

The Home Secretary has a strategic overview which the police authority does not have, being, as it is, closely involved with the police force. Once under-performance reaches the stage at which directions are necessary—when there is an up-front and knowing failure which the local public will know about—the police authority will have already had its chance to drive up performance. As I said, the power is for use only in the last resort. We have also built in a further stage in which the police authority and chief police officer can propose their own way of delivering an action plan.

I have not had a chance to discuss the government amendments with my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey, but I hope that his concerns about the police authority's involvement in the process are dealt with in the proposed new clause in government Amendment No. 42.

As to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, in relation to some of his later amendments, the Home Secretary will not be requiring the directors-general of the National Criminal Intelligence Service or the National Crime Squad to implement impractical action plans. Moreover, the government amendments build safeguards into the procedure for issuing directions to ensure that the directions and action plans are carefully thought through in terms of deliverability. Those safeguards will provide the directors-general of the two services and the service authorities with an opportunity to make representations and proposals to the Secretary of State before he issues a direction.

Therefore, like police authorities and local chief officers, the other two services will have an opportunity to propose their own action plan. It would be in no one's interest for the Home Secretary to make unreasonable demands of the National Criminal Intelligence Service or the National Crime Squad. He will therefore consult with both organisations before issuing any directions. That is why there is no need to specify in the Bill that a direction must be achievable before it can be issued. As I said, the Home Secretary will work with the directors-general and the service authorities to ensure that a direction is achievable before it is issued; it would be too late to do so after it is issued. However, the Home Secretary has a right to expect a direction, once issued, to be implemented. Amendments Nos. 81 and 91 would subvert that expectation. As such, I do not commend them to the House.

I freely admit that our discussions in Committee were of considerable help to myself and my colleagues in trying to enshrine the Government's intention, rather than what people believe is our intention, in statute. I also freely admit that things are not always drafted as clearly as they could be. Moreover, even with the best will in the world, Ministers can no longer simply stand up and say, "I am a Minister. Believe me and trust me". Life is no longer like that. The situation was the same before I became a Minister, but I am now free to admit it. We are a mature and alert democracy, and the public should always be encouraged to question and to be suspicious of those in authority.

I hope that, because of the way in which we have locked down these issues in this group of amendments, chief police officers will be confident that the Home Secretary is not seeking to do their job. I also hope that police authority members will be confident that they perform an extremely valuable function at the service level of the 43 police authorities. The Home Office is in no way seeking to do their job; that is not our intention. The amendments provide last-resort powers. Moreover, we have built in further checks and balances in their use; we have provided a long stop to the long stop. I genuinely believe that we have used our very best endeavours in developing this package to try to meet the demands that noble Lords made in Committee. I therefore hope that the government amendments in this group will find favour with noble Lords.

Lord Renton

My Lords, the Minister has obviously had second thoughts—as presumably has the Home Secretary—about Clause 5. Amendment No. 42 is obviously an attempt by the Government to mitigate the unpopularity, and indeed the rather resolute provisions, of Clause 5. However, I implore the Minister to bear in mind that Amendment No. 42 really does need to be mentioned in Clause 5. Clause 5 should at least include a phrase to the effect of, "Subject to the provisions of what will become Section 41B". Without such a cross-reference, there will appear to be a conflict in the Bill.

6.15 p.m.

Lord Rooker

My Lords, far be it from me to talk about Bill drafting to the noble Lord, but I should make it clear that Clause 5 will become a new section in the Police Act 1996. The amendment will become Section 41A of the 1996 Act, and it has the heading, Powers to give directions to chief officers". The proposed new clause in Amendment No. 42 will follow that new section and is headed, 41B Procedure for giving directions under sections 40 and 41A". Therefore, there is a direct reference in Amendment No. 42 to Clause 5.

Lord Renton

My Lords, I understand that. I have understood it throughout. The point concerns the very drastic powers given to the Home Secretary in what is intended to become new Section 41A of the 1996 Act. As a matter of drafting, and in accordance with our usual practice, Clause 5 should at least contain the phrase, "Subject to the provision of Section 41B of the 1996 Act."

Although I believe that the suggested minor change would help, I go further. Frankly—but without going into a mass of detail—the provisions of Amendment No. 42 are in conflict with the provisions of proposed new Section 41A as set out in Clause 5. I think it desirable for the two clauses to be redrafted not only so that they dovetail better, but to mitigate the very considerable powers expressed in Clause 5 which really do conflict with what the Minister has just proposed. I am trying to be helpful. It really would be better if we included in the legislation something along the lines of what I have just proposed.

Lord Rooker

My Lords, I accept the noble Lord's comments. However, at the risk of repeating myself, when the two new clauses are read together, as they will be in the 1996 Act, it will be clear that one is 41A and the other is 41B. Not only will the title of the new Section 41B refer to new Section 41A, but the very first line of 41B effectively states that the Secretary of State cannot operate that new section unless he follows the procedure laid out in new Section 41B. There is a direct link between the two. In other words, Clause 5—which has been such a contentious issue in this House—cannot operate unless the procedures specified in the subsequent section are followed.

I am always happy to take advice, as is the parliamentary draftsman. In fact, I know that the draftsman is happy to take advice from the noble Lord, Lord Renton. I give my word that if the provisions require any tidying up in relation to drafting or other technical matters, that matter will certainly be looked at. However, I also make it clear that Clause 5—which itself is amended in my amendments in this group—cannot operate unless the procedures laid out in Amendment No. 42 are followed. That is clearly stated at the beginning of the amendment.

Baroness Harris of Richmond

My Lords, I have listened with great interest to the Minister. I am sorry that he has difficulty with the suggestion that police authorities should be consulted. He spoke about going backwards and forwards and said that it would be too time consuming. If there were failings, police authorities would have had their doors battered down by their local communities. The Minister's remarks about going backwards and forwards would have made no difference. Police authorities would simply have dealt with matters at an earlier stage. I wish that the Minister would reassure his right honourable friend the Home Secretary about that. Where have failings occurred? Where does he think they might occur?

The provision is a sledgehammer to crack a nut. I am deeply disappointed by the Minister's remarks that the Home Secretary can intervene and direct the local police authority under Clause 4. Our suggestion is a much better way of dealing with these matters. Under Clause 5 the Home Secretary will intervene directly, which is not the best way forward. I am disappointed. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment, but warn the Minister that we shall probably return to the matter at Third Reading.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Lord Rooker

moved Amendment No. 23: Page 3, line 42, after "such" insert "remedial The noble Lord said: My Lords, I shall speak also to the amendments in this group which are in my name. Amendments Nos. 24, 25, 60, 61, 63 to 66 and 68 to 71 are intended to define better the sorts of measures that can be included in the direction to police authorities.

The key phrase, which goes to the heart of what we discussed in Committee, is that the measures must be remedial; they must be about putting right what the inspection report has identified as being wrong. The amendments also specify that the remedial measures must refer only to matters identified in the report as being related to the under-performance identified by the inspectorate, or to matters that the Secretary of State believes are relevant to the matters identified by the inspectorate.

I make it absolutely clear that it is our intention that directions will be used to correct under-performance and that this is not about the Home Secretary micro-managing individual police forces on a day-to-day basis. Such directions are intended to remedy a problem. That is the key point to make. In addition, because we are committed to the use of these powers being open and transparent, we propose that the Home Secretary should report his use of the direction-making powers to Parliament. I shall not repeat what I said on the previous group of amendments.

Your Lordships have tabled amendments to this provision and we are prepared to accept that reports on the use of powers should be laid as soon as practicable after the exercise of the power. However, the amendments, as worded, would not achieve what they are intended to achieve. They would not require the Home Secretary to lay reports before Parliament within six months. They require only that the reports are prepared within six months. The Bill would be meaningless were we to accept these amendments.

In that spirit, it is open to your Lordships to table amendments at a later stage. We are putting the emphasis on remedying a problem; they must be remedial measures. That shows that we are not attempting to manage the day-to-day operations of the police service.

Lord Dixon-Smith

My Lords, the Minister has raised the issue of the timing of those reports and has suggested that my amendment does not require the reports to be laid before Parliament within the time limit. I accept that technical criticism of the drafting. If the Minister can give an assurance that the reports will be laid before Parliament within six months, it would spare us all the necessity to table further amendments at Third Reading and might save us all a little time. Will the Minister consider that suggestion?

Lord Rooker

My Lords, this is my best effort. I am not saying that everything is perfect. We are prepared to accept that reports should be laid as soon as is practicable after the exercise of the powers. If your Lordships are not satisfied with that and we can find a form of words, I shall be happy to grovel to my right honourable friend and say that I weakened in a moment of ecstasy. It would be to everyone's satisfaction if we were to get the words right. I shall certainly consider the matter, but I make no promises for Third Reading.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Lord Rooker

moved Amendments Nos. 24 and 25: Page 3, line 43, at end insert— (2) Those remedial measures must not relate to any matter other than—

1. (a) a matter by reference to which the report contains a statement of opinion falling within subsection (1)(a) or (b); or
2. (b) a matter that the Secretary of State considers relevant to any matter falling within paragraph (a)."

Page 3, line 43, at end insert— (3) If the Secretary of State exercises his power to give a direction under this section in relation to a police force—

1. (a) he shall prepare a report on his exercise of that power in relation to that force; and
2. (b) he shall lay that report before Parliament.

(4) A report under subsection (3)—

1. (a) shall be prepared at such time as the Secretary of State considers appropriate; and
2. (b) may relate to more than one exercise of the power mentioned in that subsection."

On Question, amendments agreed to.

[Amendments Nos. 26 and 27 not moved.]

Clause 5 [Directions to chief officers]:

[Amendments Nos. 28 to 35 not moved.]

Lord Rooker

moved Amendments Nos. 36 and 37: Page 4, line 41, leave out from "making" to "or in line 42. Page 4, line 43, after "plan" insert "to the Secretary of State and to the police authority maintaining the force in question; () provision as to the times at which, and the manner in which, any progress report is to be made; On Question, amendments agreed to.

[Amendment No. 38 not moved.]

Lord Rooker

moved Amendment No. 39: Page 5, line 15, at end insert— (12) If the Secretary of State exercises his power to give a direction under this section in relation to a police force—

1. (a) he shall prepare a report on his exercise of that power in relation to that force; and
2. (b) he shall lay that report before Parliament.

(13) A report under subsection (12)—

1. (a) shall be prepared at such time as the Secretary of State considers appropriate; and
2. (b) may relate to more than one exercise of the power mentioned in that subsection."

On Question, amendment agreed to.

[Amendment No. 40, as an amendment to Amendment No. 39, not moved.]

Lord Dixon-Smith

moved Amendment No. 41: Leave out Clause 5. The noble Lord said: My Lords, it was quite coincidental, and not by arrangement, that a report was issued last week by the London School of Economics and the South Bank University about crime and disorder in London. The first paragraph states: Narrow, centrally imposed priorities are creating a growing gap between what Londoners expect of the police and what they get. Unless the Metropolitan Police can be more responsive to the needs of local people, it will lose the community support it needs to tackle crime effectively". I regret that I have been unable to get the full report, but the summary states: One important factor has been the unintended consequences of the performance management systems that were imposed on the police throughout the 1990s. Quantitative performance targets were set by successive Home Secretaries, by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and by the Audit Commission; these generally gave primacy to crime-fighting objectives at the expense of order maintenance. Especially in the 1990s they also imposed the same priorities across widely differing areas regardless of variations in crime problems. This limited the capacity of local police to prioritise according to local need. If the flexibility of the MPS to respond to local problems was constrained by central government initiative, the problem was compounded by the high degree of centralisation in the MPS decision-making. Borough commanders were responsible for areas as large as some provincial forces"— as the Minister has already said— but with far more intense problems of crime and disorder. Yet at the time of fieldwork they had limited scope to use their own discretion to tailor their resource allocation to local need". Clause 5 takes the business of central administration of what are essential local services too far. The truth of the matter is that the Home Office is in a muddle. That academically-based report highlights the difficulties of the police service. The police service is over-administered; it is having difficulty with policing. Regrettably it seems to be ineffective; regrettably it is not perceived to have adequate detection rates in criminal matters; regrettably it is not effectively preventing crime because it has not got time; and regrettably, as a consequence of all of that, it produces low conviction rates in the courts.

I sometimes think that if the Home Secretary were honest, he would be grateful that the police were achieving low conviction rates. The prison population is at its highest level ever and the prisons are bursting at the seams. Quite frankly, if the police were to double their performance rate and the consequence was that conviction rates were doubled, there would be nowhere to put the criminals.

One can look at other aspects: for example, the asylum services. We read in our Sunday newspapers that asylum seekers who are supposed to stay in this country regularly take trips across the Channel for vacations or family weddings. That system is not working properly. The Government's strategic services, which are responsible for providing the systems, are not working. Within that, in Clause 5 we see the legislative tentacles of the department stretching down desperately seeking something small enough to control.

We believe that Clause 5 is wrong. There are jobs which central government can and should do, and there are jobs that they should not do. There is nothing that can be done from an office in Whitehall which will affect things dramatically on the streets, be it in London, Birmingham or even my local town of Braintree. Everywhere the circumstances are different. I accept that the Minister has done his best to ensure that the actions taken under Clause 5 would only be taken as a last remedial power, a long-stop to a long-stop, having given the local bodies the incentive, which already exists, to put matters right in the first place.

If we accept the new management systems, we will find the management information which is available is a recent phenomenon which was not available to police authorities or chief constables in earlier days. So those systems could not operate more quickly than the Home Office is now intending. Clause 5 is therefore completely unnecessary. It goes too far. It is taking central administration to the point where it is beginning to prevent the effective performance of these essential services.

Another report was published only one week ago saying more or less the same thing about the health service. This is a lesson we all need to learn fast and seriously. We have therefore come to the conclusion that the only sensible way of preventing this excess of action, which is damaging, is to delete Clause 5. I beg to move.

6.30 p.m.

Lord Dholakia

My Lords, we have made abundantly clear throughout the Committee stage and at Second Reading that it is our view that Clause 5 is unacceptable. We are therefore delighted to support Amendment No. 41 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, myself and my noble friend Lord Bradshaw.

Clause 5 threatens the very basis of our tripartite system of checks and balances by placing too much power in the hands of the Home Secretary. I listened carefully in the earlier debate about the long-stop and the long-long-stop about which the Minister talked. But we have to be careful because the tripartite system has been constructed to ensure that no one party has complete control over policing. It is a unique system and works very well. That is not to say that the tripartite relationships may not be slightly adjusted from time to time, and the previous Home Secretaries have rightly done so. We recognise that that may be so and will work constructively with the Government to achieve the changes that are needed.

But Clause 5 goes too far. It rebalances the tripartite relationship in a way which places too much power in the hands of the Home Secretary. It diminishes local influence, local accountability and local control. The tripod which has stood the test of time is now to be removed.

Clause 5 allows the Home Secretary effectively to control local operational policy, despite the fact that the word "operational" has been questioned again and again. It empowers the Home Secretary to direct exactly what the chief officer or BCU commander must do through specifying the contents of action plans, targets and time-scales. It provides for the chief officer to report directly to the Home Secretary and it gives the local police authority, whose job it is to monitor and manage police performances, little say in the process. The police authority will only have to be consulted on the action plan, not agree it, and thus will have little say over the targets, time-scales or resources to be applied to the problem which the Home Secretary has decided needs to be solved. The authority will be copied into progress reports, but will have no effective role in managing performance.

We have already indicated that in bringing forward their amendments we recognise that the Government were trying to be responsive to the concerns rehearsed in earlier debates. But they do not address the fundamental problem with Clause 5; that is, that it subverts the existing tripartite relationship. I do not see how anyone can argue that that is not a radical change in our system of policing.

We heard in Committee the Minister's contention that this radical change in our system is needed because of the wide variations in police performance throughout the country. Various statistics were bandied about. But we all know that statistics can be used to support any case where needed.

We are fully behind the Minister on one point. We agree that all our communities are entitled to the best possible policing. We entirely support driving up police performance. We do not want to see postcode policing either. But we have to look at what the Minister is proposing and whether it will solve the issue.

There was an interesting exchange at Committee stage between my noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury who, sadly, cannot be here today, and the Minister. My noble friend asked why the Minister thought that the Home Office could do better than local police authorities and forces. The Minister's response was, could the Home Office do it worse? Most of us believe that it could happen. He is not accountable day in and day out in the way that local police authorities and chief officers are to their communities. Where there are variations in performance we need to motivate local police authorities and forces to find solutions with their communities, not send in civil servants from Whitehall.

The Minister has assured us time and again that this is the nuclear option; the power of last resort. But Clause 4 already gives the Home Secretary all the power he needs while preserving the national/local balance of control over policing. We believe that our amendment to Clause 4 is the solution.

But given the establishment of the Police Standards Unit and experience elsewhere in government, it is hard to believe that the Home Secretary will not be tempted to use the new powers available to him.

But this would have serious and unwelcome ramifications for local policing. Our system is unique in giving local people a strong voice in how they are policed. This is critical to policing by consent. We do not want to see our police under the control of central government or their activities politicised, which is what Clause 5 could ultimately mean.

We all want to improve local policing in our communities. No one disagrees with the Government about that. The question is how best to achieve that. We urge the Government to think again about how best to secure those improvements.

A partnership approach which builds on the relative strengths and responsibilities of local police authorities working with their forces and their communities is likely to prove more successful than any direction from Whitehall.

I return to a very important point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith. Earlier in the debate I mentioned the report Policing for London which the noble Lord cited. The study follows the one carried out by the Policy Studies Institute about 20 years ago. The important theme in the report is that increased central control over the police does not guarantee more effective policing.

There has been an understandable sense of urgency on the part of successive governments to get to grips with crime and disorder and reforming the police is an important element in all this. But the risks and cost of the different options need to be publicly aired and properly discussed. We have done that at Committee stage. Centralising the policing function is not an option which we would approve. There is too much at stake if we get it wrong.

Lord Borrie

My Lords, perhaps I may intervene briefly before the Minister responds. During Committee stage noble Lords on the Conservative and the Liberal Democrat Benches made a number of important points in relation to Clause 5, the power to give directions to chief' officers. As the Minister explained and everybody agreed, it was a power that would only be used in the last resort. It was to be used if a police force, or part of it, were inefficient or ineffective or if it would become so unless remedial measures were taken.

But there were concerns, especially those expressed then and a moment ago by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, that the involvement of central government and the Home Secretary with the chief of police direct was a severe interference with the tripartite system. While some very strong concerns were expressed at Committee stage, I do not believe that either the Conservative or Liberal Democrat Benches have made out a case today in the light of Amendment No. 42, which the Minister has already explained but which we have not yet reached.

That is an example of the working out of the tripartite system and it is not in any way an attack on it. It involves giving every opportunity there could possibly be to the police authority in the first place and to the chief officer of police in the second, to make representations and proposals and to have them considered by the Home Secretary. In the light of that amendment, if it is accepted, there is no way in which anybody could seriously argue that it was a great attack on the tripartite system or the arrival of centralised power in the sole hands of the Home Secretary. If Amendment No. 42 is accepted, and it is a form of centralisation, it is an incredibly modest one, which hardly deserves the attack that has been maintained from the Committee stage to this Report stage when we have this important other amendment in front of us.

6.45 p.m.

Lord Elton

My Lords, when one wants to decide against whom an army is marching one looks to see in which direction the guns of its tanks are pointed. It seems to me that this clause is a tank. There has been an elaborate effort to camouflage it. There have been very praiseworthy efforts to hedge about its use. I recognise what the Minister has done and the difficulty he has no doubt had in persuading his right honourable friend and those who advised him. After three years in their company at the Home Office I hold them in high regard.

But in this respect I do not believe that the men at Whitehall know best because the tank is still pointing its gun at the solitary figure of the chief officer of police. The Secretary of State can tell his police authority what he is about and take advice from anybody. But in the end he has opted not to use the powers under Clause 4 and deal through the other part of the tripartite arrangement, which consists of people with a democratic responsibility, but to deal direct with somebody appointed as a public servant. He will find himself staring down the barrel along which is squinting the Secretary of State, the Permanent Secretary, the Under-Secretary and the Assistant Secretary, and all the authorities of the state who can wield their power on him.

I do not believe that the camouflage, even that expressed in what the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, said, actually conceals the fact that the gun is pointing at the chief constable. He should have the support of his authority and it should have a voice and a role in this matter, not merely to be consulted but to be the body at which the gun is pointed. I stand by my noble friend's proposition that this clause should not stand part of the Bill.

Baroness Harris of Richmond

My Lords, perhaps I can help the noble Lord, Lord Borrie. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for putting his concerns so succinctly on this matter. I wish to add a few words based on my past experience as chair of my local police authority. I was a member of the National Crime Squad Service Authority and also deputy chair of the National Association of Police Authorities.

In my view Clause 5 creates more problems for the Home Secretary than it could ever solve. At earlier stages the Minister told us that the Home Secretary believes that the tripartite relationship means that he gets all the blame. Police authorities have all the money and chief officers have all the power. I find it somewhat worrying that after 10 months in the job the Home Secretary seems to have what can only be described as a distorted view of the governance of policing in this country.

From the local perspective it is the other way round. The Home Secretary has the money and power while police authorities and chief officers struggle to provide a genuinely local policing service which meets the needs and aspirations of their communities.

My colleagues have already made clear our fundamental objections to Clause 5 and the equivalent provision in Schedule 1(4) which relates to the National Criminal Intelligence Service and National Crime Squad. Taken with the rest of Part 1 of the Bill and the new powers that the Home Secretary proposes to give himself elsewhere in the Bill, it radically shifts control of policing away from local people and communities to Whitehall.

We are told that the powers in Clause 5 are the last resort and that they are needed to drive up poor performance to the level of the best. As far as I can see, the Government have given us no hard evidence to show why such powers are necessary or in which circumstances they will be used. We have already discussed the extensive powers available under Clause 4. Can the Minister give a concrete example of why the powers under Clause 5 are needed and how they will be used?

While the Minister considers that, I shall turn to the recent street crime initiative. The Government are concerned about rising levels of street crime as I am sure are all noble Lords. The Prime Minister has instigated weekly crime summits involving key players from the Association of Police Authorities, the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Criminal Prosecution Service, the courts and other government departments such as the Department of Health and the Department for Education and Skills. The 10 forces identified as having the worst problems in this area are already developing action plans to tackle the situation. That is being undertaken at the moment without the powers proposed under Clause 5. I leave the Minister and your Lordships with a question: why on earth do we need Clause 5?

Lord Corbett of Castle Vale

My Lords, I apologise for not being able to attend the debate earlier, although I sat through many of the debates on this matter on the previous occasions when it was discussed. Your Lordships' House is rightly concerned—I share the concern—about any attempt to try to centralise control of the police. With the greatest respect to your Lordships, I fail to understand much of the argument. Perhaps I may illustrate my point as simply as I can.

The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, said that there should not be policing by postcode, with which I agree. I suggest that the powers being sought in Clause 5 are to try to achieve that. To that extent, it is on the side of local policing. The report, Policing for London, to which the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, referred, made the point that there is no direct correlation between the number of police officers and the level of crime. Your Lordships may join with me in saying that you wish that there were so that to reduce crime we could simply double the number of police officers on the beat. Life is not that simple.

It is fair to say that that report referred to the matter obliquely, but it should have gone a step further. Much more important than the manpower and the money is the leadership provided at the grassroots. I welcome, as I hope your Lordships do, the fact that this Government have encouraged the establishment of the operational command units, which break down police force areas into small sections, around which the police can walk without running out of breath. They will try to ensure that levels of policing for communities across the length and breadth of England and Wales deliver roughly the same service. As people are aware, at the moment that does not happen. Like the Minister, I know that that does not happen from my experience in another place, when I represented a constituency in Birmingham. Too much was left to the wit and wisdom of the incoming chief inspector or superintendent. Like new brooms, they come in and want to change things.

I readily confess that my experience of police authorities is totally different from that of other noble Lords. I can remember hearing from the West Midlands police authority only when it wanted more money. I do not knock the authority for that, as that is part of its role, but I was there for 23 years and I never noticed it ensuring that there was a local input to policing, although it may have done so behind my hack. I understand the importance of that role, but I believe that it should be improved upon.

Time and time again it has been said in another place that the Home Secretary of the day carries the can when matters go wrong with the police. The previous Conservative government said that the Home Secretary should not set police force numbers. They said that money should be allocated and that it was up to the chief constables and to the police authorities to work out how that money should be spent. That appears to have changed because Home Secretaries in the present Government have volunteered to decide on the number of police officers. By next year we shall have an extra 5,000 police officers to establish record levels. I leave open the fact that extra officers do not mean less crime and do not mean better detection rates.

The powers being sought in this part of the Bill are to remedy failure. A Home Secretary cannot get out of bed one morning and say, "I do not like what is going on in the West Midlands or in the Kent Police force or whatever", and pick on them for no reason. There has to be an identified failure in a police force and either an unwillingness or art inability by the local police authority to try to put right that failure.

If the Home Secretary of the day carries the responsibility when matters go wrong, he or she needs to have powers for circumstances where a failure has been identified and no proper steps have been taken to deal with it. In those circumstances, and against the constraints which a whole raft of amendments to the original proposition proposed, he or she needs to be able to use those powers.

Today one of the principal partners—the Association of Chief Police Officers—prayed in aid by those who stand behind this amendment, has made clear that it welcomes the amendments that the Minister has tabled to the Bill. A press release issued by the association today says: Chief police officers have welcomed amendments introduced by the Government to the Police Reform Bill … We welcome the amendments to the Bill which have been proposed and which go a good way towards limiting the potential for any arbitrary powers of intervention. We particularly welcome the recognition that the leaders of the Service have a key role in giving professional endorsement to any operational codes and regulations". If the amendments proposed by the Government to this clause are good enough for the Association of Chief Police Officers, who some weeks ago we were told were in danger of having their masculinity cut from underneath them, and if they now say that they are satisfied, I believe that your Lordships' House should listen to what is being said.

Those powers have been changed to meet the voices around the Chamber. When we first considered the matter I shared many of the concerns. If we are genuinely on the side of local policing, locally delivered, with everybody as far as possible receiving the same level of policing across the country, we should allow the Home Secretary to have the powers to enable him to do something about an identified failure on behalf of local people.

Earl Russell

My Lords, it is typical of the way in which matters work here that I should begin an attempt to persuade people to vote against the Government by praising the noble Lord, Lord Carter. In the late 1980s the noble Lord, Lord Carter, discovered that there existed model clauses for how to draft a Bill. The phrase by which he detected that was that people were to leave public bodies if they became disabled or otherwise incapacitated to perform their duty. The words "disabled or otherwise" were, of course, quite redundant.

Here we have a model clause. I have seen it in more Bills dealing with the public services than I care to remember. That began with the Quality Assurance Agency against universities in 1992. It is still possible to persuade any academic to vote in favour of our party by saying that we divided the House against the creation of the Quality Assurance Agency. No further argument is needed.

We have a model clause designed to deal with failure. By what the Minister will, I am sure, assure me is a coincidence, these model clauses designed to deal with failing forces, failing schools, failing hospitals, always come in at precisely the moment of financial stringency, when one has that sickening realisation that, however hard one tries with the money available, one cannot possibly succeed.

The suspicion exists in the minds of many public servants that clauses like this are designed to pass the buck. The noble Lord, Lord Corbett, said that the measure was designed to deal with failure. I agree with him. Some of us are born failures; some of us achieve failure; and some of us have failure thrust upon us. Those who suffer this clause will believe that they belong to the third category.

7 p.m.

Earl Ferrers

My Lords, I retain a great concern about the clause for many of the reasons given. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Corbett, that it is to be used in theory only when something goes wrong; and no one ever wants anything to go wrong. But it was Archbishop Fisher who said once that there is no unreasonable argument that cannot be proved reasonable by reason.

The Government are giving powers to the Home Secretary to intervene over policing matters which have always been the responsibility of local policing authorities. I had occasion to mention earlier the problems we had in 1994 when we introduced a police Bill. The row was over whether one appointed people to the police authority. It was not the Home Secretary taking powers. Subsection (2) of new Section 41A states that the Secretary of State may direct the chief officer of the police. Those are huge powers. Subsection (4) states that the Secretary of State may direct the chief officer of police of the force in question to do various things.

The Police Service has always run on the tripartite view of the milkmaid's stool with three prongs: the Home Secretary; the chief constable; and the local authority. But for the Home Secretary from Whitehall to direct the actions not of police authorities but of chief constables gives huge power to the centre. With regard to the police Bill in 1994 there was such a row over who should be members of the police authority that I found myself obliged to take back all eight clauses. That was merely a question of who was to sit on the authority. There was no question about whether the Home Secretary should direct people. That would have been intolerable.

I suggest to noble Lords that this is not the right thing to do. Local police authorities must be responsible for their local policing.

Lord Rooker

My Lords, perhaps noble Lords will forgive me if I repeat much of what I said in the earlier debate on Amendment No. 42. It may be convenient for some noble Lords to treat Clause 5 in isolation but, frankly, they cannot get away with that. I have made a set of proposals, including the new clause, Amendment No. 42, which alters the position. We are not in Committee. It is not the day that the Bill was published.

Having listened to some noble Lords talking about police authorities, anyone would think that all was right, that the police authorities are doing a fantastic job and that we are simply interfering with their day-to-day activities. No noble Lord pointed out that the clause is activated only if there is failure. It operates only under the procedures set out in the new clause, Amendment No. 42. It is a last resort. No one has talked about that last resort. The last resort is a failure and a breakdown of policing in a local area or force. No one has addressed that issue. They have all said, "We do not like this measure. It is interference".

Clause 5, as drafted, operated by the procedures under the new clause, Amendment No. 42, operates only where there is a breakdown. No noble Lord from any party asked, "What do we do if there is a breakdown?". Under the procedures in the government amendment, the chief of police and the beloved police authority will have already had one, two, three or four opportunities to put right the failure. What do noble Lords seek today? They seek to let them carry on, to have a fifth chance to fail their communities. That is the reality of removing Clause 5 and ignoring the amendments brought forward by the Government since Committee stage. Noble Lords shake their heads but that is what they seek: a fifth chance of failure, letting down local communities. That is the reality that we face, with noble Lords refusing to accept any alternative but to leave out Clause 5. Without Clause 5 the remaining provisions will go.

The measure will be activated only after the police authority's own action plan to remedy the publicly acknowledged failure. So there is a publicly acknowledged failure of policing in either an area or a function of a police force. The police authority will then have another opportunity to come forward with its own action plan before Clause 5 is activated. The chief officer will come forward to the police authority with his own extra action plan to deal with that failure before Clause 5 operates.

What do noble Lords expect? It is failure after failure, with the Home Secretary, not the police authorities, being held accountable before the House of Commons. My noble friend Lord Corbett is right. In his heart, the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, knows he is right. We never noticed a police authority carrying the can as individuals. They are not democratically elected. Someone spoke about the democratically elected. None of us is elected. None of us has to face the electorate having said, "No, we shall settle for failure". That is what it means. Doing nothing means settling for failure. We say that the measure is a last resort, a longstop to a longstop.

In those circumstances—with narrowly defined areas and following all the reports that we would require—I cannot believe that people with the experience of life that your Lordships have would say, "Let it go. Do not do anything". The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, referred to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. I do not want to misquote the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, in any shape or form. I was struck by what the noble Lord said in debate. He was open and honest enough to say in Committee, "Yes, I accept the failure and then it is up to the electorate to do something about it". When Members of another place have the Home Secretary at the Dispatch Box it is not good enough to say, "We cannot wait. We want action in our area now. We have a failure". Nothing would be done behind closed doors. Everyone concerned would know that there was a failure of policing. I do not accept the noble Lord's argument.

I am told that the Home Secretary can order what local commanders can do only after the failure of the local action plans put forward by the police authority and the chief constable without the Home Secretary interfering. So what do noble Lords want? Is it the status quo? That cannot be acceptable. I challenge any noble Lord to say, "It's all working perfectly". It simply cannot be argued.

The noble Lord, Lord Elton, said that I camouflaged Clause 5. He did so in the nicest way; I do not take it as personal criticism. Clause 5 on its own in the Bill is not acceptable to the Government, as we discussed in Committee. That is why we have come forward with a package, including Amendment No. 42, setting out how Clause 5 will operate. It would not operate other than under the rules set out in the new clause we want to insert.

We are not camouflaging Clause 5; we are giving more direction to the tank commander—to use the earlier analogy—who cannot work the tank without operating under the rules set out in the amendment. It is no good noble Lords going through the Division Lobby saying "We didn't like Clause 5". The debate is not about Clause 5. It is about Clause 5 and the rest of the package brought forward by the Government to the House at this stage of the Bill, following four days in Committee. Clause 5 is not on offer on its own, and noble Lords know that. It is on offer with a package of amendments, including Amendment No. 42, which I am moving today on behalf of the Government.

I cannot answer the detailed questions such as that about the Downing Street crime summit. Perhaps I may put it this way. It did not get going until the Prime Minister spent his time on the matter. Someone had to do something. It was not done under statute; under the force of a piece of legislation such as this; nor under the force of a Minister saying "Go forth and do this, that and the other". With chief constables and others called into Downing Street, that would not be strictly necessary.

Is that what we are to be forced to do each time there are perceived problems in areas of policing: to have a Downing Street summit behind closed doors without any accountability to this House in the way that we have set out in the clauses and the amendments? Surely it is better to have a more open and transparent process and not to have to leave the matter to Prime Ministerial summits. That is not sensible good governance.

I feel for the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, for having to take back eight clauses in 1994. I shall not take hack any clauses. The measure will come back from the other place, so this will not be the end of the debate. The other place will know that this debate was not about Clause 5. I refuse to accept that. It is about Clause 5 and the rest of the package specifying how Clause 5 will operate. It is about a last resort; a long stop to the long stop. It is about the Government—I hope with Parliament's support—trying to achieve something where there is openly acknowledged failure of policing in our communities. I beg the House not to throw it out.

Lord Dixon-Smith

My Lords, the Minister has made much of Amendment No. 42. The amendment states: The Secretary of State shall not give a direction … in relation to any police force unless—

1. (a) the police authority maintaining that force and the chief officer of that force have each been given such information about the Secretary of State's grounds for proposing to give that direction as he considers appropriate for enabling them to make representations or proposals under the following paragraphs…
2. (b) that police authority and chief officer have each been given an opportunity of making representations…
3. (c) that police authority, in the case of a proposal for the giving of a direction… has had an opportunity of making proposals for the taking of remedial measures…
4. (d) that chief officer, in the case of a proposal for the giving of a direction… has had an opportunity of making proposals for the taking of remedial measures…
5. (e) the Secretary of State has considered any such representations and any such proposals".

It does not talk about whether there might be time for those proposals to be implemented or about their failure. The Minister is gently stretching the amendment, although I accept its good intention. We have to deal with the words before us in the Bill. That is a perennial problem with legislation.

The Minister says—I regret to say, with a certain amount of correctness—that the police authority never carries the can; not least in the persistent failures of local administration which have taken place throughout my experience in local government. That is because of the failure of government in the centre to treat local bodies as if they were responsible, so that they would have had to behave responsibly. They have been wet-nursed, nappied and bailed out so many times that they hardly know that they are adult anymore.

That is not a criticism of this Government, but this Government are rather better at that than some of their predecessors. I accept the Home Secretary's difficulty when he stands before many irate Members in another place demanding action on a local problem. Something has not been mentioned so far in the debate; the intensification and development of management information over the past decade, largely as a result of computerisation and the speed of communication. These problems have intensified because everything is analysed in so much more detail; detail that did not exist a few years ago.

We now have a situation where the Home Secretary knows of a problem in Muchbinding-in-the-Marsh or wherever as soon as the local BCU commander does. So does the MP. The MP raises the problem on the Floor of the House. The Home Secretary is naturally embarrassed and feels obliged to promise action without stopping to think about the reality; that local people know there is a problem and they do not need to be told. They do not like the problem any more than anyone else and they will already be taking action to put matters right. That is the answer to the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Corbett of Castle Vale.

I am grateful to noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. It has been a useful and important discussion. I return to the fundamental problem I mentioned at the beginning. There is increasing evidence, and reports are coming in increasingly across a number of government services, that the over-centralisation of administration is fundamentally damaging the provision of service to the public. The reason is simple: the perception of what is needed in the centre to remedy action in a place regarded as being a long way away is never the same as the perception in the place itself where they are dealing with the problem on a day-to-day basis.

Unfortunately that will always be so and we cannot escape it. That is why the clause is unacceptable. I have no hesitation or shame in asking to test the opinion of the House. It is entirely proper.

7.19 p.m.

On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 41) shall be agreed to?

Their Lordships divided: Contents, 205; Not-Contents, 131.

Division No. 1
CONTENTS
Addington, L.	Clement-Jones, L.
Allenby of Megiddo, V.	Colwyn, L.
Alton of Liverpool, L.	Condon, L.
Anelay of St Johns, B.	Cope of Berkeley, L. [Teller]
Arran, E.	Craig of Radley, L.
Astor, V.	Craigavon, V.
Astor of Hever, L.	Crathorne, L.
Attlee, E.	Crickhowell, L.
Baker of Dorking, L.	Dacre of Glanton, L.
Barker, B.	Dahrendorf, L.
Beaumont of Whitley, L.	Darcy de Knayth, B.
Belstead, L.	Dean of Harptree, L.
Blackwell, L.	Denham, L.
Blaker, L.	Dholakia, L.
Blatch, B.	Dixon-Smith, L.
Boardman, L.	Dundee, E.
Bowness, L.	Eden of Winton, L
Brabazon of Tara, L.	Elles, B.
Bradshaw, L.	Elliott of Morpeth, L.
Bridgeman, V.	Elton, L.
Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, L.	Erroll, E.
Brookeborough, V.	Ezra, L.
Brougham and Vaux, L.	Falkland, V.
Burnham, L.	Fearn, L.
Buscombe, B.	Ferrers, E,
Butterworth, L.	Flather, B.
Byford, B.	Fookes, B.
Caithness, E.	Fowler, L,
Campbell of Alloway, L.	Freeman, L.
Carnegy of Lour, B.	Gardner of Parkes, B.
Carrington, L.	Gilmour of Craigmillar, L.
Cavendish of Furness, L.	Glentoran, L.
Chalker of Wallasey, B.	Goodhart, L.
Chan, L.	Goschen, V.
Chester, Bp.	Greaves, L.
Chilver, L.	Greenway, L.

Griffiths of Fforestfach, L.	Oppenheim-Barnes, B.
Hamwee, B.	Palumbo, L.
Hanham, B.	Pearson of Rannoch, L.
Hannay of Chiswick, L.	Peel, E.
Harris of Peckham, L.	Peyton of Yeovil, L.
Harris of Richmond, B. [Teller]	Pilkington of Oxenford, L.
Hayhoe, L.	Plumb, L.
Henley, L.	Plummer of St. Marylebone, L
Higgins, L.	Prior, L.
Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, L.	Pym, L.
Hogg, B.	Quinton, L.
Holderness, L.	Rawlings, B.
Holme of Cheltenham, L.	Razzall, L.
Hooper, B.	Reay, L.
Hooson, L.	Redesdale, L.
Howe, E.	Rees, L.
Howe of Aberavon, L.	Rees-Mogg, L.
Howe of Idlicote, B.	Rennard, L.
Howell of Guildford, L.	Renton, L.
Hunt of Wirral, L.	Richardson of Calow, B.
Hurd of Westwell, L.	Roberts of Conwy, L.
Jacobs, L.	Rodgers of Quarry Bank, L.
James of Holland Park, B.	Rogan, L.
Jopling, L.	Rotherwick, L.
Kimball, L.	Russell, E.
King of Bridgwater, L.	Saatchi, L.
Kingsland, L.	St John of Fawsley, L.
Laing of Dunphail, L.	Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.
Lamont of Lerwick, L.	Sanderson of Bowden, L.
Lane of Horsell, L.	Scott of Needham Market, B.
Linklater of Butterstone, B.	Seccombe, B.
Liverpool, E.	Sharp of Guildford, B.
Livsey of Talgarth, L.	Sharples, B.
Lucas, L.	Shaw of Northstead, L.
Ludford, B.	Sheppard of Didgemere, L.
Luke, L.	Shutt of Greetland, L.
Lyell, L.	Simon of Glaisdale, L.
McColl of Dulwich, L.	Skelmersdale, L.
MacGregor of Pulham Market, L.	Slim, V.
	Smith of Clifton, L.
Mackie of Benshie, L	Soulsby of Swaffham Prior, L.
McNally, L.	Stern, B.
Maddock, B.	Stoddart of Swindon, L.
Mancroft, L.	Strange, B.
Mar, C.	Strathclyde, L.
Mar and Kellie, E.	Taverne, L.
Marlesford, L.	Tebbit, L.
Mayhew of Twysden, L.	Thatcher, B.
Methuen, L.	Thomas of Gwydir, L.
Michie of Gallanach, B.	Thomas of Walliswood, B.
Miller of Chilthorne Domer, B.	Thomson of Monifieth, L.
Miller of Hendon, B.	Tope, L.
Monson, L.	Trefgarne, L.
Montrose, D.	Trumpington, B.
Moore of Lower Marsh, L.	Vivian, L.
Mowbray and Stourton, L.	Waddington, L.
Moynihan, L.	Wade of Chorlton, L.
Murton of Lindisfarne, L.	Wakeham, L.
Newby, L.	Walker of Worcester, L.
Newton of Braintree, L.	Wallace of Saltaire, L.
Noakes, B.	Warnock, B.
Northbrook, L.	Watson of Richmond, L.
Northesk, E.	Weatherill, L.
Northover, B.	Wigoder, L.
O'Cathain, B.	Wilcox, B.
Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay, L.	Williams of Crosby, B.
Onslow, E.	Windlesham, L.
NOT-CONTENTS
Acton, L.	Ashton of Upholland, B.
Ahmed, L.	Bach, L.
Alli, L.	Barnett, L.
Amos, B.	Bassam of Brighton, L.
Andrews, B.	Berkeley, L.
Archer of Sandwell, L.	Bernstein of Craigweil, L.

Billingham, B.	Irvine of Lairg, L. (Lord Chancellor)
Blackstone, B.	Janner of Braunstone, L.
Blease, L.	Jones, L.
Borrie, L.	Judd, L.
Brennan, L.	King of West Bromwich, L.
Brett, L.	Kirkhill, L.
Brooke of Alverthorpe, L.	Layard, L.
Brookman, L.	Lea of Crondall, L.
Burlison, L.	Lipsey, L.
Campbell-Savours, L.	Lockwood, B.
Carter, L. [Teller]	Lofthouse of Pontefract, L.
Chandos, V.	Macdonald of Tradeston, L.
Christopher, L.	McIntosh of Haringey, L. [Teller]
Clark of Hampstead, L.	McIntosh of Hudnall, B.
Clark of Windermere, L.	MacKenzie of Culkein, L.
Clinton-Davis, L.	Mackenzie of Framwellgate, L.
Cohen of Pimlico, B.	Mallalieu, B.
Corbett of Castle Vale, L.	Manchester, Bp.
Crawley. B.	Mason of Barnsley, L.
Currie of Marylebone, L.	Massey of Darwen, B.
David. B.	Merlyn-Rees, L.
Davies of Oldham, L.	Milner of Leeds, L.
Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, B.	Mitchell, L.
Desai, L.	Morgan, L.
Dixon, L.	Morris of Aberavon, L.
Dormand of Easington, L.	Morris of Manchester, L.
Elder, L.	Orme, L.
Evans of Parkside, L.	Parekh, L.
Evans of Temple Guiting, L.	Patel of Blackburn, L.
Falconer of Thoroton, L.	Pendry, L.
Farrington of Ribbleton, B.	Peston, L.
Faulkner of Worcester, L.	Pitkeathley, B.
Filkin, L.	Plant of Highfield, L.
Fyfe of Fairfield, L.	Prys-Davies, L.
Gale, B.	Puttnam, L.
Gavron, L.	Radice, L.
Gibson of Market Rasen, B.	Ramsay of Cartvale, B.
Gilbert, L.	Randall of St. Budeaux, L.
Gladwin of Clee, L.	Rea, L.
Golding, B.	Rendell of Babergh, B.
Gordon of Strathblane, L.	Richard, L.
Goudie, B.	Rooker, L.
Gould of Potternewton, B.	Sainsbury of Turville, L.
Graham of Edmonton, L.	Scotland of Asthal, B.
Grenfell, L.	Serota, B.
Grocott, L.	Sheldon, L.
Hardy of Wath, L	Simon, V.
Harrison, L.	Stone of Blackheath, L.
Haskel, L.	Symons of Vernham Dean, B.
Hayman, B.	Taylor of Blackburn, L.
Hilton of Eggardon, B.	Temple-Morris, L.
Hogg of Cumbernauld, L.	Thornton, B.
Hollick, L.	Turner of Camden, B.
Hollis of Heigham, B.	Uddin, B.
Howells of St. Davids, B.	Walker of Doncaster, L.
Howie of Troon, L.	Warwick of Undercliffe, B.
Hoyle, L.	Wedderburn of Charlton, L.
Hunt of Chesterton, L.	Whitty, L.
Hunt of Kings Heath, L.	Wilkins, B.
	Woolmer of Leeds, L.

Resolved in the affirmative, and amendment agreed to accordingly.

[Amendments Nos. 42 and 42A not moved.]

7.31 p.m.

Lord Davies of Oldham

My Lords, I beg to move that consideration on Report be adjourned during pleasure. In moving this Motion, perhaps I may suggest that the Report stage begin again not before 8.32 p.m.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.