Lords Sitting of 28 February 2002

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock (Prayers having been read earlier at the Judicial Sitting by the Lord Bishop of Hereford): The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

"Strong Pound"
Lord Pearson of Rannoch Lord Pearson of Rannoch asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether, in view of recent and current exchange rates, they will discourage Ministers from using the expression "strong pound".
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the Government do not comment on day-to-day movements in foreign exchange markets. 'The Government's objective for the exchange rate remains a stable and competitive pound in the medium term.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, on the other hand, the Government often use the expression "strong pound"—which is what the Question is about. Surely it must always be wrong to describe the pound as strong: since the euro's launch, it has fallen by about 15 per cent against the US dollar—in which, contrary to what the Minister told noble Lords on Tuesday 60 per cent of our foreign trade is transacted. Is not the problem that those who were euphoric at the birth of the euro simply cannot bring themselves to describe it as weak, and that, therefore, the poor old pound must take the blame? Furthermore, is not "weak euro" the only truthful expression, given that it has gone down like a stone against every major currency on the planet?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I have done an extensive literature search, but I have found only three recent references by Ministers to a "strong pound". In all those cases, the reference was not to the dollar but to what the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, has rightly described as a "weak euro". Moreover, in all those cases, the suggestion was not that a "strong pound", in those terms, is a good thing or a bad thing. As for the euro's share in our overseas transactions, it comprises 65 per cent of the Bank of England sterling exchange rate index, whereas the US dollar comprises only 16.5 per cent of the index.
Lord Newby: My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is completely irrelevant whether it is a "strong pound" or a "weak euro", but completely relevant—as noble Lords discussed earlier—whether our exchange rate is stable and competitive? Does he also agree that the best route to making the pound stable and competitive is for the Government to announce now that they plan to join the euro?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, takes us hack to the Question
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asked on Tuesday by the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit. He may also have noticed that I gave exactly the same answer to the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, as I gave to the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit. I shall also give him the same answer as I gave him last time. It was right then and it is right now.
Lord Marsh: My Lords, can the Minister give the House any indication of how far he thinks the pound would fall if the Government were foolish enough to announce that we shall join the euro?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, no; we do not comment on day-to-day movements in the pound.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts: My Lords, does the Minister agree that, regardless of whether the sterling exchange rate is strong or weak, the current exchange rate combined with the Government's policies is doing immense damage to British manufacturing industry, and thousands of jobs have been lost as a result of those policies?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, no exchange rate is right for all purposes. It is true that manufacturing industry finds difficulty in the pound's current exchange rate—not only against the euro but against other currencies as well—which is why we have taken so many measures to help manufacturing industry, notably in corporation tax levels and specific help for research and development. Nevertheless, what is bad and undoubtedly difficult for manufacturing industry is not bad for, for example, service industry, which is doing very well with current exchange rates.
Lord Hughes of Woodside: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that we need to have long memories in these matters? Is it not only a couple of years ago that manufacturing industry was screaming that the pound's exchange rate value was too low and that we were suffering dreadfully from overseas competition? Can one ever get it right?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, such pressure is always put on governments, but particularly in the run up to a Budget. We are currently in such a period, and we are hearing those pressures from manufacturing industry and the business sector generally. It is important that people should express their views to the Chancellor. However, those views should be expressed in the context of the fact that we have the lowest unemployment level in 30 years and our economy has the highest investment level in many years.
Lord Crickhowell: My Lords, if we start having pay increases of 9.5 per cent over a 12-month period in organisations in which the state has the sole shareholding, is there not a significant risk that we shall no longer have a strong pound?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I have no doubt that the noble Lord is referring to particular wage increases. However, the general position is that wage increase levels are currently very low.
Lord Davies of Coity: My Lords, while recognising that the Question was intended to attack the euro's exchange level, does my noble friend agree that inflation and interest rate levels are much more important to our economic stability than the value of the pound?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, yes, it is correct to say that exchange rates are very seldom the prime move':; much more often they are the result of other economic indicators. My noble friend is right to say that the strength of our economy compared with those of other G7 members, our employment and investment levels, which I have described, and the improved productivity we have achieved are fundamentally important factors.
Lord Saatchi: My Lords, does the Minister agree with the business community that devaluation of sterling, in its exchange rate against the euro, is a precondition of joining the euro?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I challenge the view that there is any settled view of the business community as such. There are those in the business community who support Britain in Europe, those who support sterling and those who support Britain out of Europe. There is no fixed or universal view in the business community. On the whole, however, the business community is very sympathetic to British membership of European monetary union.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, does the Minister mlise that, when he uses the Bank of England's trade-weighted index as the basis to mislead the House on the balance between our trade in euros and in dollars, that index is entirely irrelevant for his purpose? Would the Government be good enough to consider the Customs and Excise figures, which confirm the figures that I have given, rather than the figures that he gave to the House on Tuesday and again today?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I do not take very kindly to the word "mislead". If the noble Lord wants the figures on trade shares, they are as follows: 50 per cent of our trade is with the euro zone; 16.5 per cent with the United States; and 18.5 per cent with NAFTA—which is, I know, what the noble Lord would like us to join.

Sustainable Development: World Summit
3.9 p.m.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer asked Her Majesty's Government:
What issues they raised at the PrepCom session in New York earlier this month which was called to discuss the agenda for the World Summit on Sustainable Development to be held in September 2002 in Johannesburg.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Whitty): My Lords, the Government's view is that the Johannesburg Summit should focus on action to make globalisation work for sustainable development, especially for the poorest. Our priorities for the summit were well reflected in the comments made at the recent PrepCom by the European Union, speaking through the Spanish presidency. These priorities are: poverty eradication and sustainable livelihoods, emphasising capacity building and education; the opportunities presented by resource productivity, including the application of science and technology; energy; freshwater and oceans; and sustainable development initiatives for Africa.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. Does he agree, though, that there is a huge challenge for the Government, the EU and the world summit in that the earth summit builds on the good principles established at Rio, of which the Minister has outlined some, but these principles, including the precautionary principle and the polluter pays principle—which I believe the Government have signed up to; at least according to their website for the earth summit—are often ignored, challenged or ruled out of order by the World Trade Organisation? What are the Government doing to try to bring into a focused aim the two parallel universes that are dwelt in by these different organisations?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I do not agree that they are parallel universes. There is a clear overlap between the objectives that will be pursued in Johannesburg and the Doha process which was regarded as a development round. It is important to recognise that the sustainable development summit will deal not only with the kind of environmental issues to which the noble Baroness referred, which were dealt with in Rio and followed up in Kyoto, but also with sustainability on an economic and a social basis. Therefore, there is a wider agenda which is, given certain conditions, fully compatible with the WTO process.
Viscount Craigavon: My Lords, will the Minister help to ensure—some groups have pressed for this—that the agenda of the summit enables serious consideration to be given to the subject of reproductive health? Does he accept that the subject of sustainability provides a genuine context in which to try to meet a declared target; that is, the provision of comprehensive reproductive health services for all individuals of appropriate age as soon as possible and no later than the year 2015? Does he also accept that that is in the context of a generally accepted figure of about 350 million couples world-wide who would be prepared, or would like, to use contraceptive services but do not have access to them?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, as far as the agenda is concerned, I have indicated the broad range of items which the EU has suggested to the various preparation committees should comprise the agenda for the summit. Reproductive health is not one of those

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priorities. I recognise the importance of the noble Viscount's comments. He will know that some developments have taken place on this issue. There have been more such developments in the OECD area than in the UN area. The agenda is not yet closed and there is not a single input into it. However, at the moment reproductive health is not one of the items we are pursuing although the noble Viscount may have noticed that a separate section in the chair's report from the latest PrepCom meeting deals with health in general.
The Lord Bishop of Hereford: My Lords, we on these Benches are glad that the Prime Minister has indicated his intention to be present at the summit in Johannesburg. However, does the Minister appreciate that the way to realise the eminently worthy ideals expressed at the PrepCom session, with which no one could possibly disagree, is to concentrate upon what can be done locally so that efforts in sustainable development are led by individuals and local communities? Is the Minister aware of what is already being done by Churches and local groups under the Agenda 21 umbrella to transform environmental awareness and introduce good practice? Will he do what he can to ensure that the summit meeting does not simply deal with abstraction but enables the sharing of stories of good local practice round the world which can be so inspiring for individuals and groups who are trying to do their bit?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, I certainly share the right reverend Prelate's view that this matter will not become a reality unless we build from the bottom up and make sure that local groups, local initiatives, local business and local public authorities take on board the sustainability messages. That is an important dimension of what we see as the priorities for Johannesburg. For that to work properly a framework needs to be established by the heads of government. I am grateful for the right reverend Prelate's recognition of the role that the Prime Minister has played here. He was the first head of government to indicate that he would attend the summit.
Lord Glentoran: My Lords, as part of the Government's sustainable development policy, and following a change of direction of the Bush Administration in the United States with regard to new power sources, what are the Government doing to support research into fuel cell technology? Are they currently co-operating with the Americans in that?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, the Government have long supported alternative transport fuels in a number of research and economic studies. Of course, major research is being carried out across the world by motor companies and others into the issue of fuel cell technology. The Government believe that that could provide a carbon-free future for a large proportion of transport. If I may say so, in my previous capacity I very much encouraged the Government to move down that road. That is the Government's position.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, does the Minister agree that there is an element of incompatibility between the priorities that the European Union has announced for the G8 Summit and its own aid programme? What measures are the Government taking to persuade the European Union to realign its aid programme so that it fits in particular with the objective of poverty eradication by diverting aid from richer countries in the third world to the poorest?
Lord Whitty: My Lords, as is well known to the House, the Government have some reservations about the balance of the EU aid programme and, indeed, the efficiency of its delivery. I and my colleagues both in this House and in another place have emphasised that over time. I refer in particular to the dimension of focusing on building capacity and initiatives at the local level. Therefore, I largely agree with what the noble Lord said.

Railtrack
3.16 p.m.
Lord Bradshaw Lord Bradshaw asked Her Majesty's Government
How much they estimate they will have to spend, apart from track access charges, in order to get Railtrack out of administration.
Lord Filkin: My Lords, that will depend on the length of the administration. However, the Government made a short-term commercial loan facility of £2.1 billion available to the administrator to pay Railtrack's creditors and keep the rail network running to the end of March.
Lord Bradshaw: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. It is a fact that since privatisation the cost of rolling stock has actually fallen in real teens. However, the cost of work on the track and signalling has multiplied two to three times. Is that due to inefficiencies in Railtrack, overhearing safety considerations, performance regimes or some other matter because it certainly does not manifest itself in the returns to the contractors who actually carry out the work?
Lord Filkin: My Lords, I should be most interested to see the evidence on that matter to which the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, refers. I refer to the range of reasons that he gave and to the matter of equally competitive supply markets. However, I suspect that the issue on which he focuses is the quality and skill of procurement on the part of the train operating companies by comparison with Railtrack. Be that as it may, I shall be pleased to investigate the matter further if he will give me the details.
Lord Berkeley: My Lords, will my noble friend help a little more as regards the time-scale of Railtrack's administration? Does he agree that the first stage is for the administrator to set up an information room so

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that bidders can see the quality and state of the assets? Will he confirm that that is supposed to be done by the end of March, or will he give an alternative date?
Lord Filkin: My Lords, my noble friend is right to emphasise the creation of a data room so that potential proposers are well aware of all the liabilities and assets against which they would submit bids in accordance with the guidelines laid down by the Secretary of State at the end of October, shortly after the administration order was issued. That is a substantial piece of work. I am told that the administrator will be working to the end of March, or thereabouts, thus enabling invitations for bids to be issued in April, with a potential submission date some time in July.
Lord Geddes: My Lords, how does the Minister interpret the words "will have to spend" in the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw? Does he interpret that phrase to mean "need to spend" or "to have available to spend"? There is a bit of a difference between the two.
Lord Filkin: My Lords, given where the costs will eventually fall, that is probably a sophisticated but academic question.
Noble Lords: Oh!
Lord Filkin: My Lords, bear me out! In respect of the loan facility, there is a further technical complication about state-aid funding, with which I shall not bore the House. That will effectively mean that Railtrack, underwritten by a government guarantee, will be able to replace the funding that it has from the Government in the short term with commercial funds. That will eventually be a charge against the assets of the company, as one would expect. Likewise, the costs of the administrator will again eventually be a charge against the company at the eventual settlement and, I hope, when it moves out of administration.
Baroness Hanham: My Lords, in view of that reply, I ask the Minister to advise the House whether there have been any requests to the Government so far to guarantee or underwrite the finances of a proposed company limited by guarantee for Railtrack. Can he say in principle whether the Government would be agreeable to such an approach and, if so, will there be any limitation to the support that they would be likely to give?
Lord Filkin: My Lords, this is one of the situations in which I can say with honesty, "Not to my knowledge". As noble Lords well know, the Government regard a company limited by guarantee as being one possible way forward. It will ensure that when the rail administrator invites bids, there will be at least one bid on the table which is clearly in the public interest. The SRA is supporting the development of such a proposal. Clearly, that is at arm's length from the final decision that will be made by the
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administrator, who will put a proposal about what he believes is the best way forward to the Secretary of State.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, on the question of Railtrack making information available, is the Minister certain that Railtrack can provide an accurate list of the size and value of its assets?
Lord Filkin: My Lords, I would be mad to say that I was confident, on the basis of the knowledge that I have, that due diligence would be perfectly fulfilled in the circumstances of which we are aware. The administrator has a particularly challenging job in that respect. One reason—not the sole reason—why Railtrack went into administration was because it was not aware of the scope and extent of its assets or liabilities. The fact that that happened after a period during which it was a company is astounding. The second reason, as noble Lords know, involves the unbelievable cost overrun on the West Coast Main Line. I am certain that the administrator is doing his best to fulfil his responsibilities to the court to ensure that bidders have a full and fair picture, so that we do not have a repetition of the complete mess that we have seen previously in relation to Railtrack.
The Lord Bishop of Hereford: My Lords, is the Minister aware that Railtrack is having to continue to advertise for new staff? Is he satisfied that, despite the uncertainties of the period of administration, it is able to recruit people of adequate skill and calibre in engineering and administration?
Lord Filkin: My Lords, I am certain that Railtrack is having to advertise for new staff—it is a substantial business and it is continuing to operate. That was the purpose of having an administration order rather than a winding up order. I do not know in detail whether it is having any difficulty recruiting staff. However, most people believe that, given the Government's commitment to establishing a strong railway industry in this country and to remarkable levels of capital investment over the next 10 years, many able people in the public and private sectors will be keen to join the rail industry. We saw that in relation to the success of the recent Chiltern bid and extension of that franchise.

Special Advisers
3.24 p.m.
Baroness Williams of Crosby Baroness Williams of Crosby asked Her Majesty's Government:
What codes of conduct apply to special advisers and to whom special advisers are held accountable.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Macdonald of Tradeston): My Lords, the Code of Conduct for Special Advisers and the Civil Service Code, with the exception of the provisions of impartiality and objectivity, apply to special advisers. The Guidance on the Work of the

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Government's Information Service also applies to special advisers when dealing with media-related activities. Special advisers are accountable to Ministers, who in turn are accountable to Parliament for the policies, decisions and actions of their departments.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, first, does the Minister agree that some of the comments in another place suggesting that there is a contradiction between efficient government and honest government were very unfortunate? Does he recognise that the Northcote-Trevelyan principles of independence and impartiality have been a crucial element in establishing the reputation of British governments for honesty?
Secondly, does the Minister agree that while special advisers often do an excellent job, the network of special advisers associated with the Policy Unit of No. 10 are seen, at least in some quarters, to be rather more powerful than elected Cabinet Ministers and other Ministers to whom they offer advice?
Finally, in order to close the circle of accountability—accountability through Ministers to Parliament, which the Minister mentioned, is pretty distant—would the Minister consider the possibility of Parliament being consulted on a ceiling on the number of special advisers and of Parliament having to approve the appointment of any special adviser who has the executive power to give orders to civil servants?
Lord Macdonald of Tradeston: My Lords, I readily agree with the implication that the British Civil Service is the best in the world. We all have a shared pride in its integrity, propriety and, indeed, impartiality. As to the suggestion that there are special advisers who are more powerful than Ministers or Secretaries of State, that has not been my experience in government.
As to the other questions that the noble Baroness raised, we have promised that we shall bring in a Civil Service Bill. That will be preceded by full consultation. Those issues would best be dealt with at that point.
Lord Sheldon: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the Select Committee on Public Administration in the other place has tried repeatedly to get special advisers to appear before it but its requests have been consistently refused? Will the Minister lift that unwarranted barrier on their coming before the committee to give evidence about what they do?
Lord Macdonald of Tradeston: My Lords, Ministers are accountable to Parliament and, as I have said, special advisers are responsible to Ministers. It is for Ministers to judge who should appear. That includes permanent as well as temporary civil servants, such as special advisers. We have a very thorough system of accountability. The most accountable Minister of all is the Prime Minister, who answers questions every week in Parliament. The present situation and the Government's present practice are well justified.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, since two special advisers were transformed into civil servants four
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years ago—that is, the chief of staff and the head of communications at No. 10 Downing Street—according to government spokesmen in this House at the time, have any more special advisers undergone that transformation to the Civil Service?
Lord Macdonald of Tradeston: My Lords. to repeat, all special advisers are temporary civil servants. The noble Lord refers, I am sure, to Article 3(3) of the Civil Service Order in Council of 1997, which provided scope for the government to appoint three special advisers, who would have the power to direct other civil servants. Only two have been appointed, as the noble Lord said—the director of communications and strategy and the Prime Minister's chief of staff.
Lord Lipsey: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that we should keep a sense of proportion about recent events and recognise that under this Government, as under the previous government, civil servants and special advisers rub along together most of the time tolerably well? Does he further agree that no codes of conduct, however well drawn up, will work if there are individuals who are determined to prove themselves the spin doctors from hell?
Lord Macdonald of Tradeston: My Lords. I agree with the general thrust of that question. It was interesting to hear the noble Lord, Lord Butler, who has great experience in these matters, say the other day in this House that no Act can prescribe for personal relationships. The noble Viscount. Lord Astor, referred to that as office politics. I have no doubt that for the people involved that is a very serious matter.
However, all governments have certainly suffered from these problems in the past. I was looking at evidence that the then Deputy Prime Minister, Michael Heseltine, gave in 1996 when he complained about leaks. He said that from 1980 430 leaks were reported—about one every fortnight—which were worthy of investigation. He concluded—as I am sure would the party opposite—that any leaks are to be deplored.
Lord Butler of Brockwell: My Lords, will the Minister confirm that there was nothing novel in 1997 about two special advisers in No. 10 Downing Street giving directions to civil servants? That has happened in the press office and in the Policy Unit of No. 10 many times in the past. What was novel was that proper provision was made for it under the Civil Service Order in Council.
Lord Macdonald of Tradeston: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that question. It emphasises the comment made by the Public Administration Select Committee, which praised the Government for their commendable progress on special advisers. For the first time we have a specific code of conduct and, as the Select Committee said, for the first time we have transparency, which did not exist under previous administrations.
3.31 p.m.
Lord Saatchi: My Lords, I beg leave to ask a Question of which I have given private notice, namely:
Whether Her Majesty's Government are satisfied with the operation of the EU growth and stability pact.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, we have said consistently that we support a prudent interpretation of the stability and growth pact, taking into account the economic cycle, sustainability and the important role of public investment.
Lord Saatchi: My Lords, is it not regrettable that an important White Paper was published this morning and not made the subject of a Statement in both Houses of Parliament? In view of that, will the Minister ensure that an early debate on the White Paper takes place in your Lordships' House?
Are we not witnessing, in the words of the Chancellor this morning, a crude attempt by the Government to rewrite the EU's convergence programme and the rules of the EU growth and stability pact by including or omitting figures to suit themselves? Is that not because the Chancellor can see from today's published zero growth figures for the UK economy that the public finances are heading into a massive deficit, even more horrendous than the £54 billion of borrowing already planned over the next four years?
There are EU rules. The Government are in breach of them. What is their solution? It is to change the rules. Is that not what the Chancellor's words this morning really meant?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I resist the suggestion that the Chancellor behaved in any way improperly or discourteously towards the House of Commons. He went out of his way to ensure that he was able to unveil the White Paper personally to the House of Commons. He agreed to the Speaker's request that he should defer answering the first Question until the end of Treasury Questions in order that there should be sufficient time for him to make a Statement on the White Paper and for there to be debate on it. Of course, the White Paper has been available in the Printed Paper Office and the Vote Office since 11.30 a.m. today.
I also resist the suggestion that there is any way in which this country is in conflict with the stability and growth pact. We are in conformity not only with our own fiscal rules but also well within the criteria of the stability and growth pact. When the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, refers to zero growth, he is referring to this morning's headlines, which relate only to the fourth quarter of last year. Growth in the whole of last year was of course within the margins which we set for ourselves and which we expected both in the Budget last year and in the Pre-Budget Report. As the noble
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Lord knows, this country has been outstandingly successful in resisting the dangers of volatility in global economies.
Lord Peston: My Lords, although one has had only a couple of hours in which to examine this document, is my noble friend aware that it is a remarkably interesting and important document? It raises almost every important question confronting our country in the economic sphere and the European Union. I am genuinely surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, takes such an acid view of the document. It does not hide anything. Quite the contrary; it exposes almost everything that needs to be exposed.
None the less, is my noble friend aware that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, on one matter; namely, that this document is so important—I am not sure what my noble friend the Chief Whip is about to say—that, instead of wasting a whole day on the trivial matter of foxhunting, if your Lordships' House is to have any future, and in my black moods I sometimes wonder whether it has, we should give a debate on this subject absolutely top priority? I hope that my noble friend will speak to my noble friend the Chief Whip on the matter and press him on it.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Peston rightly reminds me that 1 did not respond to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, about a future debate. Of course, as the House knows, that is a matter for the usual channels. Personally, I should be very happy to have a debate on this subject.
My noble friend is entirely right about the content of the White Paper. It was promised in the Chancellor's speech to the CBI in November last year. It addresses the reforms which are necessary in Europe in our labour, capital and product markets in order to increase competition and modernise the European economy. Those are matters of the most profound importance and they will be of great importance at the Barcelona Summit meeting and beyond. They were foreshadowed in the Lisbon Summit.
Lord Newby: My Lords, I support both noble Lords who have already spoken in pressing for time to be given to a debate on this subject. I hope very much that the Minister will speak to his noble colleagues in the usual channels, just as I shall speak to mine, in order to press that case.
Does the noble Lord agree that if we are to have growth and stability in Europe, the level of the currency and whether we are to join the euro, which we debated earlier, will be only one factor in determining whether growth and stability come about? This White Paper, whether or not one agrees with everything in it, deals with the other factors which will be crucially important; that is, the way the labour markets work, the way the capital markets work, and, indeed, Europe's place within the world. Therefore, given the

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importance of all those issues within the context of the development of the EU, I return to my first point: we should have more time in which to discuss the matter.
Lord 'McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I have already indicated my personal sympathy with that view. I am glad to hear that the noble Lord will express the same view to his own Chief Whip. I do so now.
Of course, these issues are of far greater significance in terms of what we can do about them than the matter which we debated in Starred Questions on Tuesday and today. That brings us back to the very important debate which we must continue to have on whether we comply with the five economic tests which the Chancellor has set.

Business of the House: Hunting Debate
3.38 p.m.
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Williams of Mostyn): My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House to know that it has been agreed in the usual channels that this House will have a full day's debate on hunting on Tuesday, 19th March. Your Lordships may also be interested to know that my right honourable friend the President of the Council has today announced in the other place that a similar debate will take place in that House on the previous day, Monday, 18th March.
The debate in your Lordships' House will take place on a Motion which will be both amendable and divisible. I am advised that some careful thought will have to be given to the exact wording of the Motion, and the House authorities are currently considering that question. Therefore, at this stage I cannot tell your Lordships exactly what the wording will be. However, I can tell your Lordships that it is our intention to let the I-louse consider the matter fully and to vote on more than one option.
The speakers' list is now open in the Government Whips' Office. I have suggested to the usual channels that we sit at 11 a.m. that day to ensure that the votes take place at a reasonable hour. The usual channels are currently considering that proposal, but I thought that I should let your Lordships know that we were considering an early start that day.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord for telling the House, in a little more detail, what most noble Lords read in the newspapers this morning or heard on the television news yesterday evening. It is good of him. However, he has not given us all the details that we need, but perhaps he or the Chief Whip plan to tell us more in due course.
The whole House knows that I have great admiration for the noble and learned Lord, but today that admiration is tempered with sympathy. We know exactly what has been going on. The Government are in some trouble: Mr Byers, Jo Moore, Sixsmith, Mittal, dodgy donations and so on. The cry goes out from No. 10 that something new and controversial must he found and, hey presto, it is hunting once more.
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There will be a free vote on this subject and some noble Lords on the Benches opposite find that puzzling. No doubt it will he a challenge for them and a new experience, but I am sure that they will not have too much difficulty with it.
I have one or two detailed questions for the noble and learned Lord. Less than a year ago we had a debate on this subject. Does he believe that anything has changed in that time? Last time the debate was in relation to a Bill, a piece of legislation that the Government had brought forward and sent through another place. If a Bill was good enough then, why is it not good enough now, rather than producing yet another declaratory Motion that appears to have little effect? Would it not be better to resolve the differences that appear to exist between the Houses and perhaps within this House? Besides resolving those differences, and so that we can better understand the compromises that are talked about, would it not he better to have a Bill, with amendments proposed and debated, in the normal way'?
What will the Government do in the event of a disagreement between this House and another place? If the result is the same as last time. will the Government shrug their shoulders and say, "There we are, we tried, but that is the end of that for this Parliament", or will that encourage them to bring forward a Bill'?
I believe that it would be useful for the House to know a little more about the Government's thinking. Even better, perhaps the Government should publish a draft Bill and give it pre-legislative scrutiny. That is very much the fashion of the time.
Perhaps we should decide whether the House should sit at 11 o'clock after we have seen the final speakers' list. If there is an enormous number of speakers, and the Government are so keen for us to debate hunting once more, perhaps the debate should take place over two days rather than the House sitting at 11 o'clock.
I ask all those questions in the usual spirit of helpfulness and co-operation. I know that the Government will see them as such. However, having heard the noble Lord, Lord Peston, 1 wonder whether we should take his advice and let another place tear itself apart over this issue while we have a debate on the future of the European economy.
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, consistency is the hobgoblin of lesser minds. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, said, on the one hand, that noble Lords on the Benches opposite do not want a debate at all, but, on the other hand, that we should spend two days on it. Which is his option?
There is no question of the House of Commons tearing itself apart. Were 1 a betting man, and had I' a spare £5 note, I would willingly bet the noble Lord. Lord Strathclyde, on any odds that he cared to offer me, that the House of Commons will vote for a ban on hunting with hounds. I am ready to sit down while he takes me up on my offer!

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Our manifesto—unlike the party of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, we are able to deliver on our manifesto—states:
"we will give the new House of Commons an early opportunity to express its view. We will then enable Parliament to reach a conclusion on this issue. If the issue continues to be blocked [in the Lords] we will look at how the disagreement can be resolved".
I believe that it is wise to revisit this matter. It is an issue on which many people feel passionately and on which some are open to rational debate. It is possible that we can arrive at some sort of legislative compromise. If that is possible, Parliament should have this opportunity. That is all we are offering. In the other place there will be a day's debate. In this House, quite fairly, and I hope honourably, I have suggested that, because passions run high and because many of your Lordships are genuinely interested, we ought to start at 11 o'clock in the morning so that we have ample opportunity for every voice to be heard.
I remind your Lordships that this is a perfectly civilised way to deal with the matter. On 12th March 2001 the Second Reading debate on the Hunting Bill started at seven minutes past three. According to my record, there were 63 speakers, not counting interrupters, and there were 10 hours and 41 minutes of debate. Most noble Lords who were present, or who took part or who read the debate, thought that that provided a fair opportunity to discuss the topic so that every voice could be heard. In suggesting that we start at 11 o'clock I am trying to accommodate all noble Lords who have differing views that they want to express.
Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, we on these Benches thank the Leader of the House for his statement and support his view that the debate should start at 11 o'clock so as to give a full opportunity for noble Lords to express their opinions. Like the Leader of the Official Opposition, on these Benches we too shall have a free vote.
I suggest that the crucial issue will be how the debate is framed, and whether, as the noble and learned Lord implies, we should offer the whole range of options that are before the House. That is the crucial basis on which it may conceivably be possible to reach a reasonable consensus. The noble and learned Lord's well known ability to arbitrate and to mediate almost anything will be put to an extreme test by trying to frame the Motion so that all the options can be seriously considered.
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, I am grateful, as always, to the noble Baroness. We shall have a free vote on these Benches. This is an entirely appropriate issue for a free vote. I take the point raised by the noble Baroness. We need to have all the options available so that they can be voted on. That is our purpose. The drafting will he technical and that is why we want to
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spend a little time producing a range of options that will be available for your Lordships to discuss, to debate and to vote upon.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I hope that it is in order for me to put a further question to the noble and learned Lord. In his original statement he said, not unexpectedly, that the Motion that will he put before your Lordships' House has to be thought out by the Government and presumably thought out in the light of what happens in another place where there is to be a free vote. If the debate in another place is to take place the day before the debate in this House, we shall not have much notice of the government Motion. Therefore, would it be better, from the point of view of the Government and from the point of view of this House, if there were an interval of a day or two preferably several days—between the decisions of another place and our discussion in this House?
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Renton, has mistaken my point. The purpose of holding the debate in the Commons first—if your Lordships will allow me to give my view—is to allow your Lordships to be informed by what has been said and decided upon in the Commons, but not oppressed by it. I believe that that is a perfectly proper way of approaching the matter. I did not say that it will be a government Motion. I said that the House authorities are considering the form of the Motion. As has been said by the noble Baroness, it should be couched in such a way that reasonable options are available to be debated and voted upon.
Lord Elton: My Lords, presumably the question being asked in the other place is exactly the same as the question being asked in this House. I am a little puzzled therefore that it is only our House that is considering the terms of the Motion. Is there not some sort of collusion between the two Houses?
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, yes.

Proceeds of Crime Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.

Police Reform Bill PEI
3.50 p.m.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Rooker): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Rooker.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [National Policing Plan]:
Lord Dixon-Smith Lord Dixon-Smith moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 6, at beginning insert "After consultation with relevant persons,"
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 1, which is grouped with Amendment No. 11, I crave the indulgence of the Committee to speak for a moment on the broad debate to set these amendments into context.
We are about to commence a serious Committee stage. In my experience Part 1 of this Bill is unique. Every clause within it has attracted the Motion that it should not stand part of the Bill. Since I have been in this Chamber, which is now more than eight years, I have not come across that before, nor have I found anybody else who has. It is therefore a unique situation. A number of reasons lie behind that difficulty and I crave the indulgence of the Committee to run over the salient points.
I have said before that one of the functions of this Chamber is not solely to consider the use that might be made of powers in Bills by honourable persons; we have to consider the use of those powers by those who may he less honourable than we expect Members of Parliament to be. However honourable we may be, we cannot guarantee—this makes me immensely sad—the honour of all of our successors. If one considers the powers written into Part 1 of the Bill in particular, there is concern that in the wrong hands those powers would he open to abuse.
A second concern is that the Bill takes the Secretary of State into the micro-management of the police service. I have two problems with that. I have spent a long time in public life and I am not yet wholly convinced that Whitehall knows best when it comes to administering services to the public. My experience suggests that, on balance, Whitehall probably does not know best and that it is better to let the people who are dealing with the problems on the ground get on with running those services, to encourage them in doing so and, of course, to steer them in the way that Whitehall wishes to go.
But this Bill virtually gives the Secretary of State the power to give orders to platoon commanders, certainly company commanders, in the field. That is a strange situation. It is not good for the morale of the police service that we have legislation before us which apparently suggests a lack of confidence in the thousands of people throughout the country who do an extremely good job on behalf of the public. That is the effect of the Bill.
Part 1 of the Bill breaks the normal lines of communication from the Home Office through police authorities to chief constables. Because it does so, it begins to erode both the authority of senior officers in the field and provides the possibility that the regulations that come from the Home Office will affect operational performance. That is not desirable.
The third reason the Bill is wrong is that it flies in the face of the Government's supposed devotion to devolution and the movement of authority out from
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Whitehall and Westminster to other parts of the country. If ever there was a measure drawing the reins of control severely into the centre, it is Part 1 of the Bill. We see a serious situation arising in Part 1 and I hope that, as we go through the Bill, there will be some movement from the Government. If not, we shall face severe problems.
The Bill opens by saying,
"It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State … to prepare a National Policing Plan [and] to lay that plan before Parliament".
There is nothing wrong with that. But, unusually, the Secretary of State can sit down and write out the plan without bothering to consult anyone. I do not suppose that in practice any Secretary of State would do that. But we have had this debate on consultation many times in many other fields.
Amendment No. 1 simply inserts the words,
"After consultation with relevant persons",
in front of the words,
"It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State".
Amendment No. 11 deals with the same aspect of the subject and says,
"Before preparing the National Policing Plan for each year. the Secretary of State shall consult",
the persons whom he considers to represent police authorities, chief constables and so forth.
I have taken part in many a debate in this Chamber in the past concerning whether or not we should list those who are to be consulted. Once we start making lists, we inevitably get into the argument as to whether it is right to include this or that particular group, why groups have been left out, and so forth. I prefer Amendment No. 1 but we consider it wise to back both horses in this race; hence the two amendments before us. I beg to move.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: I support my noble friend. It is a matter of important principle, for the reasons that he gave, that his suggestion should be adopted. The Secretary of State, in this Bill in particular, should not act without consulting all interested parties.
Looking ahead, I respectfully ask the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, to consider, for example, Clause 9 where the commission is appointed by the Secretary of State. Surely as we go through the passage of the Bill, as my noble friend suggested in principle, that ought to be in consultation with the same sort of people—not necessarily word for word—referred to in Amendment No. 11. I support the amendment and the principle for which my noble friend contends.
4 p.m.
Lord Bradshaw: I begin by declaring an interest as the vice-chairman of the Thames Valley Police Authority, of which I have been a member for some nine years. I am also on the committee of the Association of Police Authorities.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, for his letter, which I believe that he has circulated widely, responding to the briefing paper produced by the Association of Police Authorities.

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The police authorities have, through their national body the APA, given strong support to the Government's aim of modernising the police service. We all want an efficient modern police service that, so far as possible, meets the needs of the public. We all want our local communities to benefit from improvements in policing. Police authorities inject that local voice into debates on the direction in which the service should be moving.
Police authorities and forces have generally welcomed the proposals for a national policing plan. We agree with the Government that a national plan should provide a useful vehicle for setting out clearly in one place the Government's expectations of the police service. Our amendments seek to improve the Government's proposals by including on the face of the Bill various provisions relating to the contents of the plan; how it is to be drawn up; and where it is to be published.
Amendment No. 6 standing in my name seeks specifically to ensure that the important role which the police play in policing our roads and in preventing accidents and casualties is taken into account. I remind the Minister that on our roads each year 3,500 people are killed and 38,000 are seriously injured and require hospital treatment. That role is not mentioned prominently in the Bill nor in the duties of the Secretary of State. The matter is overlooked because the media focus on crime rates and detections and have, shall we say, almost a love affair with the motorist, which blocks out the issue of road casualties. I should welcome a commitment from the Government that roads policing will feature in a national policing plan.
The amendment also requires the Home Secretary to publish the national policing plan by the end of October of the year before that to which it applies. It is critically important that we build a deadline into the legislation. The White Paper says that the Government will produce the national plan by the end of the calendar year. There is no such commitment in the Bill.
Hard experience suggests that this is not a sufficient safeguard. For example, in January this year—and I should like to impress this matter on the Minister—the Home Secretary announced his proposed ministerial priorities for policing and best value performance indicators. We are obliged as a police authority to consult with all kinds of people—the business community, the minority communities and people who are excluded in one way or another. We must consult locally. It is a long and laborious process in which I have been involved. To receive in January the Home Secretary's draft objectives after one has consulted everyone and when the document is almost ready for the printers—
Lord Dixon-Smith: I am sorry to intervene. But I think that the noble Lord has departed slightly and gone beyond the contents of Amendment No. 6, which is in this first group. He has moved on to a subsequent issue.
Lord Bradshaw: I apologise. Members of the Committee will have to put that down to inexperience.
Amendment No. 6 seeks to place on the face of the Bill a clear obligation on the Home Secretary to consult the Association of Police Authorities, ACPO, NCIS and NCS on the contents of the plan. We have tabled a number of similar amendments throughout Part I of the Bill.
There is a fundamental principle to which the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, referred, and to which I shall refer. We made clear at Second Reading our concerns that Part 1 of the Bill radically shifts the balance of the tripartite relationship in favour of the Home Secretary. It diminishes the say which local people, through their policing authorities, have over local policing. The amendment seeks to act as a counterweight. We are sure that the Minister and the Home Secretary want to see crime and the fear of crime reduced, but these proposals are too dramatic.
The Government have said that they will set up a national police forum. Again that is welcome. But there are two concerns that I want to raise. First, we understand that under current plans the APA and ACPO will each have one place on the forum so that the representatives of other interests can be accommodated. We agree that there should be an inclusive approach and that those with an interest in policing should have a voice on the forum. But we must also recognise the statutory role and responsibilities of police authorities and chief constables in the governance of policing. Their role is qualitatively different from that of—for example—local authorities or representatives of minority communities.
Secondly, the forum will have no statutory status. A future Home Secretary may decide that he does not want a forum and abolish it. There is nothing to stop him doing that.
Therefore, it is essential that the Home Secretary is required by law to consult the two other tripartite parties. I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith.
Lord Fowler: I strongly support the intention of these amendments with regard to a national policing plan. I agree with my noble friend Lord Dixon-Smith that there is a danger that the plan will be seen by the public as indicating some lack of confidence in the service itself. If we are to have such a plan. it must not be just some piece of public relations; it must be informed by the widest possible consultation, and particularly involve those actually in the police service. The officials at the Home Office will not have to implement the plan; nor do they have the experience on the ground to advise on what is involved. That point needs underlining. We are not dealing with an unsuccessful low-performing service, but with a service which has great respect from the public here and the admiration of overseas governments.
Obviously, I do not claim that everything is perfect. But generally, the rapport between the police and the public in this country is better than in any other

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country of which I have experience, and certainly in Europe. That is not because numerically the strength of the police in this country is stronger: we are under-policed in this country. The noble Lord, Lord Condon. made a very strong point about that at Second Reading when he compared the strength of' the Metropolitan Police and the strength of the New York Police Department.
It is all very well talking about introducing policies of zero tolerance, but one needs the police to implement a policy of that kind. Frankly, with present strengths, that would be quite impossible. We should therefore listen to what the police service has to say. We should give respect to a service which has served us extremely well over past years. We should certainly consult police authorities; we should certainly consult chief constables and superintendents; but in many ways, the characteristic strength of the British police is the ordinary serving policeman, the policeman working on the streets around the country. We should consult him.
We should consult the Police Federation. The Government's attitude to the Police Federation concerns ine. That is one reason that I rise to speak at this point. I was frankly amazed to hear the Home Secretary's attack on the Police Federation, when he said that the federation had,
"been resisting change for decades".
The Home Secretary is plainly wrong to say that.
As it happens, I have observed the Police Federation during several decades: in the late 1960s, when I was home affairs correspondent at The Times; in the 1970s, when I was a Home Office spokesman in another place; and in the 1990s, when I was shadow Home Secretary. It is ridiculous to brush aside its point of view as simply standing in the way of change for decade after decade. When I first knew it, it was campaigning to point out the dangerous wastage levels from the police—the number of police who were leaving the service prematurely. It was right, and on that the Home Office was wrong. To come up to date, it is campaigning against the use of civilian staff to patrol our streets. It is absolutely right on that. I regard that as one of the worst proposals to be made by the Home Office for a very long time. Frankly, the Government are wrong.
The federation that has been opposing change for a decade after decade and has stood in the way of progress has had in my time as its parliamentary advisers none less than the noble Lords, Lord Callaghan of Cardiff, and Lord Morris, from the Labour Benches. What the Home Secretary has said is profoundly wrong and—I hope that the Minister understands this—causes a great deal of anger among the police service because it shows a total ignorance of police history.
But that shows something else: why we should consult and consult widely. The country does not want a plan imposed from above by the Home Office without consultation. That is the point. If we are to have a plan—there are questions about that—there must be a requirement to consult. The Home Secretary
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can obviously reject advice that he is given, but he must at least be made aware of that advice and of other points of view. We in Parliament must also be made aware of the advice given and be able to question the Home Secretary about why it has been rejected.
My fear at present is that the Government are going down the wrong path in their relations with the police. To accept my noble friend's amendment would show a much better sign to the police service.
4.15 p.m.
Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market: I rise briefly to support the comments made by my noble friend Lord Fowler about consultation. While I was a Member of the other place for 27 years I received many representations from my police authority and the chief constable, usually about funding matters. Rarely have I received representations on constitutional issues, but in this case, the chairman of Norfolk police authority has written to me in strong terms about the danger of a fundamental shift in the balance of the tripartite arrangements between the Government, police authorities and chief constables that this and other provisions in Part 1 could involve. While no doubt the Minister will tell us that of course the Government intend to consult and that all the provisions will be carried out in a reasonable way, the concern is that under a different government or Home Secretary the powers could be used to override the views of local police authorities and—under later provisions—chief constables around the country.
I cannot understand why the Government are likely to resist this group of amendments. It seems to me sensible for the Government always to want to consult in advance of producing the national police plan. To link the amendment with Amendments Nos. 2 and 3, if those arc not accepted there may easily be no consultation at all. Police authorities may go through all the processes of consultation and so on in drawing up their own arrangements for the year ahead and then find that they are completely overridden by the Home Secretary's diktat. That is just one instance in which there is a real concern that a future government could fundamentally change the balance. That is why it is perfectly reasonable for the Minister to accept this and the next group of amendments. Without them, the authoritarian attitude of the Home Office will be under suspicion.
Lord Dholakia: We also support the amendment. Our Amendment No. 6 is grouped with Amendments Nos. 1 and 11. There is no fundamental difference between them in terms of the consultation process, and I fully endorse the views expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith. I also fully agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, said about the bodies that are essential to the consultation process if we are to have positive policing in this country.
As was mentioned on Second Reading, the tripod that consists of the local police authority. central government and the local community is essential. If we disturb the process by suggesting that much control will be exercised centrally, we create a dangerous

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situation. We shall highlight that later through a number of amendments that we intend to the issue in Committee and on Report.
We do not intend by our amendment to question the powers of the Home Secretary. Nor do we question the need to set out strategic priorities for the police. That is right and important. Our amendment sets out how such plans should be produced. it is common sense that the people who must implement the plans and those whom they may need to consult—essentially, we are talking about local consultation—are involved. We go slightly further in our proposals than does the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, by identifying some relevant bodies, but the list is not exclusive.
In essence, the formula suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, of,
"consultation with relevant persons",
may create such an obligation, but we should also write in statute the minimum number of bodies that should be consulted before producing a plan. As has already been pointed out by Members of the Committee, in the hands of a good Home Secretary we may have no problems hut, from time to time, people may be in power who abuse their authority. Then we are headed for serious difficulty.
The other essential element in producing plans is the involvement of the local community. We seem to underestimate the importance of local consultative councils. To a great extent, their interests are represented by the police authority. Their participation is important. Although we may have a national strategic plan. we should never forget what is required in local situations. What may be required in Cumbria may be quite different from what is required in metropolitan London. Those groups must take part in consultation.
Finally, in the Police Act 1996 there was an obligation on the Home Office to consult the tripartite state partners. What made the Government reject that proposition in this Bill? It is an essential element. I hope that the Minister will take into account the views of those of us on these Benches and on the Official Opposition Benches and accept the amendment, so that the partnership can become a reality.
Lord Elton: The structure of Part I of the Bill is interesting. It is open to the Minister to reply that there are requirements to consult in one form or another scattered among subsequent clauses and to say that the national policing plan is merely an announcement of What the Secretary of State intends to do with the powers granted him by those clauses. However, he will be committed to the national policing plan, and its feasibility and advisability should be considered by the Secretary of State in consultation with those most closely affected by it.
It is leaving it too late to rely on subsequent provisions for consultation; for instance, Clause 7(3) and (4), forming part of the proposed new section of the 1996 Act. By the time the Secretary of State—or his
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surrogate, as it is in subsection (4) arrives at the consultation, he will be committed to the policy set out in the national policing plan. My noble friend is right to say that the consultation should be brought forward. I would not dissent from what has been said by noble Lords on the Liberal Democrat Benches about specifying some of the bodies to be consulted.
My noble friend raised a concern that is not just a bogey; it is a real danger. The structure of this part of the Bill could be used by an ambitious and irresponsible political party in five or 10 years' time to issue directions to the police in a way that would make them subject to political control. We saw that in Germany in the 1930s, and it is as well for those of us who remember that time—even if we were fairly young—to make sure that others do not forget. That purpose lies behind many amendments to come, including several of mine, but at the moment we are simply talking about prudent, good government. The matter should be taken forward in consultation and not by the Secretary of State on his own.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: I agree warmly with what my noble friend Lord Fowler said; I need not repeat it. The reason why the Bill is viewed with a degree of suspicion that verges on hostility is that it seems to be just one more acceptance of the idea that all wisdom resides in the centre. It is unlikely that anybody agrees with that, but the view has been constantly pushed and promoted by successive governments. And it flourishes in no Whitehall department more strongly perhaps than in the Home Office.
If such a modest amendment, ably proposed by my noble friend, is rejected, it will be taken as a shutting of the door to consultation. It will be seen as saying, in effect, that consultation, even in as complex a field as policing, forms no part of our thinking. I am certain that that is not the approach of the Minister who will reply to the debate. I hope that he will make it clear, by accepting the amendment, that it is not the Government's approach either.
The statute book is full of requirements for consultation. It would seem distinctly odd to leave it out on this occasion. I hope that the Government will take the matter seriously. It is such a modest amendment, of a kind that government after government—even the unreasonable ones—have had little difficulty in accepting. It would show an extreme degree of pig-headedness and obstinacy if such a reasonable amendment were to be rejected.
The Minister has displayed the great virtue, when confronted with a briefing with which he does not feel comfortable, of being able to forget that it is there or of saying, "Here is something that I don't agree with" and accepting a wider view. To reject an amendment asking for a degree of consultation about such a huge, sensitive matter would be the height of unwisdom. I hope that the Minister will think carefully before doing so at the behest of a department that is not by any means unable, from time to time, to make major errors.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I also support the amendments in this grouping. The Minister will by

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now have gathered that there is a certain amount of surprise that the requirement for consultation was not part of the Bill at the outset. I suspect that many are worried by comparable omissions, given that, in relation to the citizen and the state, there can be no more sensitive area than policing.
I want to make a point arising from the letter that the Minister sent out on St Valentine's day in response to the APA briefing. In connection with this group of amendments about required consultation, he said:
"As to the first of these, the White Paper made clear that we propose to establish a non-statutory National Policing Forum to provide a formal structure for consultation on the plan with the tripartite partners".
That is clear. No doubt, in a minute, the Minister will ask himself, "What is all this about?". It is about making absolutely sure that we put in the Bill that which is in the Police Act 1996. Section 37 of that Act places a requirement on the Home Secretary to consult with regard to his plans for police authorities, so it seems bizarre that there is no comparable requirement in this Bill to consult on the more important matter of the national plan.
In the St Valentine's day letter, the Minister went on to say that the Government wished to keep the forum on a non-statutory basis in order to provide flexibility. None of the amendments requires the forum to be on a statutory basis. If the consultation requirement is written into the Bill, it will not affect the flexibility relating to the forum. With others, I am somewhat perplexed as to why the amendments have not already been made.
Lord Condon: I support Amendment No. 1 and the spirit of Amendments Nos. 6 and 11. I agree with the comments that noble Lords have made about the amendments. Putting a duty to consult into the Bill will be seen as an act of good faith and will assuage fears that, taken as a whole, Part 1 significantly moves the balance of power away from local police authorities and chief constables to central government.
Lord Renton: If the national policing plan is to succeed, it will require the co-operation of the Police Federation. Neither Clause 1 as it stands nor, alas, any of the amendments so admirably put forward by noble Lords, refer at all to the Police Federation. I do hope that, in further considering Clause 1 and the importance of the national policing plan, the Government will decide that the Police Federation must be consulted.
4.30 p.m.
Lord Rooker: I am grateful for the contributions made to the first group of amendments, although I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, was about to hold a debate on whether Part I should stand part of the Bill. I then thought that the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, had jumped the gun because the date in October arises in the next grouping of amendments.
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I know that this may disappoint some Members of the Committee, hut I am happy to say that I am pleased to accept the spirit of the amendments. As the noble Lord, Lord Condon, has just remarked in making a point about one amendment and commenting on the spirit of the others, consultation is important and we want to get it right. I do not intend to pooh-pooh that and I am certainly keen to take this away for further consideration.
In his brief remarks, the noble Lord. Lord Phillips, was the only noble Lord who has spoken to this grouping to mention the proposed national policing forum. One might have thought that it simply did not exist, whereas as I pointed out in my letter and as was made abundantly clear in the White Paper, in particular in paragraphs 22 and 23 of the Executive Summary on page 9, we have set out how we propose to involve the national policing forum in the plan. So we have no difficulty in accepting the spirit of the amendments. I shall certainly reflect on the points that have been made in advance of the Report stage because this is such an important part of the Bill.
It is true to say that the Bill is littered with aspects of consultation. I do not seek to hide behind that by saying that I want to reflect on the way that Clause 1 has been drafted. I remind noble Lords that in the White Paper we made it absolutely clear that the purpose of the national policing plan, as set out in the new clause introduced by Clause 1 of the Bill, is to consider strategic policing priorities. That hits it on the head; this does not concern micro-managing the police force. That is not its function. If a matter moves away from the area of strategy, then it will be thrown out. We are not interested and it would not form part of the action. Let us do away with any red herrings before we start, otherwise we shall hold debates on things that are not being proposed and are not going to happen. It would be far better to debate the Bill in order to make it a decent piece of legislation before we send it down the corridor to the other place to see what a mess they can make of it using, their sometimes different procedures from those used in this House.
Again, I should like to make this absolutely clear: this is not about micro-managing the police. It concerns only general strategic policing priorities for the police forces. It is crucial that Members of the Committee keep that in mind.
Certain elements of the plan will in any case be the subject of consultation in their own right. Section 37 of the 1996 Act has already been mentioned. It 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. ft will be appointed and up and running at some point in March, before we reach the Report stage. It will advise the Home Secretary on policing matters in general and the national policing plan in particular. 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.

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As the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, pointed out in relation to my letter, it is true that we want to keep the body non-statutory in order that it can remain flexible, but the core membership of the forum will be the tripartite partners. I want to make that point absolutely clear to the Committee. As I have said, the focus will be on strategic priorities for the police forces of England and Wales. To the extent that the plan will impact on the work of the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the National Crime Squad, consultation would naturally extend to the directors general and the service authorities.
I want to say to noble Lords that we will look at the drafting of this clause. We genuinely want consultation and there is no attempt to do anything underhand here. I realise that today it would appear that I am alone in speaking for the Home Office, which does not seem to have many supporters. But in a mature democracy everyone should be suspicious and should ask searching questions. That is the function of this House and the other place.
Having said that we shall take away the amendments and consider them further, I hope that the amendment will not be pressed to a vote.
Lord Elton: It is important to get one thing clear if the noble Lord and other Members of the Committee are not to be at cross-purposes during the following deliberations. There is a very important difference between statutory and non-statutory institutions. Statutory institutions are protected by Parliament whereas non-statutory institutions are not. Statutory institutions can be removed only by primary legislation, if they are set up by primary legislation. Non-statutory bodies can be swept aside according to the policy of any incoming government with a different political view from the one that set them up.
I am reminded of those pillboxes that were put up in 1939. They were built of brick with earth heaped up all around them. Sixty years later, the brickwork is still in place, while the earth has gone. Statutory bodies are rather like the brickwork of those pillboxes, while non-statutory bodies resemble the earthwork. When we are considering something as fundamental as the control of the police force in a democracy, it is essential to stand on brickwork rather than on earthwork. That is why we shall wish to put more into statute than perhaps the noble Lord is minded to do at the moment.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: I hope that the noble Lord will be able to move a little further. He has already been helpful, but if what he has said amounts to a declaration that it is the Government's intention to consult at all stages over the whole of this very sensitive field, then why on earth do they not say so on the face of the Bill? I would ask the noble Lord to say today not merely that he will consider this, important though that is, but that he will bring forward on Report an amendment which makes it clear in this clause that consultation there will be.
Lord Rooker: During the course of our deliberations on the Bill there will be many times when I shall have
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to say to noble Lords that there is a line in the sand and that it is the view of the Home Secretary and the Home Office that that is the line. I am not saying that here. I shall take away all that noble Lords have said with the force and experience that they can bring to bear. I shall ask officials to see whether we can find a form of words used today by noble Lords that could be put into the Bill in order to meet their requirements. That form would keep what the Home Secretary wants to see and would meet the will of the Committee. Since we are in any case saying what we are going to do, there should be no major problem about finding a form of words. They may not make the forum a statutory body, but a form of words will be found.
As I have said, I shall take the amendments away and consider them. Unlike in my previous incarnation, I understand that in this place—the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, will know this well—should someone say that they will take something away and return with a response on Report, if they then have nothing to say at that stage, they are in the doghouse.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: Before the discussion ends, will the noble Lord ask his advisers to consider that the clause will repeal a statutory provision as to consultation? Will he ask them what effect that will have in a court of law?
Lord Rooker: I shall certainly do that.
Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market: I want to be absolutely clear. The Minister said that he sees the benefits of not putting the national policing forum and another body onto a statutory basis. His resistance is to making statutory the body to be consulted. The thrust of our argument is that the requirement to consult should be statutory. I assume that that is the issue he will address.
Lord Dixon-Smith: I am grateful to the Members of the Committee who have taken part in the debate. Noble Lords on the Liberal Democrat Benches, many of my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Condon, have all supported the thrust of the amendments we are addressing.
I should apologise to the Minister because I did not make clear when I had finished my general opening remarks and shifted to dealing with the specific amendments in the group. I should have done that. If I had, he would not have had the slight confusion as to whether I was addressing Clause 1 stand part. I was not doing that; I addressed my remarks to all of the clauses in Part I of the Bill.
However, I wish to make one point. It is purely fortuitous but it illustrates the background danger, the reason why we are concerned and why we need to put these safeguards into the Bill. At lunchtime, I fell into conversation—it is easy to do—with the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, who shares my room. With no prompting—I had not done anything to introduce the subject of the Bill—he said, "You know, it's a funny thing, Bill, but in Northern Ireland the Prime Minister controls the careers of individual policemen". That, of

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course, is a situation which would not be acceptable here. I am sorry. It is not Northern Ireland; it is southern Ireland. Let me get my facts right. "In southern Ireland the Prime Minister controls the careers of individual policemen". That would be clearly intolerable.
My noble friend Lord Elton made a very important point about the difference between having a statutory requirement to consult and a non-statutory requirement. His allegory of the brick fortress surrounded by an earth bank is appropriate and I am grateful to the Minister for recognising that. We would say that the issue of consultation should be explicit and not implicit in the Bill.
I am grateful to the Minister for conceding the principle of the amendments and I shall study his remarks with care. I shall study with even greater care and even greater pleasure the product of his remarks when we return to the Bill at a later stage. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.45 p.m.
Lord Dixon-Smith Lord Dixon-Smith moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 1, line 6, after "State," insert "not less than six months"
The noble Lord said: It may seem a diversion, but I went through a difficult baptism of fire when I first got involved in local government finance in County Hall, Essex. It happened early in my career. The old sweats in County Flail were in generous mode when they put a slip of a boy on the finance committee. They probably thought that I would not be much trouble—they may well have been right—but the baptism of fire was quite difficult.
In the middle of February 1966 or 1967, we were well into the budget-making process in County Hall when the government of the day had a financial crisis. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, was the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time. Six weeks before we were due to put a budget before the council, we received a request from the government to remove £2 million from our expenditure. In those days the county council's budget was about £50 million. We achieved the savings, of course—we had to. We were told that we had to do it and we did it.
But if you get that kind of request from a government late on in the planning process, it disrupts life quite considerably. Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 are both designed to create a situation where that kind of disruption is not brought about. Indeed, they are designed to create a situation in which there is a smooth and almost seamless process between the creation of the national policing plan and guidelines for the police and their incorporation into the planning systems of local forces across the country.
I hope that the Minister will again agree that the principles of the amendments are unexceptionable, even if he wishes to quibble about the detail. Police authorities are responsible bodies which want to work with and help the Government in making the police service work smoothly and in fulfilling the ambitions of society generally to improve law and order matters.
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I am absolutely confident that chief constables have the same ambition. I would go further. If one were to go down through the police service, I do not think that anyone would quarrel with that ambition.
Before that can happen, one needs a seamless system in which the planning process in the strategic sense starts at a sufficiently early stage of the financial year—the calendar year, the administrative year or whatever time of the year you want to operate from—to enable the national conclusions to be smoothly incorporated into the local conclusions, so that, ultimately, there is not friction. Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 are two different ways of expressing that sentiment.
The amendment would be enormously helpful to the smooth operating of this part of the Bill. I hope that the Minister will feel that he can accept its principle even if he cannot accept its detail, much in the way that he did with the previous group of amendments. I beg to move.
Lord Bradshaw: I apologise for having got this matter confused previously. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, that, in a good, well-ordered situation, the strategic priorities to which the Minister referred should be put at the beginning of a process and not somewhere towards its end. We should like to see an amendment to the Bill in which those strategic objectives are made clear at the beginning. We should also like to see them confined to a few strategic objectives and not, as the Home Office is sometimes wont to do, sub-divided into "A"s and "B"s. We do not wish to be told, for example, that there will be many fewer best value performance indicators only to have them divided and sub-divided in such a way that there are as many as we had before.
We certainly want to respond to government directions. It makes it a lot easier to respond throughout the police authorities if the strategic objectives are received in good time.
Lord Harris of Haringey: I, too, believe it to be essential that the indication by the Home Office of what it would like police authorities to do should he given at the earliest possible stage. As the Committee is aware, I chair the Metropolitan Police Authority. Today, we spent a happy half-hour wrestling with issues relating to the setting of our own policing priorities and the targets for individual borough command units. We were faced with a situation whereby, quite recently, the Home Office had indicated the priorities it is seeking in the coming financial year—when we were already well into the process of discussion, debate and consultation at local level about local priorities.
There should be a proper sequencing of these events. The ideal arrangement is that the national tone is set first. That allows for consideration at police authority level and then local discussion about what it means in practice at local level.
If, for some internal reason, the Home Office does not believe that October is the right point in the year to set out its views on overall policing priorities, it

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needs to recognise that it will in essence be influencing a different year's set of priorities. This process occurs each year, and the results of a consultation exercise in one year influences what is done the following year. It would be much better if the Bill made it explicit that the plan should emerge by 31st October, so as to enable police authorities to have sufficient time to consult on the local implications and on how it might be translated into local priorities and plans.
Lord Tope: My Lords, perhaps I may follow my noble colleague Lord Harris of Haringey, although I am not allowed in this Chamber to call him "my noble friend". As this is the first time I have spoken on the Bill, I should declare that I too am a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority and the Association of Police Authorities. More relevant to this debate is the fact that, as a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, I chair a committee with the grand title, the Finance, Planning and Best Value Committee—the word "planning" being a reference to the production of the annual police plan for the Metropolitan Police Authority. Indeed, I chair the planning panel which does the detailed work.
I want to reiterate and emphasise the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey. He referred to our half-hour discussion during the full authority meeting this morning. As he will recognise, that is but a small part of the total discussion that has taken place throughout the year on the production of a police plan for a service as large and complex as that in London. During this morning's discussion, we commented that the production of the police was virtually an all-theyear-round event. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, told us that we "could have April off"—although I suspected that he was being a little optimistic.
This is a complex business. We are keen that it should be—to use an awful expression—a bottom-up process. The consultation with the London boroughs is important. Meaningful consultation takes place not only with the operational command units but also with the PCCGs, the crime and disorder partnerships—of which there are 32 in the Metropolitan area. Next year, they will have their own bespoke targets. That is important. It gives them a degree of ownership. We have to take full account of the Metropolitan Police Service's own priorities—of the MPA's priorities. In London, for better or worse, we have the added complexity of the mayor's priorities to consider as best we may. Therefore, when we come to consider the Home Secretary's priorities—the national policing plan—it is extremely important that we receive those indications in good time and that they properly set the strategic framework in which all the consultation, discussion and consideration can take place.
This year, we did not receive the Home Secretary's priorities until January. These are of national concern and do not relate merely to London. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, is right to say that effectively that is looking at the year beyond. We are so far down the process by that stage that they can have little influence, and it is disruptive. Not having those priorities—in
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this case not having the national policing plan—in a sense inhibits the discussion that takes place throughout the year. During the whole of that time we are wondering and speculating on the content of the plan.
Therefore, I strongly support whichever amendment is chosen. Both seek to achieve the same end. We should receive the national policing plan in good time. The date suggested is 31st October. From my experience in the Metropolitan Police area, that is the latest date by which we should receive it. The Bill as drafted suggests that we could receive the plan before 31st March. I know that it is not the intention, but it would be absurd if we received the plan in March. The intention as stated in the White Paper is that the plan should be published by 31st December. That is significantly too late. It would mean us actually receiving it on Christmas Eve and not beginning to consider it until the early part of January. That is too late. But even that date written on the face of the Bill as a requirement, as distinct from a good intention in a White Paper, would be a step forward.
The Bill should contain a requirement that the national policing plan is produced in good time—by 31st October—so that all police authorities can take the strategic framework properly into account in the lengthy consultations that some of us, quite properly, have to undertake. I hope that the Minister can be as accommodating with this set of amendments as he sought to be with the previous set.
Lord Dholakia: Perhaps I may put a short question to the Minister. The White Paper said that the Government would produce the national plan by the end of the calendar year. Yet there is no specific commitment in the Bill. What were the reasons for omitting a time-scale? Effective plans require effective deadlines. One would have thought that essential. Why is no deadline laid down in the Bill?
Lord Rooker: First, perhaps I may respond to the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia. It relates to a point raised at Second Reading. The Bill is not exclusively about implementing the White Paper. The White Paper goes way beyond the material in the Bill. Issues contained in the White Paper are being taken forward daily which are not included in the Bill. I ask the Committee to bear that in mind.
As to the date, I well understand that Members of the Committee who have spoken have first-hand experience of drawing up local plans for police authorities, which I do not have. I appreciate the constraints that they feel they are under.
If either of the amendments was on the face of the Bill, it would without question cause us considerable difficulties. It would make the overall process extremely tight. We do not believe that it is realistic.
We set out in the White Paper our commitment to publish the plan by the end of each calendar year. I am being more modest when I say this, but to publish on Christmas Eve would be outrageous.
Lord Tope: It is not unknown!
Lord Rooker: In terms of a yearly publication that would be a failure of public administration. To publish between Christmas and the new year would be even worse, or to publish the week before Christmas, when meetings will not be taking place. There is not much leeway, therefore, between that period and 31st October. I am not going to the stake over six weeks, and I do not believe that Members of the Committee should.
It is not as though the plan will appear without any warning. I must make that clear. The framework for local plans to achieve consistency in performance among police forces is important. However, to return to the previous set of amendments, the national policing forum will be drawn from the very organisations whose members prepare the local plans. So they will be more than aware of the content of the national plan before its formal publication. As I say, it will not appear without any warning whatever to the members of police authorities, who will be responsible for drawing up their plans. We are determined to stick to our commitment to publish the plan well before the end of each calendar year, so that there is a reasonable period before the end of the calendar year. We have no secret plan to dump the plan on police authorities so that they do not have an opportunity to consult. I know nothing about existing plans. However, today is 28th February and I wonder why in London it has been left so late to discuss these issues. I suspect that this is not the first discussion on the forthcoming year. That is my little tease; please do not hold it against me!
I hope that this comment will be useful to the House. The White Paper states that the publication of the plan could provide the basis of an annual parliamentary debate on policing. I am new to this House; I am still learning. I asked the Whip whether this House has those important annual debates on the Army, Navy or Air Force, as does another place. My noble friend replied, "Not unless someone asks for it". I welcome debates in another place on policing and the penal side of the Home Office agenda. It is important to change the way in which Parliament considers the issue. We need to provide a fulcrum for debate to help those who are providing input into their local plans.
I cannot go beyond that. I admit that the consultation on priorities for best value performance indicators was delayed because of the planning and publication of the White Paper and the reform process contained within it. That is wholly exceptional and is not likely to arise again. I apologise for that delay. I realise the pressure it will have put on police authorities.
We want to publish the plan a reasonable period before the end of the calendar year so that we are not seen to "pull a fast one". We do not want knowingly to have poor conduct of public administration. We shall do our best to have plans published in a reasonable time. However, in their unpublished form the plans will be well known to members of the organisations who will prepare the local plan. They will not surprise anyone. I hope that I have taken a
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reasonable approach. I hope that we can reach agreement. I hope that the amendment will not be pressed.
5 p.m.
Lord Harris of Haringey: In order that my noble friend's tease does not become part of perceived wisdom, I assure him that today's discussion by the Metropolitan Police Authority was the third by the full authority and followed numerous discussions by the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Tope, the planning group and many others.
I hope that this issue is not developing for the Minister into one of those lines in the sand. For a policing plan to have local support there must be local consultation if it is to be implemented locally. My noble friend's offer was that the framework in which police authorities should operate would be published by mid-December. That is very late if there is to be meaningful local consultation informed by national priorities. That is why the amendments are framed as they are. I hope that my noble friend will ask whoever draws lines in the sand to consider whether an earlier date could be offered.
Lord Tope: As so often occurs, the noble Lord, Lord Harris, and I speak as one on these matters. Not for the first time the noble Lord has taken the words out of my mouth.
I am grateful to the Minister for his aspiration—I am not sure that it was a commitment—that publication would be by mid-December rather than the end of December. I apologise if 30 years of local government experience has made me a little cynical about things being published on Christmas Eve— or, more usually, at the end of July, with a requirement for a response by the beginning of September, an annual event. However, there is a significant difference between the middle of December and the end of October—the Budget. The Metropolitan Police Authority is a new authority. We are struggling, so far unsuccessfully, to match our budget planning with the police plan so that the budget can better reflect the policing priorities in the police plan. There are added complexities, given the structure of London government: it is the mayor's budget rather than the police authority budget.
The Minister will know—if he does not, the Whip sitting next to him does—that budget planning starts early in the year and builds in intensity throughout the autumn. By the middle of December it is, in effect, in its final stages, albeit the formal decisions are not taken until into the new year. A budget for any large organisation is pretty well set by Christmas. The revenue support grant settlement comes usually at the end of November or beginning of December. So there is a particular difference. It is not just the period of six weeks; it is an important six weeks if we are to achieve budget planning and police planning together. In London we have the added complication of having to submit a budget to the mayor to be consolidated into that of the Greater London Authority. But that is a specific London problem.

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The position I describe must apply to every police authority in the land. It is important to have the strategic framework. It is to be hoped that we shall not have too many surprises: we shall have a fairly good idea of it. But until one gets that framework it does not exist and one does not know what will arise. If we have the strategic framework we can be well advanced with the local—I hesitate to use that word in a London context—police authority planning scale which can be matched with the budget.
I ask the Minister to give further consideration to the issue. I did not understand why 31st October was so out of the question other than that the timing will be very tight. It is very tight already for every police authority in the country. Perhaps the Home Office should share some of that tightness.
Lord Rooker: If it were to be published by 31st October, it would have to be ready effectively by the end of July. That is the reality, because of the examples given by the noble Lord, Lord Tope.
I cannot make any commitments. I have heard what the noble Lord, Lord Tope, and my noble friend Lord Harris said. So have others.
Lord Dixon-Smith: I am grateful to the Minister for the spirit of his reply. I hope that he will forgive what may sound like an acid comment. The brutal reality is that police and local government authorities throughout the country have to comply with deadlines. They do not have flexibility. It is not unknown for there to be deadlines in national planning.
The Minister has given a generally conciliatory reply to the amendments and the principle enunciated. We should all consider carefully what the noble Lord said. I hope that the Minister will think carefully about what has been said in particular by the noble Lords, Lord Harris of Haringey and Lord Tope. They have direct experience. If they will forgive me, it is relatively brief experience. It is only a short time since control of the Metropolitan Police was taken properly from the Home Office and given to a London authority, a most welcome move.
Whether the authority is new or over a century old, these matters must be dealt with properly and by due dates. That is the critical issue. The purpose of the amendments is to smooth that process. We shall study carefully what the Minister said. I hope that he will study what has been said by the noble Lords I mentioned. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment..
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn
[Amendment No. 3 not moved.]
Lord Dholakia Lord Dholakia moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 1, line 8, after "Plan" insert "(including roads policing)"
The noble Lord said: The amendment relates to the important role that the police play in policing our roads and preventing accidents and casualties. It is an
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issue on which we have previously expressed our concern. As my noble friend Lord Bradshaw mentioned earlier, we all know that more people are killed on the roads than are murdered. That is often overlooked by the media's focus on crime rates and detection. We very much hope that the Government will give a commitment to ensure that relevant statistics and information are included in the national plan so that the overall picture is much more balanced than the current focus on crime, from the tabloids in particular. I beg to move.
Lord Rooker: I understand why the noble Lord has moved the amendment. Any reasonable person concerned about road safety would naturally take that view. We want the national policing plan to provide a consistent framework for England and Wales and to set the priorities and objectives for the police. We place great importance on roads policing. Just because it is not mentioned specifically does not mean that we do not place great importance on it. The Bill is about reforming the police and the system within which they work so that we can be more effective in delivering reductions in crime and in the fear of crime. It does not single out any particular area of police work. On later parts of the Bill I shall go out of my way to point out why not. That is a matter for the chief constables, not the Home Secretary.
Road safety is an important issue. The Government's road safety strategy Tomorrow's Roads—Safer for Everyone has set a target of a 40 per cent reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured on the roads and a 50 per cent reduction in the number of children killed or seriously injured. Enforcement of all aspects of road traffic law must be an essential part of achieving those goals, which were raised more than once during Question Time just before Christmas, when we had a mini-debate about the speed of traffic.
Of course, it is open to the Secretary of State to include road policing in the priorities and objectives or in the regulations and codes of practice if he considers it necessary. We want the contents of the national plan to retain the flexibility provided by the current drafting, but that does not diminish the importance of road policing and road safety, to which we attach a high priority. The fact that they are not mentioned in the Bill does not mean that work on them is not being taken forward in other areas.
I hope that the noble Lord regards that as a robust response of support for the spirit of his amendment and that he will not seek to press it.
Lord Dholakia: I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation. I hope that chief constables and police authorities will take due note of what he has said today. I am satisfied with his response and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 5 and 6 not moved.]
Lord Peyton of Yeovil Lord Peyton of Yeovil moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 1, line 16, leave out "intending or"
The noble Lord said: I can put this point briefly. The Bill says that the national policing plan for a financial year,
"must describe what, in relation to that period, the Secretary of State is intending or proposing".
My simple question is: what, if anything, does "intending" mean? If it has no value or meaning here, it should clearly be left out. If, on the other hand, it has some additional meaning, I should be most grateful if the Minister would explain it to me. I beg to move.
5.15 p.m.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I shall speak to Amendment No. 10, which is grouped with Amendment No. 7. I share the quizzicality of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, with regard to Amendment No. 7. My amendment is equally simple. What is meant by "plans and advice"?
Lord Rooker: I hope that I can answer both noble Lords satisfactorily. They have asked fair questions, given the drafting of the Bill. The national plan will be a forward-looking document designed to give police authorities and police forces advance notice not only of the steps that the Secretary of State definitely intends to take but of those that he is proposing to take. There is a difference. For example, the Home Secretary may have a firm intention to issue revised policing objectives under Section 37 of the Police Act but he may only be proposing to make particular regulations or a code of practice. At the time when the national police plan is published, some of the regulations and codes of practice that it refers to might still be the subject of consultation and consideration. They may not be due to be finalised and to come into effect until the following year. However, they ought nevertheless to he included in the national policing plan so that people can see what is coming around the next bend.
The words that the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, is seeking to delete add clarity to the clause and should be retained because they allow more information to be given about what is in the Home Secretary's mind than would be the case if we narrowed the drafting by taking the words out. Similarly, the words that Amendment No. 10 would delete allow the flexibility for the contents of the plan to include matters not specifically mentioned elsewhere. Basically, they allow flexibility in the drafting of a plan. I therefore hope that noble Lords agree that they should be retained.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: If I may say so, the noble Lord has a most engaging quality of optimism and cheerfulness in his nature.
Lord Rooker: I am known for it.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: Never have I seen that optimism better illustrated than when the noble Lord said just now that he thought that including a
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declaration or an indication of the Home Secretary's intentions—as opposed to proposals—in the plan would add to its clarity. I differ profoundly with that. Very few Home Secretaries—except, of course, for my noble friend Lord Hurd, who is sitting on my left—have ever been able to make their intentions all that clear. It would be a terrible mistake to mix their intentions and their proposals. It would be a ghastly mixture. The intentions would need to be put in italics, or something like that, which would make the document extremely complicated and very inelegant. I hope that the Minister will not just dismiss that argument, because it is a serious point. Nobody would be helped by having the Home Secretary's intentions included in the plan at this stage. If they were simply intentions, as opposed to proposals, they would just muddle everything up. I hope that the Minister will at least agree to give the matter further thought.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, got rather the better end of the Minister's reply, because I was given no solace as to what plans might be considered—plans for whom, by whom and about what? The same goes for advice. On the first group of amendments, when questions were raised about the setting of strategic policing priorities, the Minister pointed out forcefully and convincingly that anything outside strategic policing would be ultra vires. Yet here we have a little weasel clause at the end of it all—the sting in the tail, it might be—that says blandly that the great plan can include anything by way of plans or advice. There is no qualification of that. I, too, would be most grateful if the Minister might review that. We might even have a conversation about it before Report.
Lord Rooker: If I have not answered satisfactorily the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, I shall take advice from my learned friends in that respect. However, I do not believe that that undermines the fact that we are talking about strategic policing priorities. Those words are not, if you like, the Trojan Horse to undermine the fact that we are discussing strategic plans.
I am most grateful to the noble Lord Lord Peyton, who was most complimentary about my optimism. But I am a Home Office Minister so, as I acknowledged from a sedentary position, I am always optimistic. The noble Lord must be realistic. Events may be occurring at the time that the plan is formally published that are ongoing for the Home Secretary. Publication will be before Christmas, so there is progress there. However, there is a difference between giving a firm indication of what will happen as opposed to what the Home Secretary wants to happen. For example, at the time of publication, regulations and codes of practice may have been submitted for consultation with other bodies and they may not form part of the flow—the cliff-edge of decision-making—because, as noble Lords have observed, the planning will be ongoing. The annual plan may be published, but planning continues throughout the year.

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We wish to take account of matters that are in the system but upon which no final decision has been taken at the time of publication of the annual plan. I believe that providing greater clarity is a good idea. It will enable noble Lords to hold Ministers to greater account.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: I do not wish to prolong the argument, but there is nothing to stop the Home Secretary including his intentions if he feels that that would be of assistance. However, to lay upon him a duty to specify his intentions at a time when they may not be all that well defined seems to me to be foolish from his point of view. I still believe that the Government would be wise in their own interests, and for the sake of simplicity and clarity, to delete this term. Nothing that the noble Lord has said thus far has convinced me to the contrary. Nevertheless, every now and again—even in my sort of gloomy make-up, which is much more gloomy than that of the Minister—I do allow shades of optimism to appear. The latter lead me to hope that the noble Lord will allow his good nature a fair rein. Perhaps he will give this a little further thought between now and Report stage, and conclude that a very unlikely event has come to pass; namely, that I am right. In those circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 8 to 11 not moved.]
On Question, Whether Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Dholakia: When the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, moved the first amendment today, he expressed the concern on this side of the Chamber about the proposal that would give the Home Secretary and Whitehall far greater control over policing than has ever been the case. There are various assurances, promises and protocols from the Government, and we have been told that no new powers are to be introduced as a last resort. However, assurances and protocols are not binding; indeed, as explained earlier, they can be ignored by a future Home Secretary.
I am delighted with the way that the Minister has conceded on some of the major worries that have been expressed on this clause, especially on consultation. On that basis, it is not my intention to pursue the matter further at this stage. Can the Minister say whether it will be possible for him between now and Report to give us some indication of how his mind is working in terms of the consultation process that was identified earlier? That would help to save a repetition of this sort of debate on Report. Obviously, if we are unhappy with the situation we shall certainly return to the matter at that stage.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: I am grateful to the noble Lord for opposing the Question that Clause 1 should stand part of the Bill. He has given me the opportunity to express my point of view. I regard this as just another example of thoroughly inelegant and
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unsympathetic drafting. The business of simply superimposing one Bill on a previous Act is messy; it is very inconsiderate as regards those who have to read it at this stage, and even more so for those who have to apply it.
The only excuse for this kind of clumsy legislation is that the Government have in mind an early consolidation Bill. As I always believe the best of everyone and credit people with the most noble intentions, I sought the advice of the Public Bill Office on the present situation regarding consolidation measures. I was told that there is but one consolidation Bill—the European Parliamentary Elections Bill—awaiting consideration by the Joint Committee. I understand that no further consolidation Bills are likely to be introduced in the near future, but I hope that the Minister will be able to tell me that I am quite wrong in that respect.
I am very glad to see that my noble friend Lord Renton has just entered the Chamber. He has a longterm interest in the clarity—or rather the obscurity—of legislation. I should very much like the Minister to tell me whether he considers that the provisions in this police Bill are fit and proper measures for consolidation. I hope that he will at least agree that everyone would benefit from such consolidation. If the noble Lord accepts that that would be a most reasonable and intelligent course to pursue, perhaps he can tell the Committee whether there is any reason why it should not be pursued. It seems to me that the cause of consolidation has been allowed to go by default, with its merits and the need for it being almost forgotten. I trust that the Minister will not take this as a frivolous complaint.
In the interests of those who have to try to understand the contents of the statute book, it is important to limit as far as possible the number of different Acts that are placed upon it. If the noble Lord agrees with me, that will prevent me being tiresome and repeating my plea throughout the passage of the Bill. As I said, this kind of drafting is messy; it is inconvenient; it should be avoided whenever possible; and, in any event, it should be remedied by consolidation at a very early stage.
Lord Hylton: Clause 1 deals with a national policing plan which, by its very nature, raises issues of principle. We all know that organised crime these days often operates nationally. We also know that criminals do not restrict their activities to one police area; indeed, they may escape from one and move into another. Moreover, we are aware that terrorism may be considered a "national threat". Nevertheless, is it not inescapable that a national policing plan will have to be a very broad-brush matter?
When one considers the huge differences in the problems that occur as between rural areas and urban areas and even between inner-city areas and suburbs, it is hard to see how much positive content a national policing plan will be able to contain. How, for example, does one weigh up the relative importance of controlling the trading, supply and flow of drugs in relation to the deplorable and hateful trafficking in

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women and children? These are imponderables and must vary very much from time to time. In his reply, will the Minister give us a bit more information on what will go into a national policing plan?
5.30 p.m.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: I support the comments of my noble friend Lord Peyton on the need for consolidation. I think that, if one accepts that there is need for further legislation, this method of drafting is perhaps not quite as inconvenient as my noble friend said, as practitioners and those who have recourse to the current law will find that the statutes are set out with the amendments incorporated. However. it would make for very considerable ease if the legislation were put together in a consolidated Bill. Although such Bills can take much of the draftsmen's time, they do not take much time in Parliament. I once carried a consolidation Bill of 726 clauses in, I think, seven minutes.
Lord Rooker: In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, in so far as I am able—I am not one of the business managers—I intend to ensure that the Bill is passed in a considered and mature manner, after tranquil debate. I also hope that, when we are able, we suitably improve the legislation. I shall certainly make it my business to make good use of the gaps that we shall have between the stages. Noble Lords should therefore receive no surprises about the Government's view on what has been said in Committee. I think that it would be much better for our consideration on Report if advance warning were given. If that entails holding some joint meetings or one-to-ones, I shall be happy to do so. I shall endeavour to operate such a process.
I am and have always been a fan of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, but I am even more so now. Once, in the other place, I almost had my legs chopped off for suggesting that Parliament should take a year off from passing new legislation to put right and bring together the great body of law that we had already passed hut was a mystery even to practitioners—although it should not have been, because the practitioners have to serve the great British public. Ultimately, we are here to serve the public. Consequently, I am a great believer in consolidation. However, I do not know about any plans for such legislation.
I should say that extensive extracts of the Police Act 1996 as amended by the Bill are available in the Library. Noble Lords can therefore see how the Act will be amended.
Lord Waddington: Why has the Minister changed his mind? Does he not still think that it would be a good idea to have a holiday from legislation?
Lord Rooker: I am not in charge. However, I think that the way in which we legislate is crazy, inefficient and a mystery to the public, although we legislate on behalf of the public. Legislation is not necessarily intended only for the cognoscenti. Finance lawyers get away with building one Act on another—the Finance
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Acts are consolidated annually, as a matter of course, for the convenience of the UK taxation industry—although that service is not provided in relation to other legislation. I shall therefore certainly make it my business to ask whether there are any plans for consolidated police legislation. Nevertheless, as I said, we have put that information in the Library for noble Lords. I regret that I did not mention that earlier.
As for the points made by the noble Lord. Lord Hylton, I cannot list the national policing plan's contents or go beyond what is stated in the White Paper—which is a little more detailed than the legislation. I should, however, say a little about the plan's purpose. Currently, there is no single document in which the Government are able to state their priorities, performance indicators and plans for new development. Police authorities and chief officers have a plan for coming years on the basis of various requirements set out in different places at different times without necessarily having a clear sense of the Government's intended direction for the police service. The national policing plan is intended to fill that gap.
The national policing plan will provide an overarching strategy within which the local force and basic command unit area plans can be prepared. We also hope that it will give the police a sense of direction and coherence. It will supply a framework at national level for continuous improvement and the achievement of strategic policing priorities and objectives. As such, it will be a mechanism to help minimise variation in performance. As the Home Secretary has said, one of his biggest concerns is the variation in performance between various police forces. However, that is not to say that we are seeking to create a national police force, as that is not our intention in the legislation. Nevertheless, we want to use the plan as a basis for consultation on proposals for regulations and codes of practice. The plan will, of course, not interfere with the operational independence of chief officers.
If we can provide the same information about all police forces—there are currently 43—and authorities at the same time and in the same format, it will certainly be beneficial to Ministers who are subject to parliamentary Questions. Ultimately, the blame lies with Ministers—that is our bit of the tripartite arrangement; the other bits are the money and the power. It will help if we have that information in one place. As the debates continue, we can further elucidate the content. However, the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, will not be able to see the bigger picture until the first plan is published.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: I should like to say how grateful I am—ingratitude would be very churlish in these circumstances— to the Minister for his accurate and elegant description of our legislative methods. He has earned everyone's gratitude for that, and I am most grateful to him.
Clause I agreed to.
Clause 2 [Codes of practice for chief officers]:
Lord Dixon-Smith Lord Dixon-Smith moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 2, line 25, at end insert, "but not at intervals of less than 12 months"
The noble Lord said: The temptation to use verbiage is not confined exclusively to the matter of legislation but can appear also in regulation and, as we see in Clause 2, codes of practice. Whitehall's temptation to use verbiage all too often creates considerable administrative difficulty for those who are on the receiving end.
I recall that the education service came pretty close to mental collapse because of the plethora of education Bills that Whitehall has insisted on passing with monotonous regularity. It was not exclusively one political party that brought about that situation. Schools were just beginning to deal with the consequences of one education Bill, and all the consequent guidance issued by Whitehall, when Parliament concluded passage of the next one. Before schools had even started to discover whether one Act worked, another came along to change everything. The situation with codes of practice can be precisely the same.
It is perfectly true that Clause 2 finishes with the kind words that the chief officer of police, who will receive these codes of practice,
"shall have regard to the code".
However, depending on how a code of practice is drafted, a "request" to have regard to it can become a requirement.
Amendment No. 12 may seem small and trivial, but it is simply an attempt to try to produce a little bit of procedural stability. It requires that if a code of practice is to be revised—there will be consultation on the revision in due course—it should not be revised at intervals of less than 12 months. That measure seeks simply to make life at the coal face a little more straightforward and easier for practitioners.
It is a simple and straightforward matter. I hope that the Minister will co-operate on it even if he does not accept the detail of the amendment. Such an assurance would go a long way to help those who are responsible for the administration of these services at the local level—that is, chief officers—to work more smoothly as they would know that if a revised code of practice were issued they would have time to put it in place and see whether it worked before the next one was issued. That is an important point. I beg to move.
Lord Renton: I support my noble friend who has moved the amendment. I also support the other two amendments with which it is grouped. There is a theory on the part of some people that a code of practice—
Lord Dixon-Smith: I am sorry to interrupt my noble friend but Amendment No. 12 is not grouped with any other amendment.
Lord Renton: I am much obliged. I am sorry. We are talking about Amendment No. 15, are we not?
Noble Lords: Amendment No. 12.
Lord Renton: I must apologise to the Committee. I have been out of the Chamber and I thought that I had picked up where we were, but I have not.
Lord Dholakia: We on these Benches support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith. Our aim is simply that the codes of practice we are discussing should conform to those which are issued for police authorities generally. We are now discussing codes of practice for chief officers. The consultation process that the Home Office has in mind would probably take longer than 12 months. However, there are a number of issues here which we need to identify. A good code of practice will need to bed down and its effectiveness will have to he monitored before anyone proposes any revision of it. I believe that 12 months is probably the minimum period of time that should elapse before such an exercise is undertaken. As we argued earlier, it is sensible to introduce an adequate time-scale. It would be a tragedy to tinker with revision before a code of practice had had time to settle down. Will the Minister say why a code of practice would need to be revised before 12 months had elapsed? Where does all this lead? Where does the ultimate accountability of a chief officer lie under such codes of practice? Does it lie with the police authority or with the Home Secretary?
5.45 p.m.
Lord Rooker: I say to the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, that we do not plan to issue codes of practice in under 12 months. That is the whole point of the drafting of the clause; there is no specific time-scale. If a code of practice had been issued on, for example, equipment, and it was known to be out of date, it would not be efficient for chief police officers to be required to use a code of practice that was known to be out of date and for the law to prevent our updating it because we were stuck with some 12-month rule or some other time limitation. It is necessary to be reasonably flexible.
However, it is not the intention to shower police officers with codes of practice on a monthly basis or to impose change for change's sake. Each code of practice has to be subjected to a test before it is introduced. It is unreasonable for the Committee to proceed on the assumption that we would without good reason issue and reissue codes of practice on the same subject at intervals of less than 12 months. However, if an issue of good practice needs to be revised, surely it is important that we can revise it so that chief officers are not working with information and codes of practice, to which they are required to have regard, which everyone knows are out of date. I believe that any reasonable person would consider such a situation to be grossly unfair on them.
As I say, we do not intend to issue or reissue codes of practice at intervals of less than 12 months or at intervals of 12 months. The clause does not specify a

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time-scale. For the reasons I have given, it would be had practice to restrict the Bill's flexibility in the way that is proposed. To do so would put at risk the attempts of chief officers to be more efficient and more effective. They would rightly complain if, for example, they had to apply a code of practice that was known to he out of date simply because Parliament had tied the hands of the Home Secretary in terms of updating it.
Lord Waddington: The Minister has given a clear exposition of the situation. I can well understand that one has to cater for the situation where a code of practice has to be brought up to date to take account of new legislation. Perhaps that is the proper answer to the concerns which were expressed by my noble friend. However, surely it is possible to devise an amendment to provide that a code of practice should not be superseded in less than 12 months unless it is necessary to issue a new code of practice to take account of new legislation.
Lord Elton: Before the noble Lord replies to that point. I have a difficulty with the language of the Bill which emerges when we start to try to amend it. I do not know what the term "revise" means. Does it mean beginning to consult, drafting or publishing? Plainly, it may he necessary to start the process of revision by means of consultation and drafting in less than 12 months in order to bring out a revised edition in 12 months. If that imprecision is of importance in any respect, it might be as well for the Government to consider the relevant subsection between now and Report to determine whether some more accurate term could be used. In the mean time, I commend to the Minister the practice in certain commands of the Metropolitan Police with regard to the smoking of cannabis. It is always possible to turn a blind eye to a hit of a code of practice which is not up to date.
Lord Rooker: I do not think that that is good practice. There are enough lawyers outside who would like to make a "buck" to ensure that that would not happen.
Perhaps I have given an inadequate explanation of the matter. There is a trigger here. I draw the Committee's attention to subsection (3) of new Section 39A. When the Home Secretary wants to issue or revise a code of' practice under subsection (3), he must first require the Central Police Training and Development Authority to prepare a draft. The board of the authority has only just been appointed and was announced yesterday, 27th February. It consists of independent members, ACPO members and police authority members. Those people will be involved in the drafting. I genuinely believe that if the ACPO members, the police authority members and the independent members—that is a necessary mix—were asked constantly to revise the same code within some ridiculous time-scale, they would draw the matter to the attention of the Home Secretary before they proceeded with the drafting, which is their responsibility.
Lord Dixon-Smith: The Minister has given a helpful response. However, one has to weave one's way through it to a certain extent, if one may put it that way.
I have always accepted that the Central Police Training and Development Authority will be involved in any change. However, that authority will do what it is told. It might complain about that, but that is what it will do—that is what its job will be. A rather unfortunate situation could develop.
The Minister said that it is not his intention to keep churning out codes of practice, and I have every faith that that is the case. I am not sure that I can envisage a circumstance that would require such an urgent change of police practice—that cannot take place anyway because of the procedure that is necessary before a new code of practice is introduced—that meant that one was likely to want to revise a code of practice in less than 12 months. I therefore have some difficulty with the Minister's response, but I shall study it with care. His intention is correct, although I do not agree with all of the detail. For now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Bradshaw Lord Bradshaw moved Amendment No. 13:
Page 2, line 25, at end insert—
"( ) Before issuing any code of practice under this section or revising the whole or any part of such a code the Secretary of State shall consult—
(a) persons whom he considers to represent the interests of police authorities in England and Wales; and
(b) persons whom he considers to represent the interests of chief officers of police of forces maintained by those authorities."
The noble Lord said: The question of a code of practice for chief officers—such codes are contained in Clause 2—touches on earlier discussions and on the extent to which the Minister's commitments about furthering consultation under Clause 1 also apply to this clause. The amendment, and Amendments Nos. 71 and 73, would insert the requirement also to consult the police authority or the service authority.
It is essential to reinforce the tripartite structure arid not to go directly from the Home Secretary to chief officers; that involves bypassing en route the police authority and service authority. I hope that there will not be many such codes of practice. They form one of three legs—the others are strategic guidance and non-statutory guidance. I presume that the codes of practice will mainly be about operational policing, which is an area into which we should tread with great caution. Is the Minister prepared to accept the amendments or at least to consider them in light of the replies that he has already given in relation to Clause 1? I beg to move.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: I am not sure why my Amendment No. 14 should be sandwiched between the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. His amendments are related to each other but mine is rather different. I am of course very happy to be associated in any way with the noble Lord. I am again

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concerned about the question of consultation. My amendment relates to proposed new paragraph (4), which states:
"Before preparing a draft code of practice under this section … the Central Police Training and Development Authority shall consult with such persons as it thinks fit".
I am sure that that authority is absolutely full to the gills with intelligence and perception and wants only to be fair. Nevertheless, one must always bear in mind the possibility of failure in human affairs. The possibility that worries me is that the authority may not consider it appropriate—indeed, the Home Secretary does not always consider it appropriate—to consult chief officers.
Lord Rooker: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord but I seek to improve further the detail of his speech. The board of the Central Police Training and Development Authority, which I mentioned earlier, has two ACPO members: Jane Stichbury, the chief constable of Dorset police, and Peter Loughborough, the director of training and development at the Metropolitan Police, who I am sure is known to the noble Lord.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: I do not know Peter Loughborough personally but I certainly know of him. My point is that it would be good to have a written requirement. If the Minister is satisfied that those two very important people will always take it upon themselves to ensure that the views of chief officers are known and understood, I should be satisfied.
Lord Dixon-Smith: I rise to support the principle that my noble friend has enunciated. Will the Minister assure the Committee that the Central Police Training and Development Authority will consult fairly thoroughly before preparing a draft or revised draft code of practice? We have on numerous occasions debated from these Dispatch Boxes whether one should list all of the people who should properly be consulted. I will be relaxed on the point if the Minister gives the assurance that, in drafting any code or revised code, the intention is that consultation will be wide and thorough.
Lord Elton: I am not sure that I am as easily satisfied as my noble friend. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, spoke to an amendment that struck earlier in the process. The Minister can of course point to the consultation that will be carried out on his behalf by the Central Police Training and Development Authority, which may or may not be fortified in the way in which my noble friend suggested. The point is that however much it consults, it has to consult on a draft that it has prepared that,
"must contain all such matters as the Secretary of State may specify".
Surely, however, consultations are needed before that list is produced and before such matters are included in the code of practice. We return to where we were in Clause I, and I request the Minister to be as open to
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suggestions as he was previously. I hope that he is open to the idea that the Secretary of State himself should consult before he sets the relevant matters in a form in which they cannot be excluded by the authority after consultation.
Lord Rooker: I say to the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, that for the avoidance of further doubt a relevant press release is available in the Library. I do not want to list all of the people but there are also two members of the Association of Police Authorities on the new board. There was a Home Office board, but that is no longer the case. I refer to the vice-chairman of the Wiltshire Police Authority and the chairman of the Northamptonshire Police Authority. I completely deny the suggestion that there are not quality people around to ensure that a good job is done. There is also a list of independent members which contains people of worth.
I am prepared to look at the matter before Report—I have no problem with doing so—in order to concrete the matter in position, as it were. We genuinely want to consider the views of noble Lords. There is no question whatever of drafting codes of practice without consulting chief officers of police. I cannot spell that out more clearly. My right honourable friend John Denham, the Minister responsible for crime reduction, policing and community safety, made that clear in his letter of 3rd December to the president of ACPO, Sir David Phillips. I shall put on the record just one paragraph from that letter. My right honourable friend said:
"ACPO will be involved with the formation of the drafting groups and will be at the heart of the drafting process. The Home Secretary will commission [the Central Police Training and Development Authority board] because we wish to combine consistency of approach with the flexibility to cover diverse areas of policy. ACPO are formally represented in [the Central Police Training and Development Authority board] and your operational expertise, as well as the need for professional support, will mean that it would be profoundly against anyone's interests for ACPO to be 'frozen out'. The White Paper makes it clear that ACPO will be centrally involved in the drafting group and we will be happy to give a commitment to that effect in committee".
I cannot make the matter any clearer. I hope that the noble Lord will accept my assurances, but I am more than happy to reflect on what has been said before we reach the Report stage.
6 p.m.
Lord Elton: If the noble Lord is not going to withdraw the amendment immediately, perhaps I may add a footnote to that very welcome comment by the Minister. I have always believed that declarations by one government of what they intend to do under legislation which they pass have absolutely no force when another government come into power. Therefore, such declarations have a limited life.
Lord Bradshaw: Perhaps I may say that we are not gunning for the Minister but we are gunning for posterity. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 14 not moved.]
Lord Dixon-Smith Lord Dixon-Smith moved Amendment No. 15:
Page 2, line 36, at end insert—
"( ) The Secretary of State shall lay before Parliament a copy of any code of practice, and any revision of a code of practice, issued by him under this section."
The noble Lord said: This amendment has been tabled in the interests of consistency. Section 39 of the 1996 Act provides that any code of practice that the Secretary of State issues to a police authority or police authorities, and, indeed, revisions of those codes of practice, should be laid before Parliament. Clause 2 of the Bill makes no requirement that codes of practice relating to chief officers should, I believe properly, also be laid before Parliament.
We live in an age of communication, of open information and of trying to keep everyone informed about what is going on and how things are working. Indeed, this afternoon the Minister has made a number of gentle speeches aimed precisely at that point. Therefore, we believe that the amendment is entirely appropriate and we should like to see it included in the Bill.
Amendments Nos. 72 and 74, which are grouped with Amendment No. 15, seek to apply the same condition to codes of practice in relation to NCIS and the National Crime Squad.
We do not consider this to be an unreasonable request and we hope very much that the Minister will find that he can concede to it without too much difficulty. I beg to move.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: I rise to support the amendment moved by my noble friend, and perhaps on rather wider grounds—not only on that of consistency with the earlier Act but out of a desire to approach the whole provision for codes of practice with some caution. I believe that that caution is warranted because of the supreme importance of maintaining the doctrine of operational independence for chief officers.
I know that it is not intended by the Minister or by the Government as a whole that the codes will be other than helpful and applied within the discretion of chief officers without trenching on the doctrine that I have described. However, the point is that they may well he, and the revision of a code or the code itself may well be, phrased in terms which go beyond the proper limit.
My noble friend pointed out helpfully that the earlier statute requires a code to be laid before Parliament. I believe that I am right in saying that it is normal practice, and has been for many years now, for a code of this importance to be laid before Parliament. This code, however it is expressed, is likely to have some legislative effect. For some codes, that is provided for specifically—the Highway Code is an obvious example under the Road Traffic Act. But I believe that the noble Lord could confirm that there are codes in employment law which have legislative effect by reason of the doctrine of judicial review and the wide ambit that courts will look at when asked to review judicially a decision that has been taken by whichever officer or official is concerned.
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We do not say that this code will be without legislative effect. One can foresee circumstances in which it will have some legislative effect and will, therefore, have to be taken into account by the judiciary. Therefore, I believe that this code should, on grounds rather more wide than those of consistency— important though that is—be laid before Parliament so that Parliament can, preferably by the affirmative procedure, decide whether or not to support it.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I also rise to support the amendment. I point out that new Section 39A, which is to be added to Section 39, is in the strange position of not requiring that which Section 39 requires. The codes of practice to be issued by the Secretary of State to police authorities under Section 39 are required to be laid before Parliament. But these codes, which in many ways and for various reasons are of even more importance, are not.
I add to the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew of Twysden, that new Section 39A(5) states,
"in discharging any function to which a code of practice under t his section relates, a chief officer of police shall have regard to the code".
That has all kinds of statutory and legal implications of the gravest importance to the chief officers of police concerned and, of course, to police authorities and to the wider society. Not only do I see no reason why this code should not be laid before Parliament; I see every reason why it should, in particular as we on these Benches, and I suspect Members of the Committee on the Benches parallel, consider this to be a serious dislocation of the tripartite arrangements. Therefore, I hope very much that the Minister will take the matter back and review the position.
Lord Rooker: I have listened to what noble Lords have said but I believe that they may be wrong. I hope that I shall be able to explain why I consider that it would be a bad idea for the amendment to be accepted. Essentially the codes of practice will be technical documents covering what can sometimes be complex areas of operational policing matters. That is one reason why the Bill provides for a strong professional input in the drafting of the codes, as we discussed in our debate a short while ago. The people involved in drafting the code will be at the sharp end in the profession. Obviously they will need to put together operational experts in the areas covered by a code. There will, in any event, be wide consultation.
However, I emphasise that they will be technical documents. In many instances they will relate to areas of policing which it would be wholly counterproductive to have in the public domain. There could be examples, such as setting out the best methods of the police in respect of crime prevention and detection, where it would be better that they were not put in the public domain.
I am conscious of the seductiveness of the amendment, so earlier today I checked on manuals that are not necessarily in the public domain. A couple of examples have been given to me and I believe that

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I put one in the letter that I wrote to noble Lords. One is the ACPO firearms manual. Part one is on the website. Part two is not in the public domain for reasons that are obvious. It contains information relating to police tactics in interception, intrusion and covert surveillance. That is not in the public domain. However, guidance from the independent surveillance commissioners is in the public domain. So matters are separated. There are areas where to put it all in the public domain would be counter-productive.
At present when Her Majesty's Inspectorate inspects part of the police service—for example, the Special Branch—it does not necessarily put everything in its report into the public domain. These codes of practice deal with an area where it would be well outside the competence of parliamentarians to have an input, so I do not believe that it would be productive from the point of view of the police to have the amendment in the Bill.
Lord Elton: Before the Minister leaves that point, can he tell the Committee, why, if there is already machinery for issuing what is, in effect, guidance in what is called a manual that the police have to follow, it is necessary to have this procedure vitiated? Perhaps I am not making myself clear. The Minister has said that there is already machinery issued by the Home Office by which instruction, in one form or another, can be given to police officers on how to behave, without it coming into the public domain. Why is it necessary to import such matters into this process, with the result that this process cannot be transparent? Why can they not stay in the process that he has just described, and leave these matters transparent?
Lord Rooker: In giving those examples I do not believe that I have just described a process. I have simply given a couple of examples of manuals or good practice documents that in the normal course of events relate to police work. Some of them are in the public domain and some are not; some parts of some are in the public domain and other parts are not. We envisage that the codes of practice referred to here will be of a technical nature and will relate to operational matters. In regard to their drafting, I refer back to the board of the new Central Police Training and Development Authority and the expertise that that body will provide.
I have not described a system. It is true that there will be a system that follows the Bill because the new board will be set up, but I also draw the attention of the Committee to paragraph nine of the letter that I wrote to noble Lords. I said:
"A case in point would be the core elements of the National Intelligence Model where it is essential that all forces adopt the same methods for collecting, recording and sharing intelligence in order to deal effectively with cross-border crime".
One would not necessarily want such codes of practice.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I thank the noble Lord for giving way. This is not a technical point, but new Section 39A(1) states:
"If the Secretary of State considers it necessary to do so for the purpose of promoting the efficiency and effectiveness generally of the police forces … he may issue codes of practice".
I invite the Minister to respond to this point. If it could cover technical matters, it could also cover matters of the most general importance with regard to policing. Does he concede that?
Lord Rooker: It could do, but the end of the subsection relates to,
"the discharge of their functions by the chief officers".
I do not have an analysis of that, but the subsection says,
"promoting the efficiency and effectiveness".
We are considering crime reduction, fighting crime and variations in performance. I am happy to look at the wording, as requested by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, but I do not believe that there is anything untoward about it. It hangs together because it relates to codes of practice relating to the words in the final part of the subsection.
I have probably misled the noble Lord, Lord Elton. There is non-statutory guidance. There is a process already for manuals and guidance, but the Bill requires the chief officer to have regard to the codes. It is part of the reform process and noble Lords have recognised that there is a stronger obligation than is attached to non-statutory guidance and manuals. There is no question that there is a stronger obligation here. I do not argue that what we propose in this clause is exactly the same as what has gone before. However, I believe that the appointment of the new board and the role that it will play in ensuring that the codes are drafted is best for ensuring our protection.
I also point out to the Committee—I do not hide behind this, but it is not an unimportant point—that the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform did not make any comment on this part of the Bill. I have warned my elders and betters in the other place that the writ of that committee is important in this Chamber. Indeed, we have already tabled amendments in relation to advice given by that committee, but it makes no comment on this part of the Bill.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: I ask the Minister to reconsider the thrust of his reply. Can he explain why some of these matters are too sensitive to be capable of being laid before Parliament? Why does that not apply to the codes of practice and the provisions of Section 39A to which the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, has drawn attention? That is widely expressed. It says that the Secretary of State shall issue a code of practice about the exercise and performance by chief officers of police of their powers and duties under this chapter. At the moment the Government appear to be saying that because in some conceivable circumstances some of

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these matters may be sensitive, therefore, none of the codes shall be brought before Parliament for specific approval. The Minister may want to reconsider that.
Lord Rooker: The debates do not end with the Committee stage. I cannot give any commitments in relation to this matter. We have listened to what has been said. I accept the point that the codes of practice will be technical documents, covering complex areas of operational policing. I cannot hide behind that, because clearly some of them may be important. In no way, shape or form would any reasonable person argue that that needed to be kept out of the public domain. As I do not have a list of the potential areas of codes of practice, I am unable to elucidate further.
One fair point that was raised is that the codes of practice of tine police authorities cannot be equated to the codes of practice of chief constables. I did not make that clear, but I know that one noble Lord raised that point. The police authorities are not involved in operational policing. They deal with the financial management. The police authorities do not deal with operationally sensitive matters. That is where I would draw the line. Following the comments of noble Lords, and without any commitment, I am happy to have this matter looked at again.
Lord Dholakia: Before the Minister sits down, I was just looking at the paper from the Select Committee on Delegated Powers. It says that the power is likely to be used in areas of operational policing where specific concerns arise. The Minister said during Second Reading that the Secretary of State had no intention of using any powers to affect operational matters. So this directly contradicts what was said during Second Reading.
Can the Minister say precisely what the code of practice is about? Is it about operational matters? If so, we must go hack to the drawing board. If not, we need a better explanation.
Lord Renton: In considering this matter further, it may help the Minister to bear in mind that, though many years ago codes of practice were considered never to be part of the law, in more modern times they have become part of the law without actually being secondary legislation. They become part of the law because a breach of the provisions contained in them can give rise to legal action. It is only fair therefore to those who may perhaps be placed in a vulnerable position if such a breach occurs, that codes of practice he given as much prominence as possible.
Admittedly, if it were secondary legislation it would have to be laid before Parliament. But in view of the legal implications and the interest which Parliament has a right to take in these matters, it would surely be much more sensible and fair to lay the codes of practice before Parliament.
Lord Rooker: I take the point about the history or codes of practice made by the noble Lord, Lord Renton. It has been self-evident over the past two or three decades that in a whole range of activities codes
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of practice have taken on greater importance simply because of the court cases that have arisen around them.
I cannot respond to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia. For some reason I do not have the Delegated Powers Committee paper in my Box—I thought I kept everything. But I make it clear that this is not interference with the operational activities and responsibilities of chief officers. The two matters are not related and I do not see a contradiction. However, given the nature of the debate I am happy to have a look at this issue again just so we can get clarity. But I make that point without any commitment.
Lord Dixon-Smith: We are now in some difficulty. My noble and learned friend Lord Mayhew of Twysden raised a fundamental point when he raised the issue of the need to protect the operational integrity of our police forces. The Minister clearly indicated that from time to time codes of practice, under this section, may well be codes of practice which relate to operational matters. A clear problem arises when those two statements are looked at in simple opposition. I found the Minister's response disappointing when he came to explain that already some codes of practice on the operational front are not in the public domain. Under this amendment, codes of practice properly should be in the public domain.
I do not have a great deal of difficulty with the procedure with which the police agree; that is, voluntary codes of practice on operational matters which are not in the public domain. It would be wholly remarkable if that situation did not exist. But that is not what the Bill says. I accept too that it is necessary to make a distinction between codes of practice for police authorities and codes of practice for chief constables or the commissioner as the case may be. There is a distinction between the matters which may be dealt with by one group on the one hand, and the matters which may be dealt with by another group on the other.
The Minister however said just enough to persuade me that we should not divide on this amendment at this stage. I am grateful to him for that. It is vitally important for Parliament to be sure that the operational integrity of the police force can be maintained.
Lord Waddington: I do not want to protract the debate. Could my noble friend add to the matters he raised for consideration by the Minister the whole question as to whether codes of practice are the right vehicle by which the Secretary of State should give advice to police officers on sensitive issues? He has said that that is the difficulty for him. But one wonders whether sensitive matters should be included in codes of practice or whether there should be some other vehicle by which that advice or instruction should be given. That is the real point.
Lord Dixon-Smith: My noble friend raises another aspect of what is a very difficult matter. But we have had a useful debate.
Lord Rooker: Before the noble Lord withdraws his amendment, for which I shall be grateful because it will stop me from rising again. If the codes of practice existed in isolation, the point of the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, would be a fair one. But I draw the attention of Members of the Committee to the long letter I wrote to them recently and in particular to one sentence in paragraph 8:
"The white paper set out a three-tiered approach; regulations, binding in law; codes of practice, to which chief officers must have regard, but which are open to variation for good reasons; and guidance which is purely advisory (much of which will continue to be non-statutory)".
In other words, the codes of practice are not the be all and end all; they are not the only vehicle.
Lord Dixon-Smith: Unfortunately I have too much experience of codes of practice in another area. I certainly recall 150 pages of one code of practice which was a statutory code of practice with which local authorities had to comply. The administrative cost of that to each and every authority was horrendous. Any of my local authority colleagues who are present today will remember the specimen to which I refer.
However, the Minister has said just enough to persuade me not to divide on this matter. I shall study his response with great care. I shall study with even more care the response he makes when we reach the next stage of the Bill. For now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 16 not moved.]
On Question, Whether Clause 2 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Dixon-Smith: We have had a number of interesting debates around this issue. It is a matter of fact that codes of practice are seen increasingly in administration. But as a matter of principle, because they are legislation by the back door—they do not get direct parliamentary supervision in the sense that regulations do—we ought to be extremely wary as to how they are handled.
It was for that reason that I tabled Amendment No. 15. At the moment we are in a situation where the question of whether or not this clause is satisfactory is what I can only describe as "pending". I suppose we shall have to be satisfied with that. I shall therefore curb my impatience and withdraw my objection.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Dholakia: I support the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith. But there are two matters of concern to these Benches. The first relates to the whole process of consultation. The Minister has made it fairly clear which parties will be involved in the process. We are asking the Minister whether those bodies could be included on the face of the Bill as part of the consultation process so that there will be no confusion about how the code is arrived at.
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No one is taking away the central role of the Central Police Training and Development Authority. It will obviously be consulted on the matter. But the CPTDA is very much a strategic body. Is this a suitable role for it? Will it not simply become bogged down in considering, line by line, draft regulations and codes?
The other matter of concern is the matter which we have just discussed. I refer the Minister again to the report of the Select Committee on Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform. Paragraph 3 on page 7 states:
"The power is likely to be used in areas of operational policing where particular concerns have arisen (for example, investigation of murder or paedophiles)".
This is a direct reference to interference with operational matters. It would be very helpful if, before the Report stage, the Minister could identify clearly what are the operational matters in which the Home Office still has an interest.
A further matter concerns me. The noble Lord, Lord Waddington, made an important point that rather than certain information being made public, there must be other ways in which it could be held. Perhaps I may give an example. If there was a death because of the use of firearms by the police, and the police followed the code of practice, would the court of law be able to ask for that code of practice to be produced? If it is produced, should it not become a public document? There is confusion and there is interference in policing operational matters. It would be helpful if the Minister could clarify some of those points before the Report stage, because I am sure that we shall all return at that stage with further amendments on the matter.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I support this proposal. In this regard there has been no concrete reason advanced for increasing the powers of the Home Secretary. We have not had one single practical example of where it is necessary to take these very considerable powers to the Home Secretary. Frankly, unless there are convincing examples of where policing is—as we sit here—being impeded and made less effective because of the absence of this power to impose a code of conduct, then I, for one, hope that these Benches will vote against it when the time comes. The Minister has made clear his own support of what is called the "tripartite arrangement". As we heard at Second Reading, it is a crucially important balancing of powers between the state, localities and chiefs of police. Any substantial interference with it must be justified, not in abstract, but in practical terms.
I add that surely in this House—I do not suppose that it is any different down the way—we have abundant examples of a massive accretion of secondary legislation, and now codes, which all have the best intentions on earth, but which seem to end up very often—for example, in health and education—choking the very organs that they seek to vivify and make more effective.
I am a sceptic about the power that is being taken by this clause. I think that there will be a terrible tendency on the part of a Home Secretary who is being berated by an often ignorant press to say, "Well, I am about to

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issue a new code of conduct". As has been mentioned by Members of the Committee, this is not a code of conduct that is merely advisory, it has legal statutory effect. Chief constables will have to have regard to it. Without prolonging what is a profoundly important constitutional issue, I should like to support strongly the Question that this part of the Bill is removed.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: Perhaps I may add a brief contribution. So far we have been discussing this clause only in the context of its application to chief constables. The Bill makes it clear that it applies also to the directors-general of the National Criminal Intelligence Service and of the National Crime Squad. One only has to mention that to see how particular and specific this code could be in operational matters—as the Minister has confirmed, it will amount to more than guidance— and how close those codes could be to really specific operational matters. That gives added force in my mind to the arguments that have been pressed on the noble Lord.
Lord Rooker: I probably must take some blame in respect of a misunderstanding by Members of the Committee on the question of operational matters as opposed to operational policing. I am not playing with words. As I have said, the codes will cover aspects of operational policing. We have not made any secret about that. They will help to spread good practice; for example, in tackling robbery and street crime and in the management of the force, perhaps with an effective occupational health system. That is operational policing. That is not interference with how chief officers put their own policies into practice in terms of operational decisions. Therefore, there is a distinction.
I shall give one example. On 7th February, Sir David Phillips from ACPO, gave evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee in another place. Sir David had voiced some concerns about how the codes would be constructed. In terms of the construction of the codes, I have made it absolutely clear on three groups of amendments how operational police officers—ACPO—will be involved, through the new board, in the process from beginning to end. In terms of how the codes are constructed, we meet the concerns 100 per cent. Sir David said to the committee:
"I can see the virtue in there being codes of practice around, for example, intelligence issues because if we are to have an intelligence system we have got to be able to share information. That means that it has to be collected against the same standards of probity and against the same criteria for recording everywhere, so you need to have a common system. Having the Home Secretary's approval of a code seems to me to be a sound idea".
There is no scintilla of questioning there of interference in operational decisions of the police. The codes are about operational policing, which I believe is something quite different.
Lord Elton: What the noble Lord quoted was approval by the Secretary of State for a code of practice. This is a code of practice that the Secretary of State himself would have generated. Surely, that is not the same thing at all.
Lord Rooker: No; I do not accept that. It will be put together and drafted by a professional body of frontline officers, with a board that includes independents and members of police authorities as well as serving police officers.
Lord Dixon-Smith: Perhaps I may indulge in a slight diversion for a moment. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, for reopening the discussion when I was about to close it. In opposing the Question that Clause 2 stand part of the Bill, I neglected to tell the Committee that Amendment No. 70 is also in the group. The reason that it is grouped with this particular clause stand part debate is simple: it is consequential on it. If we were to reject Clause 2, Amendment No. 70 would automatically come into play. I apologise to the Committee for not previously mentioning that.
We could continue the debate for some time.
The difficulty that we all have is that if the codes of practice are not put before Parliament, we will not know whether they are interfering with operational matters. Parliament is entitled to know that. The point made by my noble friend Lord Elton is important. There is a distinction between codes of practice drafted at the request of the Home Secretary because he thinks that there is a particular problem and codes of practice developed in the operational field by practitioners, in which, in effect, they are sharing best practice to ensure that the whole policing system works in the best possible operational way across the country. That distinction is valid.
If we wish, we can continue nit-picking around that subject for some time but the Minister has given us an assurance that he will consider the matter. Our little secondary debate has reinforced the need for him to do so. I hope that, when we return to the matter, we vvill hear some second or even third thoughts.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 [Powers to require inspection and report]:
Lord Dixon-Smith Lord Dixon-Smith moved Amendment No. 17:
Page 2, line 40, after "time" insert, "if he has reason to believe that the inspectors of constabulary have failed to comply with their obligations under this section in that respect,"
The noble Lord said: The amendment concerns what is a small matter in some ways but important in others. Clause 3 states:
"The Secretary of State may at any time require the inspectors of constabulary to carry out an inspection under this section of … a police force … the National Crime Squad",
and so on. It is a matter of practice that police forces are regularly inspected. That is as it should be. Indeed. it is not unknown for police inspectors to appear at a force and get stuck in almost without notice. They can just turn up.
The purpose of the amendment is to constrain the Secretary of State's power to where he feels that the inspectors are not properly fulfilling their duty. That is not an unreasonable constraint. I should not say this, but I have in mind the words of a former chief fire officer who was probably one of the best fire officers

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in the country. His attitude to inspectors was that they saw what he wanted them to see, even if they arrived on the doorstep with no notice.
We are concerned not with what a reasonable Secretary of State would do but the power that the wording of the clause may give to someone who is unreasonable if the Bill remains on the statute book for a considerable time, as one hopes that it will. None of us can predict the possible shifts in political opinion in that event. Too often in my experience Parliament has not given sufficient consideration to the future in the drafting of legislation. Sometimes the subsequent consequences—several years later—have been unfortunate and painful. We have tabled the amendment because we want to avoid that. I beg to move.
6.45 p.m.
Lord Borrie: May I speak in opposition to the amendment? I notice that the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, has, with others, given notice of his intention to oppose the Question that Clause 3 stand part of the Bill. I ask the noble Lord's forgiveness for anticipating him, but presumably he will then deploy arguments that there may be no circumstances in which the Secretary of State would be justified in requiring inspectors to carry out an inspection.
But the logic of the amendment is that the noble Lord accepts that there may be some circumstances in which it would be justified for the Home Secretary to require inspectors to carry out an inspection. The noble Lord wants to hobble the Home Secretary, if I may put it that way, by providing that he would need to have,
"reason to believe that the inspectors … have failed to comply with their obligations".
That strikes me—I hope that I am legally correct on this point—as requiring an objective test. If the amendment were accepted, the Home Secretary would be subject to judicial review if he ever sought to exercise the power under the clause. He would have objectively to demonstrate that he had met the condition in the amendment. That would unduly restrict the Home Secretary. If there is ever any justification for the Home Secretary to require inspectors to perform an inspection—and sometimes there must be—the amendment ought not to be passed.
Lord Elton: As the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, has brought forward the question of clause stand part, I should like to ask a simple question. If Mr Blunkett were today to say to Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary that he felt that it would be a good thing if a police force X were to be inspected and particular attention paid to its firearms section, would it not do so? Is not the provision entirely unnecessary?
Lord Bradshaw: I would seek to explain to the Committee that there are several types of inspection. There is a general inspection of the force, which takes some time and is very thorough. There are one-day
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special inspections, which we in Thames Valley have just had, which take the general pulse of the force through a number of tests and determine whether a general inspection should take place. There are thematic inspections, carried out by the chief inspector of, for example, roads policing. Latterly, we have had basic command unit inspections, where inspectors visit a police area and look at what is going on in great detail.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, I believe that the provision is totally unnecessary. Police forces are inspected very thoroughly, very often. Inspectors well know who are the weak links in the chain. I do not know this for certain, but I am sure that they are in fairly close touch with the Secretary of State and his advisers. The Secretary of State does not need this power and it should be struck out.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: I listened with great interest to what the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, had to say. As ever on such matters, he spoke with great wisdom. Of course he is right to be suspicious of the intention behind any legislation. We are right to give the Bill the sort of careful scrutiny that we are this afternoon. The clause is no different from any other in that respect.
It is worth reflecting on what the clause is attempting to achieve and the effect of the amendment. The clause will allow the Secretary of State to require HMIC to carry out an ad hoc inspection of a force, part of a force or particular functions carried out by that force. The duty as it stands in the 1996 Act is to inspect and report on the whole of every force. HM IC could have fulfilled its duty in that respect but without necessarily providing the evidence to spot shortcomings in a particular part, function or exercise of that force. For the purposes of issuing directions to forces under the new Section 41A of the 1996 Act, inserted by Clause 5, that power is useful in considering the particular remedial measures required.
The amendment, as the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, and others said, would restrict the circumstances in which the Secretary of State could call upon HMIC to carry out an inspection of a force or any part of a force to occasions on which he considered that HMIC had failed in its duty under Section 54 of the 1996 Act to inspect and report on all forces. That would be difficult to demonstrate if in fact HMIC had inspected and reported on the efficiency and effectiveness of all forces.
The duty under Section 54 is to inspect all forces—the whole force in each case. That must be understood. However, the inspectorate will not necessarily have failed in its duty under that section if more information is required regarding the performance of a particular part of a force or a particular function of a force. The amendment, as the noble Lord said, would restrict the Home Secretary's ability to seek detailed information on a particular part. There is already a power in Section 93 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 to require an inspection of the Central Police Training

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and Development Authority. Clause 3 would also replace a power in Section 40 of the Police Act 1996 to commission a special inspection of a force.
We think it right that the Home Secretary should be able to seek that more detailed information. It would be helpful in the generality of things; inspectorate reports exist to assist the force that is being inspected to improve the service that it offers and the way in which it performs. In a sense, that is what we are trying to do here. We want to provide extra flexibility and enable the provision of support from the centre when it is required.
Lord Waddington: Is it not fanciful to suggest that the inspectors would refuse to carry out any sort of inspection that they were asked to carry out by the Secretary of State? Can the Minister assert that there has ever been a case in which HMIC has failed to carry out such an inspection?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: I defer to the noble Lord's greater knowledge about such matters. He has experience of high office, and I am sure that he is right. However, we are seeking to put on the statute book something that may, in particular circumstances, be of use and assistance and will enable an inspection to be gone over in greater detail to elucidate and draw out more than was drawn out in the first place. It will enable the Secretary of State to do that. The noble Lord makes a good point, and he will reflect carefully on the points made in the debate.
Lord Waddington: I can see that it does not go to the amendment; it goes to the substance of the subsection. Other noble Lords have cast doubt on whether it was necessary at all. I concede that it does not go to the amendment.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: I am grateful to the noble Lord for that further elucidation. It was most helpful.
Lord Dixon-Smith: We have had an interesting debate, but it causes me some concern. The amendment dealt simply with the principle of when the inspections could happen and whether the Secretary of State should have the power to whistle one up on the wind, so to speak. The noble Lord, Lord Borrie, is correct in the sense that, if we take the clause out, it does not matter how or whether we amend it. On the other hand, there is no certainty that we will want to take the clause out. If we are satisfied with the content of the clause, we might be prepared to leave it in.
I am not sure that what we propose would be an unreasonable restriction. We come to the issue of part inspections, which the Minister mentioned, in the next group of amendments. The question relates to what would be practised by reasonable people. I am appalled by the idea that, six months after an inspection, the Secretary of State could wake up and say, "Oops! We want a bit more information on this or that", and that, therefore, there should be another inspection. It would appal every practising police officer in the country. If the Secretary of State wants
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further information, he can request it, for Heaven's sake. He need only write a letter. He does not need an inspection to get further information.
I am not happy about the response to the amendment. None the less, we have had a useful discussion, and I hope that the Minister will do as his colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, is doing and study what has been said. They are important matters. We must ensure that we do not restrict or contain reasonable reform, while preserving the absolute operational integrity of the force. All the amendments form part of an attempt to make sure that that is what happens. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Dixon-Smith Lord Dixon-Smith moved Amendment No. 18:
Page 3, leave out lines 1 to 4.
The noble Lord said: Amendments Nos. 18 and 21 are aimed at the same thing, namely inspections of part of a force. As was pointed out to me, it could get so ridiculous—it never would, of course—as to go as far down as an inspection of a headquarters canteen. I am sure that, if that were necessary, any competent chief constable would have dealt with it a long time before. However, it goes into more difficult areas such as the firearms team, which has already been mentioned, and the traffic team.
There are two amendments, Nos. 18 and 21, which applies the same qualification to NCIS. In leaving out those lines, we would simply require the Government to consider carefully the proposals for the political power to influence the inspection process by demanding more inspections. That is the concern that lies behind the amendments. It is a proper concern and one that we need to look at with considerable care.
I do not think that I need to say any more on this. I do not know whether once again I shall tempt the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, to his feet. but I accept the point that he made. However, we shall come to the greater issue in a few minutes. I beg to move.
7 p.m.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: I had not intended to speak on this amendment and I shall make only a few brief remarks. Having listened to what has been said, in particular with regard to the last group of amendments, I think that the matter is more important than I had considered to begin with.
I can see that if one is a chief officer, to have an inspection foisted upon one is a very considerable pain. It is expensive and distracts one from other matters. Furthermore, it represents something that one would probably like to avoid if one could. I am not persuaded by the arguments. Perhaps the Minister could direct our attention to any need for this power that was expressed and then recorded in the White Paper. If so then I am afraid that I have forgotten about it.
One is enormously tantalised by the presence in the Chamber of the noble Lord, Lord Condon, who has been present throughout our debates. It may be that

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we are talking absolute nonsense and he would be able to tell us that that is the case. However, as laymen we are doing our best. I can see a considerable potential danger here if the Home Secretary can hold out a threat over a chief officer or perhaps the director-general of the crime squad that he will order an inspection that will not prove to be a particularly pleasant experience.
I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Condon, will be able to confirm my impression that Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary keeps its ear close to the ground. It has a very professional and experienced ear and I suggest that not much can escape it. Why do we need this? Am I speaking unrealistically when I say that I foresee that there is here the real danger of possible abuse?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: Again, I can understand the nervousness and expressions of concern over this. However, perhaps noble Lords opposite are making more of it than is necessary.
The proposition that we are seeking to put into legislative effect is simple enough. A whole force does not need to be ineffective or inefficient for it not to be providing the best possible service. Particular parts of the force may be under-performing. I believe that a basic command unit was mentioned earlier, which provides an adequate example. The whole force may be under-performing, but only in relation to one function such as perhaps, say, the gathering and handling of intelligence material.
We would argue that in those circumstances it would be a waste of the resources of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary to invite it to carry out an inspection of the whole force, if we are aware of a problem only in one geographical area or one particular part of a force. We all know that the inspection of an entire force takes much longer and would be of less use as a means of analysing and taking apart a specific problem so that a solution in all of the best supportive terms can be found.
The Home Secretary already has a power to require Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary to conduct an inspection of a whole force. The purpose of Clause 3 is to provide a far more flexible and responsive power to look at particular parts of a force. It is no more and no less than that.
While I can appreciate the points made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew of Twysden, surely all our collective experience of the work of the inspectorate is that it will operate in an entirely cooperative, helpful and supportive way with local police forces the length and breadth of the country. That is exactly what we are seeking to facilitate. The clause helps to further refine that process so that inspections can focus on a particular difficulty that may in some way be disabling to the whole of a force, undermining its effectiveness and efficient operation. As I have said, it is no more and no less than that.
Lord Condon: The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, invited me to comment on this, which I hope
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may be of some assistance to noble Lords. I believe that my former colleagues would probably perceive this clause as being unnecessary but they would not in any way feel threatened by it. In a sense, they would probably see it as unnecessary because there is sufficient collaborative endeavour between all those involved or mentioned in the provision so that most inspections will go ahead in a collaborative way. If there is a dispute and if therefore this is seen as a failsafe new provision which will give the Home Secretary of the day the final power of arbitration as to whether there should be an inspection. I still do not think that my former colleagues will feel severely threatened because the establishment of the facts and the truth would be in the interests of all concerned.
As I have said, they may perceive this provision as unnecessary, but I do not believe that they would feel threatened by it.
Lord Elton: I am partially reassured by the comments of the noble Lord, but I still feel like Alice in Wonderland. I cannot conceive of any circumstances in which, if a Home Secretary were to ask for an inspection of a part of a force, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary would refuse to do it. It may be necessary for the inspectorate to be given statutory powers to carry out an inspection, but it already has those.
I think that this provision is a symptom of the sickness of the age—the legislative sickness that keeps us at work in this building month after month, year after year, until we all drop dead or are evicted by statutory instrument. I speak entirely for myself.
It is not necessary to have a law to do this any more than it is necessary to have a law to say that the headmaster of Loughborough Grammar School shall be obeyed when he states that the sixth form shall study history on Tuesday week. There are some things that can be done without the law. If something can be done without the law, then it can be done without the lawyers, thus making it quicker and cheaper.
Lord Bradshaw: The nature of inspection has changed considerably. A great deal can be achieved on one-day inspections or through very tightly drawn thematic inspections. Inspectors do not come in and spend a great deal of time going through the force. I believe that the inspectors have very much moved with the times.
Perhaps I may also say that a police force does not become inefficient overnight. It is a process and I am quite certain that the inspectors know which are the least efficient forces and which need the most inspections without any advice from the Home Secretary. I maintain that this is totally unnecessary.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: Perhaps I should make one further point that is worth putting forward at this stage. Noble Lords have commented that this provision is unnecessary and that we are producing too much legislation—a point made most ably by the noble Lord, Lord Elton. However, the clause is not entirely new. We have been here before. I do not seek

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to make a smart point, but I refer to Section 40 of the Police Act 1996, which was not enacted under our watch. That section already allows for special inspections and was originally introduced under the Police and Magistrates' Courts Act 1994.
What we are seeking to achieve here is refinement and greater flexibility. I am sure that noble Lords should be able to accept that. The noble Lord, Lord Condon, eloquently made the point that this is a helpful part of what we are trying to achieve in terms of raising standards within the service.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Before the Minister sits down, does lie accept that there is a one-way ratchet. on all these things? Every single time it pushes more power to the centre and more power to the Home Secretary.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: I do not accept that we live in a ratchet world. There are swings and there are roundabouts that is, things go one way and come back the other way. As with most of this legislation, the provision is a statement of our intention to do all we can to support local police forces in improving the quality of their service operationally so that they can do the things that we all want them to do: feel collars and put people behind bars when they have offended. We want to make sure that forces work well towards those ends and objectives. That is why we have the police service that we have in this country.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Perhaps I may briefly respond to the Minister. He said that this is a matter of swings and roundabouts. Can he cite one example in this huge Bill of powers flowing back to the police authorities?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: The noble Lord scores a good point. I shall not go through the Bill line by line here, nor go through the swings and roundabouts—we are not in that game—but the noble Lord makes a good point.
Lord Waddington: The noble Lord, Lord Condon, is more than able to speak for himself, but he never said that this clause was helpful. He said that it was unnecessary but that the police would not feel threatened by it. He never said that it was helpful.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: I am sure that the Minister will reflect on this issue. When he does so, will he remember the principle of human life that when people are given powers they tend to use them. In the case of government, it is not inconceivable that a particular chief constable or a particular director general will get up the nose of some diligent official, who may then put it to the Secretary of State that it might be a good thing to direct an investigation. The Secretary of State, who perhaps has five boxes to deal with that night, may very well decide to take that
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advice and make use of it. That is something which occurs in ordinary life. I hope that the Minister will reflect upon it.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: We always reflect carefully on what is said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew of Twysden. I would not want to see—I am sure that that would not be the intention of any government—the powers used in the arbitrary way suggested by the noble and learned Lord. We shall carefully listen and also watch how these powers are used in the future. We shall at all times reflect on the way they operate.
Lord Dixon-Smith: We have had a useful discussion. I recall listing at Second Reading many of the existing powers that the Government have under the 1996 Act. The improvements—if that is what is claimed for the additional powers that the Government are taking in the Bill—are, in some ways, marginal. The noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, is right to describe them as a one-way ratchet.
The noble Lord, Lord Condon, made perhaps the most significant remark when he said that the powers are unnecessary. At the same time he said that they were unthreatening. We are in the business of passing good legislation, but here we may be in the business of passing unnecessary legislation. Whether it is good or bad legislation ceases to be relevant if it is unnecessary.
The Ministers, who are sitting together on this issue, have heard the debate. In a sense, the critical issues relate to the question of whether the clause should stand part. We have twice been round the field and, for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil Lord Peyton of Yeovil moved Amendment No. 19:
Page 3, leave out lines 7 and 8.
The noble Lord said: I return, very briefly hut without apology, to the horrid habit of squeezing two statutes together—that is, an Act of Parliament already on the statute book and a Bill which the Government hope will get there.
I intend to read out the two lines that my amendment seeks to leave out in order that avid and enthusiastic readers of Hansard should not miss these gems. I invite the Committee's particular attention to lines 7 and 8, where we find these words:
"and in section 55(1) of that Act (publication of reports) for 'or (2A)' there shall be substituted', (2A) or (2C)'.".
It is not immediately easy to grasp the meaning of that ugliness. I hope that on Report the Minister will at least make some comments on this hideous practice.
Let me inflict some further pain on the Committee. The same comment can be made in respect of lines 20 and 21, which state:
"and in section 42(1) of that Act (publication of reports) for 'or (3)' there shall be substituted',(3) or (3B)'.".
You can hardly beat that for gibberish. It is rather disgraceful that we have to tolerate such rubbish.
If the Minister can say something about how this Bill could be cleansed of garbage, it would be helpful. I beg to move.
7.15 p.m.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: If I were in charge of cleansing legislation of garbage, I would probably be indulging in a fairly lengthy job. I am not going to start today in your Lordships' House, but I am sure some things could be improved and dusted down.
The irony of the noble Lord's amendment is that it probably adds to the sense of gibberish about which he is so concerned. If we were to adopt it, we would effectively prevent the Secretary of State from requiring a report to be published. I am sure that that is not the noble Lord's intention.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: The Minister has misunderstood me. I am not asking the Government to withdraw meaning from this part of the Bill. I am asking them not to mutilate it and not to conceal it. The whole point of making laws is that they should be capable of being understood without undue effort.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: It is being mischievously suggested to me that we should set up a special working group and task force on consolidation. I am not sure that that would take us much further forward.
The noble Lord makes an important point—that is, that in legislation we should say what we mean and mean what we say and ensure that the language expresses that clearly and in straightforward terms. We have listened to the noble Lord's point, but if we were to go along with the terms of the amendment it would make a nonsense of what we are attempting to achieve—that is, openness and transparency.
Lord Elton: I hope the suggestion that we should have a task force on consolidation was not mischievous. It would be highly constructive and welcome.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: I understood quite clearly that I would get nowhere today with this cause. That does not mean to say that I shall not pursue it from time to time. But, for the moment at any rate, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Dixon-Smith Lord Dixon-Smith moved Amendment No. 20:
Page 3, leave out line 14.
The noble Lord said: I have to confess that Amendment No. 20 is a result of complete ignorance. On page 2, at the beginning of Clause 3 the Bill states:
"The Secretary of State may at any time require the inspectors of constabulary to carry out an inspection under this section of … the National Criminal Intelligence Service".
I was somewhat fascinated to find on page 3, under subsection (2):
"(3A) The Secretary of State may at any time require the inspectors to carry out an inspection under this section of … the National Criminal Intelligence Service".
As I understood it, the National Criminal Intelligence Service is an integrated national organisation with a director. Its position has been further clarified and under the Bill it will be freestanding. Am Ito understand that there is a National Criminal Intelligence Service Mark 2 in Northern Ireland? If there is not, I am somewhat puzzled as to why, under the Bill, we need to have the organisation inspected twice.
This is a probing amendment. I am not making a frightfully serious point, but there may be something behind it that I have completely missed. There very often is, and if there is I should like to know. If there is not, perhaps the amendment will be accepted. I beg to move.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: The amendment is a helpful probe. I think that I can make the situation clear to the noble Lord: NCIS does, as he suggests, operate as a coherent whole; but NCIS operations in Northern Ireland are currently inspected by HMIC appointed as the inspector for Northern Ireland. To cover inspection of NCIS under Clause 3, both the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 1998 and the Police Act 1996 need to be amended.
Acceptance of the amendment would mean that NCIS operations in Northern Ireland would be the only part of the police service not covered by the clause. Thereby, we should create an anomaly. I am sure that the noble Lord would not want to do that. We need to have a coherent and consistent approach. I hope that that elucidates the point and clarifies the reasons why the clause is drafted in this way. Perhaps the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Dixon-Smith: I must say that I find the Minister's explanation interesting when he says, "If we do this, we might create an anomaly". But it seems to me that we have got ourselves into a situation where we may need to have this set out twice in order to avoid an anomaly.
That leads me into the school of thought of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton of Yeovil, as regards the clarity of legislation. I cannot believe that the operations undertaken by NCIS in Northern Ireland would not be inspected, as and when necessary, as suggested by the inspectors, whether or not they are Northern Ireland inspectors. I find it difficult to believe that the inspectors in Northern Ireland are a separate organisation from those operating in the rest of the United Kingdom. That is the implication of what has been said.
None the less, I should not want to create an unnecessary anomaly—particularly if it caused Ministers on the Front Bench opposite concern that they had allowed such a thing to happen. But I cannot

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say that I am satisfied with the noble Lord's answer, which I shall study. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 21 and 22 not moved.]
On Question, Whether Clause 3 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Dixon-Smith: We have had a great deal of detailed discussion in relation to this clause. I admit that our debate has not convinced me that the clause contains matters so fundamental and creates a situation so fundamentally new that it ought to remain in the Bill.
We are required to look at these matters on balance. In the light of our debates, my request to Ministers is that they should, if they can, justify the existence of the clause. The 1996 Act already contains the power to require inspections. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, says that this is a matter of evolution and that the provision is required to smooth and develop the process—that was the impression he gave even if those are not the words he used—but despite that, it is my view that we are on a "ratchet".
We must also consider the use that might be made of a clause such as this by unreasonable people. I am not wholly satisfied that the absolute need for this clause has been explained. I shall be interested to hear what the Minister has to say by way of justification. I oppose the Question.
Lord Bradshaw: I add the weight of our view on these Benches to that of the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith. The powers that are sought are totally unnecessary. They were included in legislation by a previous Conservative Home Secretary, and they were probably unnecessary then. This piece of the legislation should be jettisoned.
Lord Waddington: Not a jot of evidence has been produced to suggest that it is necessary to give the Secretary of State power to require the inspectors to carry out an inspection. The only expert evidence has come from the noble Lord, Lord Condon, who made absolutely plain his view that the clause is unnecessary. That is my view. The Minister has not suggested one instance where the inspectorate has failed to carry out an inspection when asked to do by the Home Secretary. Surely, unnecessary law is bad law. Unless the noble Lord can produce a convincing argument that it is necessary to give the Home Secretary this new power, we should mark our displeasure at this unnecessary provision by voting against the clause remaining in the Bill.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: We have had a useful series of debates on this clause. The discussion has been helpful. I have learnt a considerable amount and have heard some interesting opinions expressed. I cannot say that I agree entirely with those opinions. Noble Lords opposite are possibly putting the
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argument too strongly. After all, we embarked on this course not under our watch but under a previous government.
Clause 3 simply seeks to broaden the Secretary of State's power to require inspections of forces by HMIC by allowing him to limit the requirement to a particular part of the force or to particular functions. That is about being flexible and proportionate in relation to a problem that may have been identified.
The clause also broadens the power so that an inspection can be commissioned at any time rather than, as is currently the case under Section 40(1) of the Police Act 1996, at any time but only in the context of giving directions to police authorities after adverse reports. Both changes are useful in the context of the provision to issue directions where a force or a part of a force is failing to provide an efficient or effective service.
One point should be clearly understood. The Home Secretary will want to have clear evidence of under-performance before using the powers under Clause 5 of the Bill. Much has been made of the point that perhaps in the future there may be in office those who will use the powers arbitrarily or unreasonably. I do not believe that these powers will be used in an arbitrary way.
At present—and rightly so—decisions on these matters are informed by reports from 1-IM IC, which in turn draws up a range of indicators in assessing police performance. In the future, in developing performance measurement systems, we shall ensure that these are as comprehensive and balanced as possible, and we shall aim to measure police work in key areas and successful policing in the round.
It has to be the case that any system of measurement will depend on being able to obtain up-to-date and accurate information. That is the basis of good reporting. The new national crime recording standard that will be adopted by forces from April will help to ensure that crime data are accurate and consistent so that those assessments and measurements can be properly made. Although the Secretary of State may obtain that evidence from elsewhere—for example, from the Police Standards Unit or possibly from the Audit Commission—this provision will allow him to apply the expert knowledge of the inspectorate to the examination of performance levels where necessary.
The provision to require inspection of only part of a force or only of particular functions seems to us to be an entirely sensible addition. As I said earlier, there is no point in inspecting the entire force when the under-performance appears to be limited to only one area. It is worth emphasising that, from the point of view of the public, the most significant policing is that which is done at the local level. Providing a power useful in efforts to facilitate bringing the performance of all forces up to the level of the best seems a sensible way forward. If we cannot examine and rectify problems at the local level, we shall miss and fail to address key issues of under-performance. Action would then have to be taken further down the road when the whole force is starting to suffer.

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The provisions will apply to the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the National Crime Squad. As we argued earlier, there is a similar power introduced by the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 for the Home Secretary at any time to call upon HMIC to inspect the Central Police Training and Development Authority. HMIC already conducts inspections of basic command units as opposed to a whole force. We are not breaking, therefore, any new ground with the clause. We simply say that it provides us with a sound legislative base from which we can perform these duties properly and ensure that in future those important, helpful and supportive inspections are undertaken in the right atmosphere.
7.30 p.m.
Lord Elton: My noble friends have referred to a ratchet. The Minister drew our attention usefully to an aspect of the ratchet. The 1996 power—this power elaborates upon it—required there to be an adverse report on a police force before the Secretary of State could make the order for an inspection. That is not in the proposed new section. The Secretary of State can act of his own motives. Everything that my noble friends said about the ratchet process is right. The question of why it is necessary to legislate when the Secretary of State can make a perfectly civil request and have the work done is not addressed.
Because the noble and learned Lord is now on the Bench, I say again that having no law is cheaper than having law because one does not have lawyers.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: Before the Minister sat down, I was going to ask him to take account of that very point. No evidence has been produced as to any shortcoming of the inspectorate in the exercise of its powerto investigate anything when asked to do so. I hope that when we return to this on Report—I am sure that we shall—the noble Lord will be able to point us to any evidence of such shortcoming, if there is any; or perhaps he will have to say that there is none.
Will he take account also of this matter. Since the power applies to Northern Ireland, will the noble Lord bear in mind that it is the dearest ambition of the IRA to secure the destruction of Special Branch of the police service there? With this power to require such action of an inspectorate which does not consider an inspection limited to Special Branch to be necessary—nevertheless it is a requirement—comes a potential danger. This is because such an inspection may be considered to form part of the peace process, to the great operational disadvantage of the police service in Northern Ireland as a whole.
Lord Dixon-Smith: The balance sheet is stacking up—and against the Government rather than for them. It is well known and established in this House that under the existing regime the inspection service does a good and thorough job. It keeps its ear to the ground. If it gets a hint of problems developing, it has the power to deal with those matters if necessary.
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Inspections of parts of a force can be performed under the existing remit. My concern about inspections of part of a force is that one must recognise that no basic command unit (BCU) in a force is a freestanding enterprise. Those units are heavily reliant on a swathe of essential central policing services provided usually from the police headquarters. I refer, for example, to firearms, finger printing, criminal investigations or data processing. An inspection of a BCU inevitably imposes burdens on the core of that police force.
We have heard many reasons why the Bill would be better without the clause. We have not heard many which convince me that it is a better Bill with the clause. I suspect that noble Lords would like a break rather than a walk. I shall not press the issue.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Lord Davies of Oldham: I beg to move that the House do now resume. In moving the Motion, perhaps I may suggest that the Committee stage begin again not before 8.36 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Local Authorities (Conduct of Referendums) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2002
7.36 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (Lord Falconer of Thoroton)The Minister of State, Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (Lord Falconer of Thoroton) rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 7th February be approved [20th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, these short draft amending regulations make two changes to the Local Authorities (Conduct of Referendums) (England) Regulations 2001 which came into force on 2nd April last year following approval by both Houses of Parliament.
The first proposed amendment addresses an anomaly in the principal regulations made last year. The effect of the amendment is to make clear that it is possible for a local authority to hold an all-postal referendum in combination with an election that is also being held on an all-postal basis. It will, of course, continue to be the case that an all-postal referendum may not be combined with an election held using the traditional polling station method.
The second change proposed is the opening up of these referendums to the full scope of the electoral innovation pilot schemes provided for in the Representation of the People Act 2000. The electoral pilot provisions were not originally extended to referendums because there had been no referendums of this type yet held so there would have been nothing for a referendum pilot to be properly assessed against. We have subsequently seen a succession of mayoral

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referendums. The Government believe, therefore, that the time is right to open up the full scheme allowing local authorities to apply for pilots using innovations other than all-postal balloting. In line with the requirements of the Local Government Act 2000 we have consulted the Electoral Commission. It has expressed its support for the policy that would he given effect by the draft.
Finally, I should like to place formally on record that I am satisfied that these regulations comply with the Human Rights Act 1998. I commend the regulations to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 7th February be approved [20th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord Falconer of Thoroton.)
Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I thank the Minister for taking the trouble to write to me and, I suspect, other opposition Members about the regulations. It was courteous to do so, and I am grateful.
I have no objection to the amendments. However, it is disappointing to note the results from the all-postal votes on the mayoral referendum. The turn-out of voters has not increased. Considering that people are sitting in the comfort of their own homes, the average turn-out has been about 26 per cent. In the two electoral results where people were required to go to the polls, the figures were 10 and 13 per cent—so 26 per cent is double those figures. It does not look as though the changes to voting arrangements are having the desired effect.
Even with referendums on what was meant to be the exciting issue of elected mayors, the turn-out for elections, particularly for local government, has not increased as we would all have liked. It is sad when people do not take the opportunity to vote. If more effort is required to get them to do so, clearly we have no objection.
Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister not just for introducing the regulations. but for writing to me about them. Sometimes such regulations can be a little opaque without the gloss that is provided for us. Of course we support the regulations. How could we oppose making voting easier? However, when I read the Minister's letter I felt that the measures were more about encouraging a greater number of people to vote on schemes for which there has been so little enthusiasm with regard to the "modernisation" of local government.
Having said that and noting the disappointingly low turn-out for all the referendums so far, which all of us, as politicians, must feel ashamed about, we support the regulations.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I am grateful for the support from both Front Benches. I share the disappointment that has been expressed about the turn-out. We all realise that such measures help, but perhaps there are more fundamental questions relating to why people do not vote in elections that need to be addressed as well.
On Question. Motion agreed to.

Deregulation (Bingo and Other Gaming) Order 2002
7.41 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Blackstone)The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Blackstone) rose to move, That the draft deregulation order laid before the House on 28th January be approved [13th Report from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee].
The noble Baroness said: My Lords. the order before you is one of the last to come before Parliament under the terms of the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994. It makes three modest changes to the law governing commercial bingo clubs.
The legal controls on commercial bingo are strict. Clubs operate on a membership basis under the licences that are issued by the courts in England and Wales and by the local authority licensing board in Scotland. They are strictly regulated by the Gaming Board, which approves the companies that own them and their senior staff. Commercial bingo is popular. There are more than 700 licensed clubs around the country. Between them they attract 250,000 customers every day.
The proposals in the order would not significantly change the way in which clubs operate. However, they would help clubs to respond to customer demand and a changing gambling market.
The three changes that the order makes would remove the need for clubs to notify their licensing authority of changes in their charges to players, allow them to offer their customers a greater variety of gaming machines and allow for more prizes in games of multiple bingo, otherwise known as the national bingo game. There will also be a minor benefit for casinos.
Paragraph 2 removes the part of the Gaining Act 1968 that requires clubs to inform their licensing authority of changes in their charges to players. That will not disadvantage anybody. It will save time and money for the bingo club and the licensing authority. The paragraph will also affect casinos, which can charge players for using their card rooms. Under the current rules they must notify changes in that charge to their licensing authority 14 days in advance. Again, there is no reason for that and nothing to be lost by removing the requirement.
Bingo clubs can have gaming machines for their customers to play, and most do so. Most clubs have AWP machines with a £25 top prize. They must agree the number of such machines that they can have with their licensing authority. The law also allows them to have jackpot machines with a £500 top prize instead, as long as they do not have more than four. However, clubs cannot have both types of machine. They can have £25 AWP machines or up to four £500 jackpot machines, but not both.
Paragraph 3 would change that. If bingo clubs wish, and if their licensing authority agrees, they will be able to have up to four £500 jackpot machines alongside £25 AWP machines. They will be able to mix the two types of machine. That does not mean that bingo clubs will turn into Las Vegas-style gambling dens. Clubs will still be playing bingo. It will not be a case of wall-to-wall machines. The Government see no case for the present ban on mixing the two types of machine in bingo clubs. It should be a matter between each club and its licensing authority. That will increase choice for players and the ability of the clubs to respond to customer demand.
Paragraph 4 makes a minor change to the law controlling multiple bingo—the so-called national bingo game. The Gaming (Bingo) Act 1985 allows for customers at bingo clubs throughout the country to play a single game at the same time to the same set of numbers. There is a single national top prize. The Act says that there must also be one regional prize in each region or one house prize in each club, or both. Paragraph 4 makes a simple change to that Act to allow the organisers to decide whether to give more than one prize in each category. It will be a matter for them. The change gives clubs more scope to meet consumer demand.
Last summer, the Government published the report of an independent review of the entire body of controls on gambling in Great Britain, including on bingo, which was chaired by Sir Alan Budd. The Government plan to announce shortly the steps that we will take in view of that report to carry out an overall reform of gambling law. Nothing in the order will prejudice or cut across whatever steps the Government or your Lordships' House might think necessary to bring about the reform of our gambling controls. The gambling review has specifically endorsed the mixing of £25 and £500 gaming machines in bingo clubs, which the order will bring about.
There has been extensive public consultation on the proposals and most careful scrutiny by the parliamentary deregulation and regulatory reform committees. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in your Lordships' House expressed no concerns about the order. The Deregulation and Regulatory Reform Committee in another place expressed some concern about the provisions to allow bingo clubs to mix the two types of gaming machine. It commented on what it saw as the limited scope of consultation about the order by the Home Office with groups that might speak for the interests of elderly or vulnerable people. The committee suggested that the mix of machines proposal be dropped from the order.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport therefore undertook further consultation among those groups, which revealed no objection to the proposals. The order has now been approved in the other place in the form in which it is before your Lordships this
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evening. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has recommended approval by this House. I confirm to the House that I am satisfied that the terms of the order are fully compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft deregulation order laid before the House on 28th January be approved [13th Report from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee].—(Baroness Blackstone.)
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I thank the Minister for explaining the bingo order, which one would think is one of the more interesting aspects of this ministerial brief. As the Select Committee of this House pointed out, the law on gaming is a mess, with layer upon layer of complexity having been added over the years. The Minister referred to the Budd report. We, too, look forward to the Government's response as soon as possible. We have the opportunity to debate some of those issues in the Chamber next week. I am satisfied that the order contains measures that would not pre-empt any matters that your Lordships might wish to debate when legislation based on the Budd report comes before the House.
The Minister referred to the mixture of amusement with prizes machines and jackpot machines. We are grateful to the Government for carrying out proper further consultation on the issue with those interested in the possible impact on those who are elderly and vulnerable. We agree that that consultation exercise satisfactorily showed that the provisions should remain part of the order.
I also notice that the Select Committee made it clear in paragraph 14 of its report that it doubts whether the risk to children is much increased by the proposed changes. That reassures me and we support the making of the order.
Lord Addington: My Lords, the Minister gave a very full description of the thinking behind the order, which is to be welcomed. Noble Lords on these Benches find nothing objectionable in this order; and, indeed, we agree with most of its content. There was the initial sort of "sniff" of trouble as regards the idea of gaming machines and the issues that arise from and outwith this order. But, having flown that little flag of worry, shall we say, for a future date, I believe that the business in front of the House is certainly satisfactory.
Lord Goodhart: My Lords, as the only member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee who is present in the Chamber this evening, perhaps I may add that the committee is very happy to see this proposal pass through the House.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I greatly appreciate the welcome for this order expressed from both Benches. I commend it to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Deregulation (Restaurant Licensing Hours) Order 2002
7.50 p.m.
Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone rose to move, That the draft deregulation order laid before the House on 24th January be approved [13th Report from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee].
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the order before the House is designed to permit genuine restaurants to serve alcohol with meals for an extra hour after the end of normal licensing hours without the need for what is known as a supper hour certificate. It was approved in another place on 14th February. I am able to assure the House that the order is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
The changes introduced by the order will not apply to premises that operate under a full on-licence, such as pubs. The licensees for those premises would still need to apply for a supper hour certificate, as at present. This is so that the justices can be satisfied that the extension of hours relates to the provision of a bona fide restaurant service and is not a way of circumventing normal closing hours.
Restaurant hours are constrained in the same way as other on-licences, like pubs and night-clubs, by the normal permitted opening hours. These are 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Mondays to Saturdays; and noon to 10.30 p.m. on Sundays. However, restaurants that wish to serve alcohol with meals beyond those normal closing times may apply for a supper hour certificate that allows the restaurant to serve drinks until midnight on weekdays and until 11.30 p.m. on Sundays. Like other alcohol licensing approvals, it is granted by local licensing justices.
In the case of a restaurant with what is called a Part IV licence, the process is in practice one of rubber-stamping because the bona fides of the restaurant will already have been established by the same justices in granting a restaurant or residential and restaurant licence in the first place. The certificate must be granted by the justices if the restaurant is bona fide. I am sure that the House will recognise that this as one of the worst examples of red tape operating for the sake of red tape and that it imposes a wholly unreasonable burden on the restaurant trade. The restaurant industry estimates that the order will save the trade a modest £0.2 million per year. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft deregulation order laid before the House on 24th January be approved [13th Report from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee].—(Baroness Blackstone.)
Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, again I thank the Minister for her explanation. I shall be brief in my response. As always, I must declare a non-pecuniary interest as patron of the Restaurant Association of Great Britain. In my guise as spokesperson for culture, media and sport—and never as a spokesman for the association—I can certainly
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say that I welcome the proposed removal of unnecessary red tape; it is, indeed, a prime example of red tape.
The only blot on the landscape, so to speak, is the fact that when the matter was first considered in another place by the Select Committee it was thought necessary to remove part of the original order; na rnely, the provision regarding extended hours deregulation. It is disappointing to note that the committee and Members of another place could not come to an agreement on such matters, which remain contentious. As the licensing reform that we all await in this House seems to be ever receding on the horizon, it is even more important that issues such as extended hours deregulation should be quickly settled. However, we welcome the order.
Lord Addington: My Lords, I shall be even briefer than the noble Baroness, who has paved the way for what I have to say. This seems to me to be about an extra certification requirement for doing something that is fairly normal practice in many areas, so its removal is perfectly sensible. I agree with the noble Baroness as regards the idea of reform of licensing hours. Every time that that ship has appeared on the horizon, it seems that we have had to deal with business in other ports, for it disappears very rapidly from view. However, the order is a small step towards that goal. I urge the Minister to encourage people in her department to consider the example of Scotland, where the reform of licensing hours has actually led to much less, not more, bad behaviour.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I am most grateful for the support received for the order. I can tell the noble Baroness and the noble Lord that the bigger reform of the licensing laws is very much on the Government's agenda. Of course, I cannot anticipate when parliamentary time will be made available for the purpose. It would not be right to say that such reform is receding more and more into the distant future—at least I very hope that that will not be the case. I commend to the House this sensible order designed to reduce red tape.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 8.36 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question. Motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended from 7.56 to 8.36 p.m.]

Police Reform Bill [H.L.]
House again in Committee.
Clause 4 [Directions to police authorities]:
Lord Dixon-Smith Lord Dixon-Smith moved Amendment No. 23:
Page 3, line 30, leave out "the whole or any part of"
The noble Lord said: We return to an issue that we have debated for some time: whether this part of the Bill is necessary at all. If Clause 4 does anything, it amends Section 40 of the Police Act 1996, which states:
"The Secretary of State may at any time require the inspectors of constabulary to carry out, for the purposes of this section, an inspection under section 54 of any police force maintained under section 2".
The distinction between the current situation and that pertaining when the 1996 Act was passed is that we have now established the Metropolitan Police Authority and the Metropolitan Police force as a freestanding enterprise. One might have thought that, as those bodies were established on all fours with other authorities, the need to amend Section 40 has not changed. Section 40 continues:
"Where a report made to the Secretary of State … on an inspection carried out for the purposes of this section states

(a) that, in the opinion of the person making the report, the force inspected is not efficient or not effective, or

(b) that in his opinion, unless remedial measures are taken, the force will cease to be efficient or will cease to be effective,

the Secretary of State may direct the police authority responsible for maintaining the force to take such measures as may be specified in the direction".

We are therefore back in the business of debating an additional power. In this case, however, the proposal is to extend power so that a part of a force, as opposed to a whole force, can be inspected. Amendment No. 24 deals with a similar point. Amendments Nos. 23, 24, 25 and 26 all propose word deletions. The real purpose of this group of amendments, however, is to explore the possibility that we are legislating simply for the sake of legislating. The more I think about the matter, the more I believe that the Secretary of State is taking powers unto himself simply for the sake of doing so.
Clause 4, under the heading "Power to give directions to a police authority", states:
"Where a report made to the Secretary of State on an inspection … states, in relation to any police force … or in relation to the metropolitan police force

(a) that, in the opinion of the person making the report, the whole or any part of the force inspected is … not efficient or not effective, or

(b) that, in that person's opinion, the whole or a part of the force will cease to be efficient or effective … unless remedial measures are taken

the Secretary of State may direct the police authority responsible … to take such measures as may be specified in the direction."

I had always understood that the purpose of an inspection was to see whether anything was wrong with the force. I also understood that, if he found fault, the inspector would report the matter not only to the Secretary of State but to the force in question, in the clear expectation that action would be taken to rectify identified faults. The clause says that the Secretary of State "may direct" the police authority, but he does not need to direct the police authority. That is the purpose for which inspections take place.
It seems to me that if this clause has any effect at all it calls into question the efficacy and the purpose of the existing inspectoral system. I do not think that that is
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a valid function as no one, so far as I am aware, has produced any evidence to suggest that the existing inspectoral system is not functioning in the way it should. My limited knowledge—I am prepared to admit that it is limited—is that police forces across the country are responsive to inspectors' reports.
We have tabled this group of amendments which seek to remove various words of the clause as we have considerable doubts with regard to the need for, and validity of, the clause, just as we had, and still have, doubts with regard to the need for, and validity of, Clause 3. We have tabled the amendments to explore the matter in more detail. I look forward to hearing the Committee's, and still more the Minister's, comments. I am singularly unconvinced by the content of this part of the Bill. I beg to move.
8.45 p.m.
Lord Rooker: I hope that I can satisfy the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith. It is important to get the matter on the record but I do not want to be repetitious as some of the points we shall discuss applied to the previous clause and will apply to the following clause. The noble Lord referred to existing powers in Section 40 of the Police Act 1996. Those powers mean that remedial action to correct under-performance can only be required once the whole force is considered to be failing to provide an efficient and effective service—either that or that the whole force is likely to cease to he efficient or effective.
That is an extremely high threshold. It is rather like the nuclear option which tends not to be used. Parts of a force—the basic command units or even particular neighbourhoods of a force area—can show signs of failing to provide the quality of service which their local communities have a right to expect. It is in the interests of providing consistently efficient and effective police services across England and Wales that we want to be able to identify and address localised under-performance as early as possible before the entire force suffers. That gives a degree of flexibility.
I said earlier that one of the greatest concerns of the Home Secretary—this must apply also to chief officers—is the incredible variation in performance across different forces. I give a couple of examples. I refer to burglaries of dwellings figures for 1990, 2000 and 2000–01. The best detection rate for such burglaries was 27.7 per cent; the worst was 5 per cent. That is a large variation. I refer to changes in the crime rate for burglaries of dwellings. The best figure showed a drop of 35 per cent; the worst showed an increase of almost 6 per cent. As I say, incredible variations exist. I am absolutely certain that one single factor will not account for that situation. The Home Secretary ought to be able to initiate targeted inspections.
As I said earlier, the tripartite system will remain as at present where one-third of the system has the money, one-third has the power and the Home Secretary gets all the blame because he stands at the court of public opinion in the House of Commons and is required to respond to all the minutiae of what might be wrong in the constituencies of various Members of

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Parliament. Such matters rarely concern an entire force. I remember just a couple of such cases in the almost three decades I spent in the other place. It is not only disruptive but also expensive for the inspectorate to inspect an entire force where under-performance is clearly confined to a certain geographical area.
I return to the rather long letter on Clauses 4 and 5 I sent to Members of the Committee. I refer to paragraphs 12 and 13. Clause 4 simply re-enacts with modifications existing powers. There is nothing new. We are not inventing the wheel here; it is not a case of oppression on the part of the Home Office. We have made the point repeatedly—it is worth putting on the record—that the intervention (if we can call it that) will only ever be carried out at chief officer level. It is absolutely crucial that chief officers are not undermined.
However, effective services may not be delivered and there may be clear variations between forces of which neighbouring forces are aware. Boundaries do not always run across fields. In some force areas they can also run up the middle of main roads. The Home Secretary is held to account in such situations. We seek a mechanism to enable the Home Secretary to be able to require remedial action to be taken—but not necessarily to lay down what it is—that does not comprise the nuclear option.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He has mentioned my next point two or three times. He put it rather neatly. I believe that he said the power is in the hands of the police authorities, the money is in another place and the blame lumps on the shoulders of the poor old Home Secretary. Is not the problem here that if you go on saying that for long enough, people begin to believe it? The powers of the police authority are laid down under Section 6 of the 1996 Act; those of the chief constable under Section 10 and those of the Home Secretary under, I believe, Section 36. Clearly, the tripartite powers are spread between those three sections. If the Government and the Home Secretary in particular are attacked for matters that are not part of their remit, why on earth do they not say so? They do that often enough in other spheres. Saying, "The public are ignorant of that division of powers", or, "We have not told them", involves wholly unconvincing arguments for the further accretion of Home Office powers.
Lord Rooker: That is because the Home Secretary and I, for that matter, are a bit old fashioned in that respect. Our view is that where there is a success, the whole team gets the credit, and where there is a failure, we take the blame. That is accountability; that is the point. We are not seeking a mechanism that will allow the Home Secretary to go round blaming people; we want one that will bring solutions to problems without massive disruption. Massive disruption is involved in the current arrangement of having to go for a wholesale inspection. With the targeted use of the modification-existing power, we can assist the authority, the chief officer and the local community to
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bring about a solution. We are not looking for a mechanism that involves saying, "Oh no, they are to blame because they have the money and they spent it wrongly, or the chief officer managed the situation incorrectly". We are not in that game.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I have given rather the wrong impression. I was not attacking the Minister's point about examining a specific act of policing; I was getting at the argument that he deployed, I believe, three times in different spheres.
Lord Rooker: That is how my right honourable friend David Blunkett sometimes expresses the matter when he is constantly told that he is wrecking the tripartite system. That is sometimes how it appears. There is a genuinely felt sense that a few more levers would not go amiss in terms of getting targeted work to deal with—this is one of the most disturbing matters—the incredible variation in performance across forces. I have already said that no one would argue that only one reason was involved.
We are therefore introducing a modified power. Indeed, to meet the earlier strictures of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, this is in some ways a nice clear approach. We have removed an old provision and will replace it with new Section 40. One does not have to work out what the modifications are; it involves the whole or any part of the force. The fact that any part of the force is involved is pretty cruciall. I argue that the modifications are minor, but they are incredibly important in a practical sense. They will allow the clause to operate. In the current situation, one would hardly ever use such a power, because it involves the nuclear option. That is the great problem. We do not seek to be onerous. I believe that all sections of the police force, including chief officers and police authorities, support this modified power.
Lord Dholakia: I well understand the Minister's argument but I have a simple question for him. One obviously does not want to disrupt the whole police force on the basis that a particular area of the police has certain weaknesses. How would he reconcile the facts that in the Metropolitan Police a commander may carry out certain functions in relation to a London borough that may not be appropriate according to him or the inspector, yet the decision-making power is wasted in Scotland Yard at the centre? Unless one examines the total police force, one will not take a decision in relation to what is going on in, for example, Lambeth or Southwark.
Lord Rooker: The noble Lord makes my point for me. I freely admit that I do not know London that well. It may be only particular areas—geographical rather than service areas—that need to be inspected. I referred to burglaries from dwellings in that regard. In that context, one would be talking not about the Metropolitan Police as a whole but about that targeted geographical area. That is surely less disruptive to the Metropolitan Police and a damn sight less expensive.

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It also means that one is more likely to take action than if the only alternative is to take such action in relation to the whole of the Metropolitan Police Force.
Lord Elton: Is the Minister actually seeking to persuade us—I should be very interested if he is—that hitherto and up to this point the Home Secretary has never before been able to arrange for a part of a police force to be inspected? I thought that we heard that inspections could already be thematic and specific. It bewilders me why the power is necessary.
Lord Rooker: I do not know the background, but I believe that this is the first time that the Home Secretary has been allowed to require the inspection to be done in that targeted fashion. That may have taken place at the choice of—probably—the inspectorate. I do not know the answer to the noble Lord's question. My briefings suggest that requiring the inspectorate to carry out targeted inspections is a new power.
Lord Elton: The Minister makes my point for me. The Secretary of State has always been able to ask for that to be done, and it always has been done. What he currently does will be done with the force of law because he expects the inspectorate to disobey him if he makes a request. Have relations between the inspectorate and the Home Secretary deteriorated to the extent that it has to be judged to be criminally incompetent if it does not do what it is asked to do? What has changed to make the proposal necessary?
Lord Rooker: What has changed is that we are putting a package together for overall police reform to address our national problems, as identified in the White Paper. The Bill should not be a surprise; the issues were raised in some detail in the White Paper. The noble Lord says that in the past there have been co-operation and inquiries—some were targeted and some were more widespread. I am not sure about this and I have to be careful; such inquiries were probably not done in a targeted managed fashion in order to address the variations. I do not return to the 1996 legislation because these changes obviously transcend that. In relation to the measurement of performance and variations, access to such information was not then available; the information was not collected. We must appreciate that things have changed, particularly during the past decade.
Lord Bradshaw: I do not think that the Minister was present during our debate on the previous clause.
Lord Rooker: I heard about it.
Lord Bradshaw: Yes, the Minister has heard all about it. None the less, there are now BCU inspections of particular, discrete geographical areas. There are thematic inspections and one-day inspections, in which inspectors come in and take a snapshot of the force. All of that is done because the inspectorate targets it through best value performance indicators
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and other approaches with which it is closely involved. It should be able to pick out the weak spots in the force to direct its efforts to that area. I admit that some areas perform better than others. We are all charged in police authorities with getting resources in place and improving performance. However, I do not believe that these powers are necessary because I am sure that within the Home Office there are mechanisms for directing the inspectorate to the places that really matter.
Lord Waddington: I find it very difficult to make up my mind about the amendments without understanding the purpose and scope of the last few lines of the provision. It states:
"the Secretary of State may direct the police authority responsible for maintaining that force to take such measures as may be specified in the direction".
I know that this foreshadows amendments to come, but I should like guidance here and now about the scope of that provision. For example, can it include requiring the police authority or chief officer responsible to recruit a given number of community support officers? That is surely absolutely crucial. The words in that provision are wide enough to allow that to happen.
I believe that we know that only in the Metropolitan Police has there been any great support for the idea of having community support officers, and there is little support throughout the rest of the country. No doubt on plenty of occasions we shall hear the Minister say that we have nothing to worry about because in the provinces no one need recruit community support officers unless they want them. Under the terms of the Bill a chief officer certainly cannot be required to recruit community support officers.
However, I wonder how that can be reconciled with the plain wording of the last sentence or so of Clause 4. Read literally, that would seem to suggest that the Secretary of State could direct a police authority to get cracking and ensure that at least one-third of its force comprised community support officers.
9 p.m.
Lord Rooker: I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, that that is not the case. There are no such powers in the Bill. The Home Secretary would not seek in any way, shape or form to order any force to make up a proportion of its members according to gender, ethnicity or whatever else. That is a management power of the chief officer, not of the Home Secretary. I was intending to respond further but I gather that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, wants to intervene.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: I want to raise one point. I know that Amendment No. 28 is grouped separately, but, for my part, I should find it helpful if the noble Lord could give a hint or indication of how he would respond to it. If it were incorporated into the clause, it would set at rest the anxieties which have just been expressed by my noble friend Lord Waddington. It would provide at the end of line 38, page 3, of the Bill

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that the Secretary of State could direct the police authority only to take such measures as would, in the opinion of the person making the report, be necessary. That would narrow the field considerably, and I should have thought that it would do for the Government everything that they apparently see as necessary now. I do not want to anticipate that amendment, but if the noble Lord could give an indication of his response to that point it would be helpful to me.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: The words which the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, has been talking about and to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew of Twysden. has just referred are in the existing Section 40 in precisely the same language. The point that I wish to make, if I may be so bold, is that the 1996 Act went a very long way in the direction of Home Office control. That is why, frankly, we on these Benches need to be convinced beyond peradventure that any further powers are absolutely necessary and required by solid evidence.
Lord Rooker: Perhaps I may briefly jump the gun to one of the bullet points that my noble friend will probably use in responding to Amendment No. 28. We want to be in a position where the Home Secretary can go beyond the scope of the recommendations from the Inspector of Constabulary. That would allow him to take advice from other bodies, such as the Association of Police Authorities, the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Audit Commission and the Police Standards Unit. He may disagree with the constabulary report for some reason and, therefore, it is a question relating to the person who would be accountable. The Home Secretary may want to go beyond the advice in an inspector's report because the Audit Commission and the Police Standards Unit are carrying out the functions and will report to the Home Secretary.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: This is becoming a little more serious because, under the provisions of the clause, the inspectorate is called upon to make the report as to whether or not the force in whole or in part will cease to be efficient or effective. Are matters now to be extended so that the Secretary of State can go far and wide and ask all kinds of other people who may have other matters in mind? If we are to have the mandatory provision, it should be limited to matters which are recommended by the inspector; otherwise—this is what I fear and I derive some support for this from what the Minister said earlier—we shall have the Secretary of State using the power to secure uniformity.
The noble Lord pointed out how certain forces have certain rates of success and other forces have others. In part, that derives from the exercise of democratic control in, for example, a particular county which has more attention paid to one facet of police activity than another. Therefore, if the Secretary of State is seeking to use the power in order to achieve uniformity, I believe that he is going much too far.
Lord Rooker: I disagree fundamentally with the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, in relation to democratic control. He speaks as though it is up to the population which, he suggests, may get the police force that it deserves. In other words, if there are incredible variations between, say, neighbouring police forces which police the same make-up of population, then are we to say, "Well, that's tough;" to the population—to the council tax payers—"that is democratic control. You pays your money and takes your choice"?
We are not talking about local government services here; this is policing. There may be large variations but no one is arguing about uniform procedures. As we have said, we are not looking to create a national police force. We are not looking for what I might almost describe as "military precision" figures. We are not saying that every police force is the same on every indicator at which we look. There are incredible variations. One relates to violence against the person. The best change in the crime rate is minus 25 per cent; the worst change is plus 48 per cent. That represents an incredible variation between two forces. Those figures come from a survey of 30 comparable forces in urban areas.
Therefore, I do not accept that we must put the variations down to democratic control and that the public must simply lump it. Councillors from those areas will ask questions of their local authority and Members of Parliament will ask quest ions in the other place of the Home Secretary, who will be in a position to say, "I am sorry, there is nothing that I can do about it. This is part of democratic control". That is a totally unacceptable position and one in which the Home Secretary is not prepared to place himself. He wants to be able to make a change or pull the levers to make a change. I hope that I can assist Members of the Committee. We shall deal with Amendment No. 28 in more detail in due course.
Returning to the letter that I wrote, the point in paragraphs 12 and 13 is not unimportant. By their nature, these mechanisms for addressing under-performance are almost last-resort efforts because other things will have happened beforehand. By definition, if existing performance management and monitoring systems have failed to deliver essential improvements, and if other efforts have been tried and have failed, the Home Secretary needs to have an ability to intervene to require action to be taken to address the under-performance.
We have already said, as the White Paper states, that we shall agree a protocol with the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Police Authorities that will establish agreed procedures for the operation of this process. That brings in some safeguards—I say that in a positive sense rather than a negative one—to ensure that the shortcomings that are manifest in a force are addressed under the umbrella of the tripartite arrangement, so that ACPO and the APA are involved. Therefore, the Home Secretary is not on his own, pulling a lever, irrespective of what other people say.

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We shall agree a protocol for the use of these powers. When the variations are so large, I do not believe that we can simply say, "Sorry, tough, it is a democratic process; the country is not all the same; and you have to put up with it". To the best of my knowledge, we do not have a target for bringing them into a narrow band. Variations as great as we have are quite unacceptable and beyond existing management techniques. Therefore, some new techniques have to be tried.
Lord Dholakia: Perhaps I can ask the Minister to reflect on what he said. I believe that he said that the Minister may go beyond what the inspectors have recommended. That causes us considerable concern. Not only is it a matter of ignoring, or supplementing what the inspectors have reported, but decisions of that nature could often be political. I believe that there is a danger of the Home Office interfering, to that extent, beyond the measure. I hope that the Minister did not mean that.
Lord Borrie: I believe that those on the Liberal Democrat Benches and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, have gone too far in their criticism of this clause. As I understand it, the Minister's power to give directions, which is the subject of the clause, is dependent on the inspectors having made a finding, either in full or in part, in relation to the force that it is inefficient or ineffective. If that is the limitation, which is clearly in the clause on the Home Secretary's powers, as it stands, surely it makes some sense to say that before the Home Secretary makes the directions he may want to take into account matters other than what the inspectors have said. But it is their basic finding of inefficiency or ineffectiveness that is essential before the Minister can make directions at all. That appears to me quite appropriate.
Lord Elton: Perhaps I may draw the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, to the first line of Clause 5(1):
"The section applies where the Secretary of State (whether in consequence of a report under section 54 or otherwise) is satisfied".
I am afraid that his argument is torpedoed by the words "whether … or otherwise".
9.15 p.m.
Lord Dixon-Smith: I did not believe that we had arrived at the words "or otherwise" yet. I have a margin of sympathy with the Minister. I believe that we are in danger of becoming very hard on him, although with considerable good reason. Why I have a margin of sympathy concerns the development of computers, computer technology, computer information and, in this regard, computer management information, which increasingly is providing more and more detailed management information that simply did not exist five or 10 years ago.
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The Government's approach to the increasing development of knowledge—very useful knowledge—is that there appears to be a presumption in the way that the Bill is drafted that the local managers—in other words, the chief constable and his senior officers—who cannot take any pleasure in having a force at the bottom of the performance league, are to do nothing about it unless the Secretary of State orders a special inspection. What are we talking about? People are paid high salaries for their great experience and their great knowledge, particularly of local circumstances. They know the men; they know details of the community; they have all the information. Are we saying that they will sit on their hands and do nothing? The idea is inconceivable.
I know that the Minister said that if nothing happens then the Secretary of State needs a reserve power. But the Secretary of State has enormous powers of influence. He does not need this power to get something to happen locally. He can talk to his inspectors. He can talk to the police authority. He can talk to the chief constable. That is how things happened in the past when everything was not as it should be. It always produced results.
A different problem arises in this regard, and it is one we must face; that is, as we obtain this additional information and as forces, as they will, act on it and improve their performance, there will still always be forces that could be held to be under-performing. There always has to be a bottom quartile. One of the most futile targets I saw produced—I cannot remember by which government department—was one where it was said that the performance of the bottom quartile would be raised so that it matched the performance of the top quartile. Think about it! It might conceivably have been done, but all it would have achieved was to put the third quartile into the business of being the bottom quartile and I am not sure that that would have pleased anybody.
We need to be extremely careful when we pursue statistical norms. Over the years I have had to work with the Audit Commission on performance reports and so forth, as have many other Members of the Committee. We should not deny—I would not wish to—the immense utility of inspection and reporting systems, the Audit Commission reports and so forth. They are great tools for providing incentives to people on the ground to improve their performance. And they work. But to find in the psychology of the Bill the feeling that only the Secretary of State can make them work is infinitely depressing.
Once again we have had a long and interesting debate—I have taken more notes on this debate than on anything else we have tabled this evening. Both sides of the Committee need to think carefully about this issue. The amendments concern points of detail. But we are back in the business of deciding whether or not this Bill is necessary. There are ways for the Secretary of State to achieve everything he wants to achieve without this legislation. The powers already exist. They existed without the 1996 Act which, as the

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noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, said, in the opinion of some Members went too far, but I do not want to get into a debate about that.
Water has gone under the bridge. We need to recognise that. The question is whether we need to pour any more water after it. I do not believe that we do. At this stage I am prepared to withdraw the amendment so that we can all take a shower, cool off and think about the subject. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 24 to 26 not moved.]
Lord Bradshaw Lord Bradshaw moved Amendment No. 27:
Page 3, line 36, after "may" insert, "after consulting the police authority responsible for maintaining that force about the remedial measures needed."
The noble Lord said: The amendment relates to the last phrase of Clause 4, to NCIS and to the other police bodies. It takes effect only if we decide to have the inspections. If an inspection takes place, the amendment seeks that the police authority or the authority of the service concerned will be consulted about the remedial measures proposed.
When an inspection is made it is usual for the report to be seen in draft before it is finalised. I am quite sure that these one-day BCU inspections go through the same process, so that the report comes as no surprise when it is printed in final form and delivered to the officers concerned. In most cases the officers of the authority will have already taken measures to deal with any matters required to be dealt with. The police authority will have ensured that those matters have been followed up. Therefore, by the time they reach the Home Secretary the matters requiring attention would have received it.
I move the amendment on the assumption that the inspections take place and that the rest of Clause 4 is enacted. I share the view expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, that the inspections are unnecessary because the mechanism to require them already exists by simply requesting the inspectors, without force of legislation, to carry out whatever the Home Secretary wishes. I beg to move.
Lord Renton: Although the noble Lord undoubtedly has a brief point of substance in his favour, I hope that he will not mind my pointing out that, if the amendment is accepted, the same phrase would be repeated twice in the clause as it would then become. Indeed there would be two references, one after the other, to,
"the police authority responsible for maintaining that force".
We really cannot have overlapping and tautology of that kind.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: I agree with the point well made by my noble friend Lord Renton.
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I am grateful to the noble Lord for moving the amendment. It reminded me of my total failure to table an amendment to leave out altogether lines 36 to 38 in Clause 4. They state that,
"the Secretary of State may direct the police authority responsible for maintaining that force to take such measures as may be specified in the direction".
That is a fairly open menu of powers and opportunities for the Home Secretary.
I heard with some relief just now the noble Lord use these words. He said, "We are not looking for a national police force". That is exactly the reassurance that we on this side of the Committee need. However, when we see such words in the Bill which give fairly well carte blanche to the Home Secretary to direct the police authority, it revives our anxieties, even in the face of that friendly and welcome reassurance.
Perhaps I may encourage the Minister to go a little further so that he can relax us again, remove the tensions and the fear that—whether the Home Secretary intends it or not does not matter—this is leading in the direction of more centralisation, and with that centralisation comes, most naturally, detailed control over the whole police force in the country. These words represent to me quite an obstacle for the noble Lord to jump over. I hope that lie will.
Lord Rooker: I look forward with interest, before I go home tonight, to nipping into the Library to read Hansard on the Police Bill of 1996 to see what the noble Lord, Lord Peyton of Yeovil, said about the words, which are the same as in the 1996 Act. The words that he has identified at the end of the clause are not new; we are not introducing a modification.
That was a cheap little jibe at the noble Lord, for which I apologise profoundly. I shall give way to him.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: I assure the noble Lord that had I been sufficiently alert—which I can never guarantee—in 1996, I should have said exactly the same thing, no matter where in this House I was sitting.
Lord Rooker: Perhaps I may continue, because I want to help the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. Basically, I want to take his amendments away to consider them and return with proposals on Report. Is that okay? I do not want to repeat our debate, but I am not unsympathetic to the noble Lord's point. It would be tautologous to continue and I shall return to the matter on report.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Before the Minister sits down, perhaps I may give him a little jibe in return. I have read the Second Reading debate on the 1996 Bill, and I hope that he will take note of what some of his Labour colleagues said then about the unnecessary accretion of power to the Home Office.
Lord Bradshaw: I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Dixon-Smith Lord Dixon-Smith moved Amendment No. 28:
Page 3, line 38, at end insert "and which, in the opinion of the person making the report, are necessary"
The noble Lord said: The amendment, which nearly got dragged into an earlier discussion, adds a few words to the end of the clause somewhat to focus the Secretary of State's power of direction. The clause states:
"Where a report made to the Secretary of State on an inspection … states, in relation to any police force … that, in the opinion of the person making the report … the whole or a part of the force will cease to be efficient or effective … unless remedial measures are taken … the Secretary of State may direct the police authority responsible … to take such measures as may be specified in the direction".
Of course, the question is whether or not that is already sufficiently qualified. Because we have some doubt about that, being naturally suspicious legislators, or suspicious of legislators—anyone who has been involved in local government legislation, as I have been for many years, has every right to be suspicious of it—our amendment would add a few words. Under our amendment, the clause would read:
"the Secretary of State may direct the police authority responsible for maintaining that force to take such measures as may be specified in the direction, as, in the opinion of the person making the report, are necessary".
In other words, if the Secretary of State feels that he must make a direction, it must be a consequence of the report, not a freewheeling direction, as we otherwise suspect that it might be.
That may in some ways seem to be small beer, and, as I said, there is a question whether the clause is already sufficiently qualified. I look forward to hearing the Minister's response. We still question whether the provision is necessary. We know that we are in the business of management information, which will continue to develop. I dare say that if we go far enough, we shall be able to find under-performing constables before too long. Heaven forbid what the Secretary of State will do with them. But we are not there yet; Utopia has not arrived. I must say that I am immensely relieved that it has not, as we all should be. Heaven help us, we might even get to the point at which we start to talk about under-performing Peers. Then we shall be in serious difficulty.
Although I jest, there is a serious point to all of this, which is to make sure that if the Secretary of State is going to do something by way of direction, that direction should be properly focused on the matters that have been drawn to his attention as being—I will not say "flawed"—possibly deficient. It is a sensible amendment, and I hope that the Minister will find it in his heart to treat it with some sympathy. I beg to move.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: The Minister might find it not only in his heart but in his head to accept the amendment. It lets him off the hook of repeated criticism of a kind that he has dealt with goodtemperedly today.
The question of whether the lines are new to this Bill or are derived from the 1996 Bill is beside the point. It is highly questionable whether we should ever legislate
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to give an unfettered power of direction to the Secretary of State. The power is not fettered by anything else in the clause or elsewhere in the Bill.
The scheme of the Bill puts a great deal of weight on Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary. Rightly, the inspectors are appointed by Her Majesty on the recommendation of the Home Secretary, and they are, without exception, highly experienced and distinguished police officers. The scheme of the Bill, under Clause 3, is to allow the Secretary of State to require the inspectors to carry out an inspection. When they do that, Clause 4 allows the Secretary of State to,
"direct the police authority responsible for maintaining that force to take such measures as may be specified in the direction"
once the report has concluded that the force is inefficient or ineffective or will be unless certain measures are taken. The weight is placed on the unique status and standing of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary.
All that the amendment asks is that such direction as the Secretary of State consequentially makes shall be made in conformity with the opinion of the inspector making the report. That is a thoroughly reasonable requirement. It derives from the whole purpose of this part of the Bill. The power to make a direction is triggered by the receipt of a critical report. Why should not the power to make the direction be fettered in the way that the amendment stipulates? It is an answer to all the Secretary of State's difficulties, with which the Minister has striven carefully to deal, and I hope that the noble Lord will find it in his head, as well as his heart, to accept the amendment.
Lord Borrie: The noble and learned Lord is, of course, correct in his interpretation of Clause 4. However, as I ventured to say earlier, the ability of the Secretary of State to make directions is solely dependent on there having been a report as to ineffectiveness or inefficiency. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, was not correct when he challenged me for saying that a short while ago.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, said that not only should the power to make directions be limited and fettered by there having to be an inspector's report on inefficiency or ineffectiveness in the whole or in part of the police force, but that it should be further fettered as to the precise nature of the directions. It seems to me that that goes a stage too far. It would be inappropriate that, beyond the powers of the inspectors to determine the facts as to inefficiency or ineffectiveness, they should also have an ability to veto the precise measures that, in accordance with broad government policy and Home Office policy, should follow on that support. I repeat, that seems to be a stage too far and thus the amendment is not one that we ought to accept.
Lord Waddington: The Minister gave me a most helpful assurance a short time ago. I commented on the extremely wide power contained in Clause 4 and received from him an assurance that it was certainly not the intention of the Secretary of State to use that power to require a police authority to tell a chief officer

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that he had to recruit a given number of community support officers or to have as community support officers a given proportion of his force. That of course raises an important point which was mentioned earlier in the debate.
We should legislate not only for the present Home Secretary; we must pass good legislation which would not allow any future Home Secretary to have wider powers than are proper in all the circumstances. Does the Minister agree that, although his assurance is most encouraging and I am grateful for it, I must be right to say that the wording of the last few lines of Clause 4 is so wide that in fact it would allow a future Secretary of State to require a police authority to tell a chief officer of police that he had to recruit community support officers? I should like the Minister to agree with me that, given the wording, that must be the case. If it be so, surely we should introduce an amendment, not necessarily incorporating the precise wording used in Amendment No. 28, which would prevent any future Home Secretary from using the power to do that which I certainly think would be quite improper.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: Before my noble friend sits down, does he not agree that the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, is not entirely valid? That is because the wording used in Amendment 28 states,
"in the opinion of the person making the report, are necessary",
which it is clear means that which is necessary in order to fulfil or to rectify that which he has found to be defective? It is not a question of veto; rather the Bill would then require the Secretary of State to rely on the opinion of HMIC in this regard, as he would under the triggering mechanism already contained in the Bill.
Lord Waddington: My noble and learned friend asked me to comment before I resumed my seat, but I would not dream of contradicting him.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: I have found this to be an illuminating and helpful discussion. I am sure that when we come to study Hansard, we shall find it useful in directing us around this important part of the legislation.
The analysis of my noble friend Lord Borrie most closely reflects the Government's position. The clause seeks to be helpful by trying to retain a measure of flexibility. If we were to accept the amendment as it is, we would take out that flexibility. Perhaps a restriction of that flexibility is what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew of Twysden, wants to achieve. That is fine and that is how we understand the thrust of the amendment.
One or two other points need to be put on the record. The Secretary of State is not obliged to issue directions to a police authority where an HMIC report finds problems. He may use his judgment if he disagrees with HMIC for some reason, or if the problem that the HMIC report has quite properly identified can be fixed by less formal measures.
The Home Secretary is the person who will be held accountable by Parliament and the public for the performance of the police service. It is surely right that
1620
he should be able to exercise some judgment as an accountable person. As the elected representative appointed as the Minister responsible for the police service, it would be unusual if he was bound always to take action simply on the basis of HM IC findings.
If the flexibility required to put right a particular problem is not there, it will severely hamper any future Home Secretary's discretion—it will be fettered beyond peradventure—if he cannot use other means, other sources of information and other approaches to put right something identified as being less than effective.
Our argument is that if we are restricted only to the recommendations made by HMIC, we may well be missing a trick. It may be in extreinis that we need to go beyond the HMIC recommendations, but there will be useful advice available. No doubt mature reflection will have been given to a problem by other organisations. ACPO is a reputable source of advice on all matters to do with the police service; surely it is important that we should take time to reflect on the views of the Association of Police A uthorities—the Home Secretary may well want to do that—and the Audit Commission is a highly reputable body. Many Members of the Committee will have had contact with the Audit Commission and local government. The noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, has had hands-on experience and knows very well the quality and weight of their advice. It is surely proper that the Home Secretary may want to reflect on what such organisations may say about an evident failure which has been properly identified in an HMIC report.
The Home Secretary may wish to take advice from the standards unit and other bodies in the police field. He may wish to take soundings from the Police Federation and the Police Superintendents' Association and weigh very carefully what they have to say before he gives careful consideration to HMIC recommendations and decides to issue directions. We need that kind of flexibility. If we do not have it, we will be ruling out other valuable sources of advice and reflection before a view is finally formed.
Before any of this can come into full effect, protocols will have to be hammered out and agreed with ACPO and the APA. There will be an understandable and transparent process.
I understand the strength of the amendment and some of the suspicion—there is always some suspicion of the Home Office, which is given full voice in your Lordships' House from time to time—but we are trying to improve the quality of the service and to make sure that it is effective. Where there have been failures and those failures have been properly identified, we want the Secretary of State to have some flexibility before he issues directions based simply on an HMIC report.
I hope that your Lordships' will reflect on those points before coming to a final view on this issue—perhaps not this evening but at some later stage. They are important considerations and I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Before the Minister sits down, perhaps I may ask a question which I hope will help the Committee. The debate has got a little confused in that the existing Section 40 of the 1996 Act overlaps with 95 per cent of the clause in the Bill. I do not expect an instant reply. In winding up this part of the debate, the Minister spoke about the Home Secretary needing flexibility and needing the right to look at other sources of information, such as the Audit Commission and so on. But surely all of that prevails and is the case now under Section 40. If it is not, we have a problem.
9.45 p.m.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: To try to add clarification, I think that that is probably the case where we are looking at a whole force inspection. But it is perhaps not the case where we are looking at a part—we may be looking at a BCU or at a particular function in the policing service in a particular police area. That is the important point to reflect on. I shall not quibble about the percentage.
Lord Dixon-Smith: To have flexibility, or not to have flexibility? The problem is that the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, appears to have missed a word in the drafting of the Bill. If he looks at line 36 on page 3 he will see that the Secretary of State "may" direct the police authority to take such measures. He does not have to; he "may" do so. That introduces the discretion before we start. Presumably
Lord Bassam of Brighton: Will the noble Lord give way? At the outset I underlined the use of the word "may". It is crucial. It is an important consideration. The Secretary of State will not have to; he "may". That is the core of the argument.
Lord Dixon-Smith: If that is the core of the argument, it gives the Secretary of State the power to consult whomsoever he pleases before exercising the power that he already has. The amendment does not restrict the Secretary of State unreasonably. The Secretary of State is already engaged in an optional process. My suspicion is that in 99 cases out of 100—probably in 101 cases out of 100—when a situation arises where the Secretary of State feels that some action is necessary he will use the existing machinery and will not need to use the powers in this Bill.
Lord Dholakia: Perhaps I can help the noble Lord. No Home Secretary has ever used the power already vested in him under the 1996 Act. All this seems to be a red herring.
Lord Dixon-Smith: I must admit, as I was a Member of this place when the 1996 legislation completed its passage—although in those days I was not particularly interested in Home Office matters—to a sense of collective guilt about it. There is nothing I can do about that. If those powers have not been exercised under the existing legislation, that calls into question the need to stiffen up the powers under this Bill.
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I believe that this small amendment, which has caused more than 20 minutes of interesting debate, has been worthwhile. There is little more to be said now. There is a clear difference of view which, on another occasion, one might feel inclined to do something about. I do not believe that the restriction in the amendment is unreasonable. It would maintain the proper focus on the management of these matters and it would tighten up the whole system rather than loosen it.
It is not a question of restricting the power of the Secretary of State. We are talking about making the totality of the system work well and maintaining a proper focus on the issues that matter. Not least among the difficulties is the fact that, if one starts permitting too many unqualified powers, one begins to lose that focus.
I have never yet seen an Audit Commission report on the efficiency and effectiveness of a Home Secretary. I have an awful feeling that, were we ever to see such a report, it might prove very revealing. With that rather anarchistic thought, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Harris of Haringey Lord Harris of Haringey moved Amendment No. 29:
Page 3, line 38, at end insert—

"(2) A direction under this section may require a police authority to require the chief officer of police of the police force to prepare and submit to that authority a plan ("an action plan") for taking remedial measures in relation to the matters identified in an inspection report mentioned in subsection (1).

(3) The provision which a police authority may require to be included in an action plan shall include—

(a) the steps it is proposed to take to remedy the matters identified in the inspection report mentioned in subsection (1) and the proposed performance targets to be aimed at in relation to those matters;

(b) the time limits to be applied to the taking of those steps and to the meeting of those targets;

(c) provision for the making of progress reports on the implementation of the plan to the police authority in such a manner and at such times as may be specified by the authority; and

(d) provision for the duration of the plan and for it to cease to apply in the circumstances determined by the police authority, with the approval of the Secretary of State.

(4) An action plan shall not relate to any matters other than those in relation to which functions fall to be discharged by the chief officer of police of the force in question.

(5) Before approving the action plan, the police authority may, after consultation with the chief officer, revise or amend it.

(6) The police authority shall forward a copy of the action plan to the Secretary of State and may further amend or revise the plan in the light of any representations made to it by the Secretary of State.

(7) Nothing in this section shall authorise the Secretary of State to direct, or the police authority to require, the inclusion in an action plan of any requirement to do, or not to do anything in a particular case identified for the purposes of the requirement, or in relation to a particular person so identified.

(8) A chief officer of police of any police force shall comply with any requirement made of him by the police authority maintaining that force in response to a direction of the Secretary of State made under this section."

The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 29 seeks to remove the need for Clause 5 by amending Clause 4. Clause 5 gives the Home Secretary the power to direct chief officers where a force, or part of it, is deemed to be failing. When we spend more time on Clause 5, no doubt we shall find that it is a controversial area.
The amendment seeks to build on the existing powers of the Home Secretary to give directions to police authorities under Section 40 of the Police Act 1996. It incorporates much of the content of Clause 5 while retaining local accountability for policing through the police authority, therefore making the direction one which passes through the police authority rather than directly to the chief officer.
We have spent a considerable time discussing this issue. It is clear that the Home Secretary is anxious to strengthen his capacity to act where a force or a basic command unit is deemed, whether by H M Inspectorate or the new police standards unit, to be failing. We in London have heard over recent weeks, by means of front page articles in the Evening Standard, how my right honourable friend the Home Secretary might see fit to use those new intervention powers. There was subsequent denial: it was all a misquotation.
It is important for us to reflect that there has been little mention of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia: that the extensive powers already available to the Home Secretary under Section 40 of the Police Act have not been used. Those powers empower him to direct a local police authority to take remedial action if he believes that things are going wrong. In one way or another, those powers have been available since 1964 but I believe that no Home Secretary has ever felt it necessary to use them. Some of the debate may have been a bit of froth about nothing.
Clause 4 updates the powers in Section 40 to cover parts of forces- in other words, basic command units—as well as the force as a whole. I have no difficulty with that. It seems a more flexible and sensible instrument rather than the blunderbuss approach which might have been applied against an entire force area. However, it is not yet clear to me why the powers available to the Home Secretary set out in Clause 4 are considered insufficient, or why we need the more far-reaching powers in Clause 5 which would result in the Home Secretary by-passing the local police authority to intervene directly in forces.
I have listened carefully to a number of statements in recent weeks in which the Government have said how much they value police authorities' role in providing local accountability for policing. We have been told that police authorities, such as my own, will be actively engaged before these powers are used and that protocols will be drawn up to ensure that they are used temperately. Those assurances are welcome. I have no doubt that the present Government would abide by them. But let us remember that no such assurances can hind future governments. The noble Lord, Lord Waddington, has spoken several times today on that
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point. We can be clear that no such assurances could bind a future malevolent Home Secretary, if one can contemplate such an awesome prospect.
Police authorities are responsible for managing and monitoring local police performances. They must answer to their communities for the policing services provided. So at the heart of the amendment is this question: why do the Government need to intervene directly in forces rather than work with and through local police authorities? If police authorities do not have the powers contained in Clause 5 to intervene and make directions, the proposed amendment would provide them with the powers if it followed a direction from the Home Secretary.
My amendment to Clause 4 would replicate much of what is proposed in Clause 5 but it would avoid the need to micro-manage problems by imposing targets and timescales and scrutinising action plans in a local policing area, which I understand my right honourable friend the Home Secretary is seeking 1:o avoid. Instead, that would he the responsibility of the local police authority.
The purpose of the amendment is to recognise the respective national and local accountability of the Home Secretary and the police authority by providing for the Home Secretary to work through and with the local police authority. It would do nothing to undermine the objectives that Ministers have outlined today. It would give the Home Secretary a mechanism by which he could intervene when he felt it necessary, given his national responsibilities. It would do nothing to undermine that. Nor would it in any way undermine the need for specificity in focusing on basic command units or particular functions within a force. However, the amendment recognises that it is primarily for the police authority to tackle the problems identified and work with the chief officer to put in place an action plan to remedy matters in a way that reflects the needs of local communities.
The amendment would also ensure that the Home Secretary, working through the police authority, was able to input his views about the action that he thought needed to be taken to remedy any deficiencies in performance.
As I have said, my amendment relates to Clause 4, but it would obviate the need for Clause 5. All of your Lordships agree on the need to preserve and strengthen the tripartite relationship and the shared responsibility and accountability for policing between the Home Secretary, the local police authority and the chief officer. The aim of the amendment is to ensure that if remedial action needs to be taken in any force or BCU, it is done in a way that reflects local community needs and enhances rather than undermines that tripartite relationship. I beg to move.
Lord Dixon-Smith: I have a large number of amendments in this interesting group, including Amendments Nos. 36, 37, 43, 45, 102, 103, 122 and 123. Those are all amendments to Clause 5. I defer to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, whose well

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constructed amendment to Clause 4 would obviate the need for Clause 5. If his amendment were accepted, my amendments would inevitably become redundant.
The amendments in the group are all directed at retaining and ensuring the continuation of the tripartite constitutional arrangement. We rather like the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, and it is tempting to say that if the Bill had been drafted in that way, although no doubt we would have thought of some amendments to test the Government's thinking, we would not have been as concerned about it as we are by the drafting of Clause 5.
The power to give directions causes concern and we are right to worry about it. It is an awkward conjunction. The clause gives powers to give directions to chief officers, completely bypassing the police authority. As drafted, that provision is unsatisfactory. We have a series of detailed amendments that would go some way towards rectifying that situation by bringing the police authority back into consideration, which is only right.
It is an interesting group of amendments. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, on his amendment. Some concern about the content of this legislation might have relieved if the Bill had been drafted in that way in the first place. Sadly, for both of us, it was not.
10 p.m.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: Perhaps I may ask the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, a question that does not arise from any lack of sympathy on my part with what he has drafted. I recall a situation that arose in Derbyshire some 10 years ago. The police authority in that area was very Left-wing, and was determined not to allow the chief constable the funds that he needed in order to maintain an efficient and effective police force. In those circumstances, there would have been no use requiring the Home Secretary to deal with the police authority because it was the source of the trouble. Can the noble Lord say how the Home Secretary would handle such a situation in the event of Amendment No. 29 being enacted?
Lord Harris of Haringey: I am not quite sure whether it is procedurally correct for me to respond under these circumstances; so, "Before the noble Lord sits down".
As I understand it, Clause 4 re-enacts the existing power of Secretaries of State to give directions to a police authority. I do not know the origins of the 1996 legislation, or whether it followed on from the folk memory of the traumas that arose with the Derbyshire police authority of that time and was a consequence thereof. However, I suspect that the power of the Home Secretary to give directions to police authorities was designed precisely to avoid the sort of situation referred to by the noble and learned Lord.
Lord Dixon-Smith: Perhaps I may assist my noble and learned friend. The margin heading of Section 41
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of the Police Act 1996 refers to "Directions as to minimum budget". I had a fair feeling that that wording existed. Subsection (1) states:
"The power of the Secretary of State to give directions under section 40 to a police authority … include[s] power to direct the authority that the amount of its budget requirement for any financial year … shall not be less than an amount specified in the direction".
Therefore, my noble and learned friend's specific concern on that issue is already covered within existing legislation.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: I wish to speak to Amendments Nos. 38, 40, 42, 49, 56, 97, 100, 101, 105. 108, 117, 120, 125 and 128. This does seem to be a rather bulky form of grouping, comprising, as it does, 28 amendments. It is made more complex by the fact that several of those amendments relate to Clause 5 with which we have yet to deal, while the remainder relate to Schedule I and the powers of the Secretary of State in relation NCIS and NCS. However, I shall be brief.
In so far as amendments relate to Clause 5, it would be better for us to deal with them in relation to the Question whether that clause should stand part of the Bill. As has been indicated both on Second Reading and during the course of today's discussions, we have fundamental root-and-branch objections to Clause 5. The amendments in this group seek to interpose between the Secretary of State and the police authority. Similarly, the amendments to the first schedule have the same aim, except that they would interpose between the two authorities to which the schedule relates.
Noble Lords on these Benches rather warm to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Harris. Rather than continue at this time of night-1 shall not say "bore" the Committee—I shall conclude my remarks on that note.
Lord Bradshaw: I, too, support the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Harris. I also remember that police authorities have a large independent membership—they are not all councillors—who are all reasonably well remunerated since provision for police authorities' expenses came into effect. We are therefore dealing not with part-time amateurs but with professionals.
Lord Elton: I am responsible for only three small amendments in this group. Although they all strike in Clause 5, which we have not yet reached, they share common ground with the concerns that all noble Lords have expressed about the tripartite arrangement. I prefer to express the issue rather differently. In Clause 5, we find the chief officer of police of an authority eyeball to eyeball with the Secretary of State backed by HMI and the Home Office. It seems to me that when the Secretary of State is handing down to the chief constable the plan of action that he should take, the chief constable should be protected by his authority at least in relation to how long he has to provide the remedy.

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Although it is, I suppose, only gesture politics, the Secretary of State could demand very complicated and difficult action, and he may demand that it be taken unreasonably quickly. It seems to me that those who will know best whether the time allowed is unreasonably short are those at the police authority under whom the chief police officer serves. I am simply highlighting an issue to which we may return.
Lord Rooker: If I may, I shall do a deal with noble Lords. I shall start at the end rather than the beginning and agree to consider—by which I mean take it away and come back to it—the possibility of consulting the police authority and the chief police officer before making directions. I wanted to get that out of the way. As noble Lords know, when we come to Clause 5, we shall simply make the same speeches, and that does not make much sense.
In moving Amendment No. 29, my noble friend Lord Harris has done the House a service by enabling us to debate some of the issues in the legislation, rather than simply to consider the Bill line by line. Some issues need to be debated, and we can tidy up the loose ends on Report. In speaking to the amendment, it might also be useful if I used some of the background, non-speaking parts of my notes, as they sometimes have a bit more meat. I have found them useful when serving as a Minister in other departments, although I carry the can if I misuse them. I shall use them also because I am trying to win hearts and minds in relation to my noble friend's amendment, which has won widespread support for the way in which it addresses the issue.
I cannot, however, use some arguments—such as that the police authority should not be directly involved in operational matters—because the amendment would not involve the authorities to any greater extent than the Secretary of State is involved in Clause 5. However, there is a difficulty and a difference between the police authorities and the Secretary of State in the sense that the police authorities administer funding. One would want to keep them away from operational matters for that reason alone. There is a conflict there that does not affect the Secretary of State.
Amendment No. 29 would also enable the two different bodies to direct chief officers, and that might create conflict. The amendment also contains no provision requiring the police authority to do anything more than to forward a copy of the action plan to the Secretary of State. Therefore, although the amendment is a novel way of approaching the issue, it does not solve all the problems. I wanted to share those points because I am giving a commitment to reexamine the issue.
I also want to make it clear that, as I said, Clauses 4 and 5 are last-resort measures. That is stated in the long letter that I sent to Members of the Committee. It is important to note that the powers we are discussing will not be used in relation to individual or named cases.
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The police authority is already built into the process for issuing directions under Clause 5 and it could be argued that routing the direction via the police authority will not achieve anything very different. I shall not discuss bureaucracy at this point. The chief officer is required to consult the police authority or the service authority before submitting the required action plan to the Secretary of State. One would imagine that the police authority would be able to take that opportunity to advise its chief constable on what it believes should be included, bearing in mind its duty of best value.
The Secretary of State is required to notify the police authority that he is invoking his power to direct the chief officer. That will be the opportunity for the police authority to advise the Home Secretary of its views as to what form remedial measures should take.
The White Paper, Policing a New century, makes clear that operation of the direction-making power will be subject to a protocol. As that will be drawn up between the three tripartite partners—the Home Secretary, the police authorities and the chief officers—opportunities to make representations and to consult can be built into that process. I hope that that is a strengthening measure. We want to make absolutely clear that consultation can be built into that process. If police authorities also had the power to direct chief officers operationally, the difficulty I mentioned earlier would arise; that is, a chief officer could be required to comply with conflicting directions.
The police authority should already be aware of the problems giving rise to directions being issued. It would, or should, have held many discussions on the issues. It should not be a surprise to anyone by its nature of being a last resort measure. Existing police management and other measures would already have been tried to resolve the matter as police authorities monitor performance and ensure best value. The police authority should have already taken the chief officer to task if necessary. That should have been done before the powers contained in the clauses we are discussing were invoked. The Home Secretary becomes involved as a last resort when all other measures that could have been taken to improve the situation have failed.
Having said that, I conclude as I began when I say that I shall take the measure away in its totality as I should bore the Committee if I made the same points with regard to further amendments. We shall consider the measure to see whether we can build in consultation with the police authority and chief officers before the Home Secretary reaches the point of making directions.
Lord Elton: Will the noble Lord enlighten me as to what exactly a protocol is, how long it survives and what its effects will be on the next administration and the next administration but one? Will he also kindly let me have a copy of the long letter to which he keeps referring as I appear to be the only one not to have received it? That is not his fault as I did not speak in the Second Reading debate. While I am on my feet and

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apologising for that, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, for saying that I torpedoed him when I was in the wrong clause and he was in the right one.
Lord Rooker: I apologise to the noble Lord. I shall ensure that he receives a copy of the letter. It was sent to the noble Lords who have spoken. I sincerely hope that a copy was also placed in the Library. However, I shall ensure that he gets a copy first thing in the morning or before he leaves the House this evening.
A protocol is what you make it. I am astonished that the noble Lord, as a former Minister, asked that question. If the protocol is drawn up for agreement by definition with the three parties, that means that it remains until it is changed by agreement with the three parties. A protocol is not forced unilaterally on the parties. It is a road map, if you like, a working document or an agreement on who will do what and what the trigger points will be. Protocols work perfectly satisfactorily in other situations. Devolution in Scotland and Wales is working very successfully. There are protocols about boundary areas and decisions have to be taken by parties to the agreement. It is not necessary to define every dot and comma but the arrangement normally works quite well. Moreover, agreement is involved; if there is no agreement, there is not really a protocol.
10.15 p.m.
Lord Elton: The Minister makes my point for me: such arrangements are a great deal less durable than those involving statute. If he is relying on the arrangement in order to reassure us with regard to our concerns about what we believe should be addressed by statute, I must advise him that it does not altogether do so. I am merely stating a general principle, not attacking the specific point.
Lord Rooker: If the protocol is agreed by the parties—if it is the agreed protocol with which we shall work—any party that seeks to change the protocol has to secure the agreement of the other two parties. An ogre cannot come in at any part of the tripartite arrangement and use force on the other two parties in terms of the protocol. The arrangement has to work by agreement.
Lord Harris of Haringey: I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate on this amendment, and in particular to my noble friend the Minister who said that he would take the matter away and consider it. I listened carefully to what he said, and he implied that he might consider only whether or not police authorities should be consulted before making directions to chief officers. I am sure that he did not really mean that and that he will give much more extensive consideration to the issues.
The amendment is at the heart of our debate about the tripartite arrangement. I was a little confused about some of the Minister's arguments and I shall need to examine them again in detail. He seemed to
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suggest that there was a problem with channelling the whole matter through the police authority because one needed to separate funding decisions from operational matters. I happen to believe that an understanding of operational matters is rather important when taking funding decisions. I was also bemused by his suggestion that somehow this was a problem for police authorities but not for the Home Secretary. Eighty per cent of funding for police services comes through central government grants. The Home Secretary is therefore not insulated from considering funding matters and therefore operational matters. That argument needs further clarification: we may return to it at a later stage.
I was not entirely convinced by the Minister's argument that chief officers would somehow be subjected to two directions. There may be a fault in the amendment's drafting. My intention was that there would not be a Clause 5 if the amendment were agreed to; in which case, the only route for securing directions would be through the police authorities. I am not sure where the second direction would come from.
The Minister seemed to suggest that somehow the approach was a simpler way of doing things but that it made no difference in substance because the protocols, which we spent several minutes discussing, would involve much consultation with the police authority. If it makes so little difference, I suspect that we might do better operating on a principle in relation to which the existing systems of accountability were maintained. The direction in such circumstances would come to the police authority, which would apply its local knowledge and experience and make whatever directions were necessary to the chief officer. Again, that involves powers that might never be used but it would preserve the tripartite balance. I suspect that that is strongly felt in the Committee and perhaps elsewhere. In those circumstances, the Minister seemed to be saying that the Government's objectives could be achieved but in a way that did not undermine the principle of the tripartite arrangement. I clearly need to study the Minister's argument carefully.
I hope that the Minister's consultations and consideration of these matters will bear fruit and that when we discuss these matters again during the Bill's passage through this House we may make some progress. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 4 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Dholakia: We have spent just under two hours discussing this clause. It is not my intention to delay the Committee further, except to say that the Minister has already conceded the matter of consultation. I am delighted about that. He will have listened to the argument in relation to the powers to give direction to a police authority. As the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, said, we all need to pull down on this matter,

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and I believe that one way in which to do so is to consider seriously the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey. I consider that that offers a solution not only in relation to this clause but also in relation to Clause 5, which I suspect is the hub of the Bill.
Therefore, perhaps I may ask the Minister whether it is possible. prior to Report stage, to indicate how far he is prepared to go on the amendment moved by the noble Lord. Lord Harris. That would help us to determine the stance that we take on Report in relation to Clause 5 and this clause.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Before my noble friend Lord Dholakia sits down, perhaps I may ask the Minister a question. Earlier he made the point, which stunned me, that there has never been an occasion where the existing Section 40 of the 1996 Act has been used. Is the Minister aware of that? If he is, does it not make most of what we have been discussing for the past few hours extraordinarily academic?
Lord Rooker: I was not the person who said that. It followed from what I said earlier. The present legislation is the nuclear option. One does not use the nuclear option; one ends up doing nothing. That is the whole point. The change in the clause which we are discussing relates to,
"the whole or any part of the force inspected".
That is the problem. We are losing sight of what the issue is about. It is the "whole or any part". The present status quo is the nuclear option, and no one is using it. That is the issue. Although I do not have details of where it has or has not been considered, that is the root cause of the problem.
We are dealing with the Question whether the clause stand part. We have debated that, and I make an offer to the Committee which I do not believe it can refuse. Bearing in mind how far I have gone on this matter—Clauses 4 and 5 are parcelled together—we can pass Clause 4, get to Clause 5 and then all go home. That will give me slightly longer to consider what we are going to do on Report.
Clause 4 agreed to.
Clause 5 [Directions to chief officers]:
Lord Dixon-Smith Lord Dixon-Smith moved Amendment No. 30:
Page 4, line 2, leave out "whether".
The noble Lord said: I like the Minister's attempt to seduce us into drawing stumps early as if Clause 5 were not on the face of the Bill. It is what I would call a gallant attempt. But, sadly, we can all read, and Clause 5, for better or for worse, is before us.
Not least of the problems that we are beginning to face is that we must all deal with the problem as it is and not the problem as we should like it to be. I suspect that after the previous debate we all believe we should like it to be something slightly different.
However, Amendments Nos. 30 and 31 seek to delete words from the second and third lines at the top of page 4 of the Bill. That is the early part of Clause 5 which deals with directions to chief officers. It states:
"This section applies where the Secretary of State (whether in consequence of a report under section 54 or otherwise) is satisfied in relation to any police force",
and so on. Amendments Nos. 30 and 31 deal with Clause 5, as I have just mentioned. Amendments Nos. 91, 92, 111 and 112 deal with the identical words in the appropriate schedules at the end of the Bill.
We consider that these three silly little words— "whether…or otherwise"—give too much discretion. They give carte blanche. The Secretary of State will be able to do as he pleases in giving directions to chief officers. Setting aside the point about whether to use the normal tripartite arrangements and go through the authority, which we dealt with to a greater or lesser extent on the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, if this clause were to remain in the Bill, a matter about which many noble Lords have the gravest doubts, I cannot accept that that kind of carte blanche, open discretion is appropriate.
I agree with the qualifications that appear later on,
"that … the whole or … part of the force …is … not efficient or not effective, or … will cease to be efficient or effective"—
that may go on behind the back of the police authority—is not satisfactory. I am aware of the words that the Minister has used in the earlier debate, so I do not want to pursue the point further.
This open discretion is too great. If the words that I have suggested are removed, the Bill would read,
"This section applies where the Secretary of State (in consequence of a report under section 54) is satisfied in relation to any police force maintained for any police area—
(a) that the whole or any part of the force is, whether generally or in particular respects, not efficient or not effective".
or is likely to become so unless remedial measures are taken. I do not believe that that is an unreasonable restriction. Carte blanche may be given, but the Secretary of State may get out of bed in the wrong mood one morning and, even if he has sound advisers, not take their advice. Even expensive legal advisers, who are much more expensive than top civil servants, do not always have their advice taken. I do not believe a serious study has been conducted of how much legal opinion is given, at huge cost, and then disregarded, but I suspect the figure is quite large. Advice is advice is advice. I believe that it is reasonable to remove that element of discretion. I beg to move.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: We on these Benches wholeheartedly concur with these two amendments. The words in brackets could be said to be misleading. Frankly, they should not be there at all and the clause would then be clearer.
It is difficult to know how to deal with all the amendments prior to the debate on whether the clause should stand part of the Bill. We are completely opposed to it on grounds of local democracy, destruction of the tripartite arrangements, the impact and fall-out that it will have on the calibre of people who

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will be willing to serve on these partly neutered police authorities and a number of other reasons. I shall confine my remarks to that. For the other amendments in this group and later amendments, I shall be extremely brief, keeping my powder dry for the big one; that is, to knock out the whole mis-shapen clause.
10.30 p.m.
Lord Condon: I support Amendments Nos. 30 and 31. Unless the Home Secretary's view about ineffectiveness and inefficiency is sourced back to objective evidence, there is a danger, as the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, said, of the provision giving carte blanche. An unreasonable Home Secretary could take a doctrinal, subjective, idiosyncratic view of inefficiency and ineffectiveness and seek to impose directions based on that subjective view.
Lord Mayhew of Twysden: We were told just a few minutes ago by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, with the tacit approval of the Minister, that the power remains and is sufficient for the Secretary of State to give a direction to the police authority. Now it is said that it is necessary for the Secretary of State to be able to give a direction directly to the chief constable, by-passing the police authority. Perhaps the Minister will deal with that point.
Lord Rooker: I do not want to repeat what I have already said. It was not written down in impeccable text; it was in bits and pieces. I stand by what I said earlier. We shall take another look at this issue. I wrap this point up in relation to both Clauses 4 and 5 as opposed to individual amendments on which I could almost make the same points.
As my noble friend Lord Bassam said in response to an earlier amendment, there are sources of information on police performance other than just the inspectorate. While it is true that it is not on the face of the Bill—I accept that—last year the Home Secretary set up the standards unit with the remit of driving up the performance of all forces to the standards of the best. It will be working with police forces, the basic command units and local communities on the ground. They will be a valuable source of information on performance.
Similarly, organisations like the Audit Commission, which has been referred to many times, produce valuable work indicating where police performance is strong and where there is room for improvement. It would restrict the aim of the clause—to improve police performance across the board—if those sources of information could not be used as the basis for requiring remedial action in forces which are not offering the highest quality of service.
In other words, other sources of information exist, none of which will be dreamed up on a whim as the Home Secretary gets out bed in the morning, as someone said. As former Ministers will know, lawyers in departments spend most of their time telling us what we cannot do, not what we can do. We get out of bed with ideas and they say we cannot implement them.
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That is the point. The legal advice in the main is to say, "You cannot do it because you have duties, restrictions and statutory requirements and you must find another way of achieving your outcome". At the end of the day it is the outcome in which we are interested. The process is important in respect of having acceptable outcomes because of the democratic involvement of local communities and police authorities. But the outcome of improving police performance across the board is what it is all about.
I cannot go further than that. It is implicit in what I said earlier that we need to look again at this matter. I am not saying that these bodies will end up on the face of the Bill. But it is legitimate for us to say, as set out in the White Paper, that the Home Secretary has access to other sources of information which would give him the wherewithal to say, if you like, it is time to pull the levers of last resort—I repeat "of last resort"—to raise standards in a force or part of it. That is quite legitimate and what the public would expect him to do.
Lord Elton: Presumably the sources of information which the Home Secretary has, to which the Minister referred, are also available to the inspectorate. Therefore it would be perfectly possible for the Secretary of State to function only on the consequence of an adverse report, as my noble friend suggests.
When the noble Lord is Home Secretary in his turn, as we all hope he will be, and leaps out of bed with an idea which is a bit far-fetched, and the lawyers say, "You cannot do that because", we hope they will say, "You cannot do that because of Lord Dixon-Smith's Amendments Nos. 30 and 31 to the Act".
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: Can I also take up the point with the Minister? He talks with emphasis about the Home Secretary using these powers only as a last resort. There is nothing in this clause about the Home Secretary using these powers as a last resort. The Minister's retort will be, "Of course no Home Secretary in his or her right senses will use them other than in a last resort". Our response to that—and the Minister was good enough at the start of today's debate to make the point—is that one does not legislate in the field of police rights, powers and duties other than on a highly "suspicious" basis. Let us put it that way.
We have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Condon, who knows a thing or two about policing, that one could have—and it is not fanciful to contemplate—a Home Secretary who was thoroughly misguided, thoroughly doctrinaire or thoroughly pigheaded. Therefore, I put it to the Minister that it really is not fair of him to say that this is only a last resort power. If he wants to put that in the Bill we should all be very happy. It might be a rather difficult provision to write in, but I should accept it.
Lord Rooker: I do not know what more I can say. That these powers will be exercised as a last resort is not in the Bill but it is in the letter that I wrote to noble Lords. I cannot say any more than I have already said. Otherwise, I shall repeat myself. I have listened to what Members of the Committee have said.
Lord Dixon-Smith: The Minister, as always, is trying to be helpful. The standards unit, which is a part of the CPTDA, and the Audit Commission are likely to be the Home Secretary's main sources of information beyond the inspectorate, although I have no doubt that he will have other sources. Both are public bodies working all the time with the various police forces. Certainly, they will not be working in secret. Therefore, those forces will know what is happening. As the body develops a view of what is happening in a particular force, perhaps even a particular BCU or whatever, it certainly will not be keeping its conclusions secret. The knowledge of its opinion will disseminate through the force that is being examined, whether it is in the financial management field, in the field of management advice—which the Audit Commission is always developing—or in the field of, if one likes, the organisation and practice of the management of a small number of men in a tight geographic area.
The idea that the Secretary of State will find out about this in some blinding flash of light at the tail end of the process and then need to regulate to do something about it is, frankly, stretching the imagination. If the local force has not begun to operate on the matter causing concern to either of those bodies long before the Secretary of State gets to hear about it, I, for one, would be extremely surprised.
We return to the need for what is proposed and its open unrestricted carte blanche discretion. I cannot see it. The Minister has done his best to answer. As I have already said, we shall need to look carefully at what the Government may come up with before Report stage. I remain completely convinced that the wording of the amendment is appropriate, but for now I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 31 not moved.]
Lord Dixon-Smith Lord Dixon-Smith moved Amendment No. 32:
Page 4, leave out lines 5 and 6 and insert
"(a) that the force is, or in particular respects, not efficient or not effective; or"
The noble Lord said: We come to another aspect of the clause. Amendments Nos. 32, 33, 34 and 39 all relate to the question of whether we really need a 14-pound sledgehammer to crack a nut, even though it is probably no more than a hazelnut. The real question is whether if something in a particular part of a force is going wrong, that really requires all the force arid direction of the Secretary of State in the formal sense to put it right. The Minister said, "Oh, of course that is only the last resort". That may or may not be so, but a Secretary of State faced with two or three days of bad reports in the tabloids on a specific issue may find both his temper and patience somewhat abbreviated.
While he may feel that he should have a power to direct in respect of matters that affect the whole force, I find it amazing that he should feel that it might be desirable to have that power of direction down to something as small as a BCU. The performance of a BCU is not exclusively related to those who work
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within it. I have already made the point that a police force is an integrated force with many common services that operate from a headquarters—although perhaps a dispersed headquarters—provided centrally and available to all BCUs within the force area.
I find the idea that it would be appropriate for the Secretary of State to say that a particular little area was causing such vast problems that it required all the force and majesty of Her Majesty's Government quite amazing. That underestimates both the Secretary of State himself and his powers of influence and persuasion and the men on the ground who would be subject to that power, who are deemed by the clause to be insensitive, unresponsive and unwilling to take steps to improve their performance. I have not yet met a group of men doing such work with that sort of attitude. I beg to move.
Lord Rooker: I shall not repeat myself. Everything that I could say about this group of amendments I have said to the previous group. I shall just add another statistic. The noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, is not living in the real world. I shall give another example of variation. If all was OK, the powers would not be needed. The figures are for BCUs in urban areas for violence against the person—another offence—during the same years. The best detection rate was 89.6 per cent; the worst was 54.9 per cent. Think about that. Do not tell me or anybody else—particularly the people living in the area where it is only 54 per cent—that everything is fine, everyone is doing everything that they should and there is no reason for further action. Of course there is reason for action if a comparable area has a detection rate of 89.6 per cent— virtually 90 per cent, compared to 55 per cent.
Someone is doing something about it—but ineffectively. The existing processes are not working all over. That is the point that I am making. That is why it is a last resort. If, fundamentally, noble Lords do not accept that variation in performance is a central pillar in our reasons for taking action, I have a major problem on my hands. If we do not consider it and accept it as a serious factor, we will never understand why the Home Secretary feels obliged to do something. He is held responsible at the court of opinion for those massive variations.
We are out to improve police performance, not to make all the forces the same. We were told earlier, almost as a little joke, that there would always be a bottom quarter. Of course there will. The point is that the gap in performance between the bottom quarter and the top quarter could be 1 per cent; it could, on the other hand, be 70 or 80 per cent. It is the difference in performance, not where they are in the ranking, that matters. They could all be very close together but some would be at the bottom. On the other hand, there could be massive variations in performance. Those massive variations are unacceptable, and they are the reason why we want to take further powers to do something about it, as a last resort, after all the other management practices and monitoring have failed.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury: It is difficult for us to react to the statistics when we do not know to what they relate or have any background facts. Having done a bit of criminology, I think that anybody who has would say that the differences in the problems of different policing areas are extraordinarily wide and divergent.
All the Minister's remarks are posited on the assumption that the Home Office can do it better. That is where there may be a lot of disagreement on this side of the House.
Lord Rooker: The question is, "Could the Home Office do it worse?". I am painting a picture of the status quo. There is no secret about the variation in figures; plenty of statistics have been published. This evening I have used comparison figures for a group of 30 comparable basic command units, all in urban areas. Those are the comparative figures that I have used tonight; I have not been comparing apples and pears. That is my information, and it covers a group of 30 urban areas, including the best and the worst and considering the changes in the rates.
We want to make improvements. We will be held accountable all right if there is no improvement. Police officers, chief officers and police authorities are working their socks off to raise their game, to raise their performance. That is going on all over the country, and we understand that. However, there are still massive variations in performance in like-for-like authorities. We simply cannot ignore that. We want to help: if you like, we are the man from the Home Office, we have come to help. Help is required.
We do not have all the answers at the centre; no one argues that. My answer to the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, is, "Can the Home Office do it worse?". We need to raise our game and make improvements. That is the purpose of the clauses.
Lord Bradshaw: Some of the figures need careful examination. There is such a thing as ethical crime recording. Some police authorities record crimes, visit prisons and knock crimes off against people. Others rely entirely on primary detection of crime. That is the sort of difference.
Recently in Westminster Hall I saw an exhibition by the Audit Commission of various performance indicators. The figures for Thames Valley seemed poor. However, when we probed deeply, we found that our performance was not poor. In fact, our performance was not measured very well. There are big differences and I am quite certain that in large part the Home Office will not know the answers.
Lord Elton: The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, speaks with greater knowledge than I am able to do; nonetheless I am anxious to support his point. I recall two things from my time at the Home Office. The first was the wide variations in the levels of the recording of crime and the second was that there are some areas in which it is very much more difficult to persuade anyone to give evidence. In some areas it is impossible.
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The noble Lord has so often rested so much on these figures that I do think that we need to know more about them.
Lord Rooker: Plenty of information has been published on variations. I am not sure whether the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, was making an accusation about the ethical counting of figures, but we have other published research. The Audit Commission has gathered figures. If the root cause of the issue here is that noble Lords do not believe that there is a wide variation in like-for-like police authorities and if they question the rationale of why we say that these levers need to be made available to the Home Secretary, then I shall do what I can to provide an encyclopaedia of figures to all noble Lords—all legitimate figures that I shall test them on the next time the Committee meets.
Lord Elton: Before the noble Lord bombards us with too much information, I should make clear that we are not questioning that there is a wide variation. That is common knowledge. What we question is the matter of "like for like". That is the kind of point that can be completely obscured unless one knows the methodology.
Lord Condon: In compiling the statistics, did the Minister include the very recent research undertaken by the totally independent Police Foundation? It looked at over 300 basic command units. When it took out the genuine demographic differences, it found that in almost 90 per cent of the performance indicators, the variation in performance was less than 5 per cent.
Lord Rooker: I shall be happy to have all the available figures put to noble Lords. I do not have any problem with that. The answer to the noble Lord, Lord Condon, is yes.
Lord Elton: It is not a question of the figures; it is a question of the methodology. The noble Lord, Lord Condon, has just explained to the Committee how that can be done.
Lord Dixon-Smith: I think that we are in danger of glaring at each other across an open ditch. No one disputes the fact that there are perhaps—I say "perhaps" because the methodology is significant—unacceptable variations in performance. In my view, the Minister did not listen to my opening remarks with sufficient care, because the question here is whether this, as it were, local nuclear option of last resort for the Secretary of State is necessary.
By the time the Secretary of State receives those statistics, the local people will have been aware of them for some considerable time. The CPTDA, in its capacity of working across the country as a standards unit, will also be aware of those units which are

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performing well and those which are not. The Audit Commission will have been working in detail with the forces, churning the information out of its computers, again for some considerable time.
The question is whether statutory action is appropriate at that stage. We should bear in mind that the men on the ground will want to improve their performance because no one wants to be on the bottom of the heap for a minute longer than they have to be and they will work hard to get off it. Even if the result of that is that the bottom of the heap rises with them, they will work to get off it. The question is whether this action is necessary.
The Minister said that the Secretary of State needs the power. We believe that he already has the levers. He has created the mechanisms; he has got the inspectorate; he has got the Audit Commission; he has got the police standards unit; he has got the CPT1DA; he will have a highly-motivated group of chief constables across the whole country; and he will have 49, or whatever is the number, of police authorities which certainly will not want under-performing units. If all those people have that ambition, by the time the Secretary of State gets hold of the figures he will not need to act.
The Minister could respond by saying, "If I am never going to need to act because they are all so good, what are you worried about?". As we have said before, the problem is that we do not only have to consider the Bill in the hands of reasonable men; we also have to
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consider it in a wider context. We have had quite enough of this. We are going to disagree but, for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Elton: Before the noble Lord sits down, as one can speak only when there is a Motion before the House, I do not think that I can dispose of my amendment in three minutes. I hope that I shall not be asked to attempt to finish it before 11 o'clock. I shall go on talking for a moment longer because I believe that this is in transaction between the noble Lords on the Front Benches. I cannot make my poini and get it answered in less than three minutes and I hope that what they were discussing is whether we should adjourn the House at this stage.
Lord Rooker: I am in the hands of noble Lords. It makes sense to finish the debate on a group of amendments.
Lord Dixon-Smith: With that, perhaps I can finish the debate on this group by begging leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 33 and 34 not moved.]
Lord Bassam of Brighton: I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question. Motion agreed to.
House resumed.
House adjourned at two minuses before eleven o'clock.