Police Reform Bill [H.L.]

HL Deb 28 February 2002 vol 631 cc1604-40

House again in Committee.

Clause 4 [Directions to police authorities]:

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

1. (a) that, in the opinion of the person making the report, the force inspected is not efficient or not effective, or
2. (b) that in his opinion, unless remedial measures are taken, the force will cease to be efficient or will cease to be effective,
3. 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

1. (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
2. (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
3. 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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.

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.

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 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 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.

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 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 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 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 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.

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 moved Amendment No. 29:

Page 3, line 38, at end insert—

1. "(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).
2. (3) The provision which a police authority may require to be included in an action plan shall include—
1. (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;
2. (b) the time limits to be applied to the taking of those steps and to the meeting of those targets;
3. (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
4. (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.
5. (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.
3. (5) Before approving the action plan, the police authority may, after consultation with the chief officer, revise or amend it.
4. (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.
5. (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.
6. (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 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 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 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.

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.

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 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 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, 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 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 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. 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 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 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.

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 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 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.