Clause 1 - National Policing Plan
Police Reform Bill [Lords]
Mr Norman Baker (Lewes, Liberal Democrat)
The amendments relate to the national policing plan. My colleagues and I are in favour of that concept, and the amendment is one example of where we wish to go slightly further than the Government. If there is to be a national policing plan, it should be just that—a plan that takes account of all policing. Our difficulty with the clause is that the policing plan covers the 43 police authorities, but does not take account of the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the National Crime Squad. Obviously, what those bodies do relates to the 43 police authorities and the work of the 43 forces. It is difficult to understand how a policing plan could be comprehensive if those bodies are not included in it.
From April 2002, the Home Secretary has been able to set national objectives for the Central Police Training and Development Authority under section 89 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001. He can also set objectives under sections 26 and 71 of the Police Act 1997 for NCIS and the NCS; he already has those powers. However, three sets of national objectives, produced separately, do not suggest the coherent national policing planning that perhaps should be achieved. We fear that the clause misses an opportunity to bring those sets of objectives together, and to produce a comprehensive and coherent message for policing across the country.
The clause also has the disadvantage of reinforcing the doubtless inaccurate impression that the Government are more concerned with keeping as much control as they can over 43 police authorities than with paying attention to NCIS and the NCS in the way that we would like. I am sure that the Minister will say that that is wholly inaccurate, and that it is scurrilous of me to have even thought of the
suggestion; nevertheless, that is open to that interpretation, given the way that the provisions are set out.
Amendment No. 133 is rather different from amendment No. 132, and we are surprised that they have been grouped together. Amendment No. 133 relates to the words ''plans and advice''. A theme of the Committee will perhaps be, as it certainly was on Second Reading and in the Lords, the extent to which it is appropriate for the Home Secretary of the day to micro-manage or intervene on the police's day-to-day operational activities, or in any way curtail improperly or unwisely the activities of a chief constable.
My colleagues and I—and, I am sure, Conservative Members—will be defending the traditional tripartite arrangement between chief constables, police authorities and the Home Secretary, and will argue that we change that at our peril. The Minister will therefore understand that we are always on the look-out against back-door methods of changing that arrangement. It may not be the Government's intention to do so, but the provision would nevertheless give an avenue for a Home Secretary, now or in the future, should he or she wish to go down that track.
I have concerns that the words ''plans and advice'' in page 2, line 24, give the Home Secretary of the day wide powers to include practically anything that he or she wishes in the national policing plan. The words ''plans and advice'' could go against the spirit of that tripartite arrangement if the Home Secretary were determined that they should. After all, the powers that the Home Secretary is being given under subsection (6) are already significant, especially when added to the powers that he already has under previous legislation, such as the Police Act 1996. Subsection (6)(c) still allows further information to be given, so I am not quite clear about the necessity for including ''plans and advice''.
The Minister will know that this matter was raised in the House of Lords; this is a duplicate amendment from the other place. My colleagues in the Lords felt that Lord Rooker, perhaps uncharacteristically, had not addressed the point, and that is why amendment No. 133 was tabled again. I look forward to the Minister's responses on those subjects.