Schedule 1 - Powers of the Secretary of State in relation to NCIS and NCS
Police Reform Bill [Lords]
4:45 pm
Mr John Denham (Minister of State (Police, Courts and Drugs), Home Office; Southampton, Itchen, Labour)
My hon. Friend makes a fair point. The Home Secretary, when making decisions under the clause, would recognise that his decisions would be open to challenge at judicial review. He would therefore be under a general duty to act reasonably when publishing evidence, responding to representations or assessing the adequacy of responses. That is in addition to the safeguards built into the new clause. None of us regard this as a legally untrammelled power, because judicial review would always be in the background.
The new clause also includes a requirement that the Home Secretary must report the use of this power to Parliament. It has always been the case—from the first draft of the Bill onwards—that the Home Secretary is to be prevented from issuing a direction in relation either to a particular individual or case. Nobody wants politicians trying to run police forces: we do not want the power to direct a chief constable to take action with regard to a particular case or individual, which is why the Bill specifically excludes that.
These are important and significant safeguards. They were remarked upon by the Home Affairs Committee, in its report on the Bill. It stated:
''We welcome the safeguards proposed by the Government and hope that it is clearly understood that these powers should only be used as a last resort''.
On Second Reading, the Chairman of the Committee, the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin), reiterated the Committee's view. He said:
''The Select Committee believes that it would be acceptable for the original clause 5 on directions to chief officers to be reinstated, together with the inclusion of the additional safeguards in Lords amendment No. 42. However, we shall watch carefully the way in which the powers are exercised.''—[Official Report, 7 May 2002; Vol. 385, c. 73.]