Clause 8 - The independent police complaints commission
Police Reform Bill [Lords]
9:30 am
Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 119, in page 7, line 21, leave out 'Complaints' and insert 'Conduct'.
The amendment is relatively small, but it focuses on an important matter. We tabled it as a result of our attention being drawn to a letter in The Daily Telegraph on 9 April 2002 by Jan Prebble, the chairman of the South Westminster police/community consultative group, who made the important point that ''complaints'' has a pejorative implication. We agree that that is unhelpful.
The letter stated:
''It really isn't right that the policeman who fired a plastic baton round''—
which had been reported in The Daily Telegraph the day before—
''should have the stigma of having his case referred to something called the Police Complaints Authority. Obviously every gun incident must be looked into but it is inappropriate that every policeman who fires a gun in the face of enormous danger exhibiting, in many cases, amazing bravery should automatically have the matter referred to a 'complaints' body, when the matter—
that caused the police officer to discharge that firearm—
may well have been the subject of praise''.
Will all know the enormous courage exhibited by police officers on so many occasions in the execution of their duty.
Jan Prebble said that, in many cases, investigations have been known to last months—years, in some cases—and throughout that time the police officer has to suffer the indignity of having the matter dealt with by the Police Complaints Authority, even though no complaint has been made against him and when the media coverage has been full of praise for the police officer. She went on to say:
''The Police Reform Bill now going through Parliament seeks to set up a new body to take over from the Police Complaints Authority but its suggested name—the Independent Police Complaints Commission—is no better.''
She said that the police/community consultative group believes that the body should be called the independent police conduct commission. In her letter to an hon. Friend, she said that the Minister for Policing, Crime Reduction and Community Safety who is a member of the Committee, although he is not here at the moment, told the police/community consultative group that he has ''some sympathy'' with its view. He said that it was true that the new independent police complaint commission will cover police conduct more generally
than just complaints, but that it would cause confusion to change the name at this stage.
Jan Prebble said to my hon. Friend that a slight confusion would be worth while if it relieved the police of such a stigma, and that
''the problem of course goes much wider than just the name of the organisation'',
and concluded:
''Getting the name right would seem to us to be a good start''.
I agree with that. After all, our scrutiny is a fundamental part of the work of Standing Committees, when we try to achieve the best possible legislation. It is not good enough for the Under-Secretary to say, ''Well it's going to cause confusion.''
Surely, the whole point is to try to ensure that the Bill that finally emerges from our deliberations will establish bodies with the most appropriate nomenclature. If the Under-Secretary has expressed sympathy for the views of the South Westminster police/community consultative group, perhaps at a later stage—on Report or in another place—he will consider introducing a Government amendment. We will hear in a moment.
Jan Prebble also supplied me and my hon. Friends with a background paper relating to the police use of firearms. I shall not detain the Committee by reading the whole paper, but one passage is especially well expressed. It states:
''The difficulties met by a police officer when he''
or she
''has to decide whether to shoot or not are mammoth. Take the officer who is faced with a gun. It is impossible to tell whether the gun is a real one or a replica.''
On the day that the South Westminster police/community group spent with the police, they were shown
''a large table tennis sized table covered with guns, almost all of them replicas.''
The display amazed them, and, as a group of intelligent citizens involved in that area, they were asked to guess which were real guns, but they were unable to tell.
Apparently, legislation in the United States requires toy guns to be made of brightly coloured plastic. However, criminals merely paint real guns in fluorescent colours to match the replicas, rather than paint the replicas black, as one might have thought. It is difficult to know whether a gun is real or a toy, so the police are understandably not impressed by newspaper headlines that far too often scream criticism when police officers discharge their firearms at people holding toy guns. Although many national newspaper journalists have received training from the police to explain the problems experienced by police officers in this context, it has done nothing to adjust Fleet street's view.
Armed police always try to be one step ahead of the game, so they have tried to learn lessons from America and through travelling abroad. We must recognise the difficulties faced by police officers, especially in the light of the tragic deaths of police officers who are faced with firearms while acting in the execution of
their duty—whether the shooting of WPC Yvonne Fletcher from the Libyan embassy, which we all remember, or more recent incidents involving police officers who have sadly been shot and killed. It would be helpful for police officers not to face the stigma of automatic referral to something called a complaints body. A new organisation is being established. We have the opportunity to name the commission, and we may regret not taking the opportunity to get the title correct.
I hope that the Government will take this small but significant amendment seriously. Even if they cannot accept it today, I hope that the Under-Secretary will tell us that he will keep thinking about it. He may agree in the end, because of the automatic referral to the commission of any police officer who discharges a firearm. ''Police Conduct Commission'' would be a better title.