Schedule 2 - The Independent Police Complaints Commission
Police Reform Bill [Lords]
11:00 am
Mr James Paice (South East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)
We come now to the constitution of the commission. The two amendments follow our earlier theme of the amount of power taken to the centre by the Secretary of State. If the commission is to be not just independent but seen to be independent, that will be seriously undermined by the obligation for the Secretary of State not only to approve the chief executive but to decide how many staff should be employed by the commission and what their terms and conditions should be.
That might seem to be a small subject area, but it is fundamental to the perception of the independence of the commission. If it is to be independent, it must make such decisions itself. At the core of the issue is the Government's belief that people cannot make judgments for themselves and that they must have the power to overrule them. It is tempting to believe that the commission might make a bad appointment. It might employ too many staff or too few. It might pay them too much or not give them adequate holidays. However, surely if a commission is to be appointed, it should have the responsibility for such decisions. The constant temptation of the Government to intervene and overrule is a temptation that should be strongly resisted, but at the heart of the Government's attitude is the belief that they should have those fundamental, ultimate powers. The two amendments would simply remove two paragraphs from schedule 2, but they exemplify an issue that runs throughout the Bill—the centralisation of powers. Let us have a police complaints commission that is independent, seen to be independent and in charge of its affairs. I do not believe that the Secretary of State should have detailed powers to decide who should be chief executive, how many staff should be employed and what their terms and conditions of employment should be.