Clause 11 - Complaints, matters and persons
Police Reform Bill [Lords]
3:15 pm
Mr James Paice (South East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)
The hon. Gentleman is right. It makes matters even murkier that the same member of staff could be involved.
The amendment is intended to encourage the Minister to consider consistency and transparency. First, there should be consistency in the accountability for the use of police powers. If people with police powers are accused of misconduct in using them, ultimately they should all be investigated by the same authority with the same rigour and independence.
Secondly, on transparency, such people are there to serve, as are we. The public must understand the line of accountability and consideration of complaints. We cannot expect members of the public to understand all the ins and outs of the different members of the police family. The ordinary person in the street, if such a person exists, will know that there is someone in a
uniform acting in some way as a policeman. They will probably know that that person is not a proper policeman, but we cannot expect them to know that the powers that such people have depend on who employs them, and to whom to complain. The public need transparency and should know when someone in uniform is using police powers, exactly whom to complain to and that that complaint will be considered in the same way regardless of who the person may be—it could, as the hon. Gentleman says, even be the same official.
There are two fundamental reasons—one of which relates to consistency, the other to transparency—why it is essential for people who use police powers and serve in an accredited community safety scheme to be brought within the remit of the independent commission. The Under-Secretary may say, as he said this morning in answer to challenges from Opposition Members, that it is not possible to specify that in the Bill, as we have in the amendment, because of different employment law, for example. If that were the reason, I would happily accept that I might be technically wrong. However, I hope that he will not try to dismiss the issue on that technicality. A huge distinction is involved. He is taking powers in new clause 9 to issue regulations to deal with the anomaly—to repeat his words, regulations to bring contracted-out staff within the remit of the independent commission. There seems no reason why the Secretary of State could not issue regulations to bring accredited community safety officials within the IPCC's remit.
I do not want us to get too bogged down in the precise wording of the amendment. The issue is whether such people should fall within the independent commission's remit. I believe that they should, and the Government will be hard pushed to persuade me otherwise.