Clause 10 - Reports to the Secretary of State
Police Reform Bill [Lords]
3:00 pm
Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 85, in page 10, line 22, leave out paragraphs (a) and (b).
This is a small but important amendment. As the clause stands, when the Secretary of State receives a report that falls under subsection (5), he only has to lay a copy of it before Parliament and cause it to be published
''if and to the extent that he considers it appropriate to do so''.
We do not think that it is sensible to attach that condition to the Secretary of State's duties. We think that any report made to the Secretary of State on something as important as the matters dealt with in part 2, which relates to complaints, misconduct and reports from the IPCC, should come before Parliament. After all, we are here to consider matters of concern.
If the IPCC thinks something is sufficiently important to report on it to the Secretary of State, surely every Member of Parliament should see that report. I cannot think of many issues that have caused more controversy and used more parliamentary time than complaints about police. There have been acres of newsprint on the subject, some justified and some not. In the more than 10 years in which I have been in the House, and in the many years before that when I practised at the Bar, police complaints were a matter of huge public and media concern.
If the new independent commission, which will reassure many of those who thought that the old Police Complaints Authority was not sufficiently independent, makes a report about something, it should not be left to this or a future Secretary of State to decide whether it is convenient for Parliament to have sight of it. The provision gives far too much power to the Secretary of State. My hon. Friends and I have said about many aspects of the Bill that the Secretary of State is arrogating to himself far too many draconian powers. The provision is constitutionally dangerous, and it is terribly dangerous for the Secretary of State to have the discretion to say, ''I might tell Parliament about it if I choose to, but I might not.'' The Under-Secretary will have to work quite hard to convince my hon. Friends and me that the limitation is needed.
The amendment's reference to subsection 5(a) and (b) was purely probing, and enabled me to raise the issue. It is the condition in sub-paragraph (b) and the words
''if and to the extent that he''—
that is, the Secretary of State—
''considers it appropriate to do so''
to which we object. I shall listen with interest to whether the Minister can justify the restriction on what the Secretary of State must do.