Clause 29 - Procedural requirements for removal of
Police Reform Bill [Lords]
4:45 pm
Mr John Denham (Minister of State (Police, Courts and Drugs), Home Office; Southampton, Itchen, Labour)
I can understand the Opposition's arguments. Indeed, I have discussed such issues with the Chief Police Officers Staff Association, which has been active in pushing them. However, I ask the Committee to resist the amendments.
By way of broad background—I stress that I do not refer to any named case—over a 20-year period, chief officers have occasionally ended their careers earlier than might have been expected, but without the use of the provisions laid down in law for their retirement. They have retired from their posts in some other way.
That is not necessarily a satisfactory state of affairs. We should have ways of dealing with such matters properly. Those ways should be seen to be fair to everyone involved, but not present the sort of difficulties in the practical use of the powers that another route has used to the same end. One danger of requiring in the Bill the establishment of an inquiry is that it makes the existing powers, which have been in force since 1964, more difficult to use at local level.
It is important to stress to the Committee that the powers available to the police authority are not new or being introduced by the legislation, except for the change about resignation rather than retirement that we discussed earlier. They are powers that have been in primary legislation since 1964. Despite the many occasions on which the legislation has been examined since then, nobody has previously thought it necessary to include the requirement to hold an inquiry in the Bill.
In framing the legislation, we have looked for improvements that we think have been omitted in the past and put them in. Such things may have been past practice, but have not been included in Bills. In contrast to what has been done previously, for example, in clause 29 we have placed a new responsibility on the police authority, should it wish to take action, to set out fully its reasons for so doing. It must give reasons as well as consider any representations—as under existing law. There is another new requirement: the officer must have a chance to make representations in person.
The two new provisions relating to representation and the giving of reasons have not existed in the law since 1964—we have built them in. It is worth remembering that we have retained the existing constitutional safeguard, which is that the action of the police authority continues to be subject to the approval of the Secretary of State, as it has been since the 1964 Act.
I judge that there are sufficient existing safeguards. Police authorities must consider representations and secure the Secretary of State's approval. The new requirements that we have introduced are for authorities to give grounds for their actions and for officers concerned to be offered a personal hearing. Put together, they provide reasonable additional safeguards in the Bill since the original drafting in 1964, but do not overload the procedures with specific requirements that would make the power difficult to use in practice.