Schedule 1 - National Policing Improvement Agency
Police and Justice Bill
1:00 pm
Lynne Featherstone (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Hornsey and Wood Green, Liberal Democrat)
These are probing amendments to find out the Government’s thinking. Why do the Government want powers to change by regulation the objects set out for the agency? The Minister said that the it would be police-owned and led, but that is hard to conceive. It will be staffed by regulation made by the Secretary of State, and the chief executive will be chosen by the Secretary of State. It all begins, as the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) said, to sound like doublespeak.
It seems that the Secretary of State will be able to change the whole purpose of the new agency at will. Theoretically, he could take out all the objects and put in, for example, “create a national police force”. Then where would we be? While this Home Secretary seems benign—benignish—future Home Secretaries might not be so cuddly. Trust has no place in legislation. I wish the Government would come back to Parliament. The Bill seems to continue the trend that began in what we have subtitled the abolition of Parliament Act to seek continually to alter legislation by regulation.
The tripartite balance to which the Minister referred is the pillar on which we depend to protect us against over-interventionist intentions and political intervention. Police operational freedom is paramount, and the police are pretty heavily scrutinised already. To be able to change entirely the objects of the agency by regulation seems out of kilter. Can she see why some of us on Opposition Benches regard the measure as unbalancing to the tripartite structure, weighting it toward Government intervention? I look forward to her explanation why the Government wish to reserve that swingeing power, and why they do not wish to come back to Parliament to get its approval.