Schedule 2 - Amendments to the Police Act 1996
Police and Justice Bill
1:15 pm
Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel and South Downs, Conservative)
The Committee will be relieved to know that I am not about to start from the beginning. My previous remarks will stand.
Amendment No. 66 deals with provisions that will enable the Secretary of State, by order, to shape police authorities. I believe that the matter is of sufficient concern that we should consider striking out paragraph 3. As I said earlier, the APA has expressed concern that it will reserve too much power to the Secretary of State who, whether or not he is willing to consult on such matters, may by order and not necessarily with a vote, entirely reconstitute the basis on which police authorities are settled. Indeed, the APA has gone further by suggesting that the schedule fundamentally changes the tripartite relationship that the Minister referred to earlier when she spoke of the need for a proper balance between police authorities, the Home Secretary and the police themselves.
The APA argues persuasively that it is not necessary for the Government to take those additional powers in order to achieve the reshaping of police authorities consequent upon police amalgamations. That can be done without the powers set out in the Bill. We Conservatives have great concerns that the larger police authorities created by amalgamation will necessarily be less representative of local communities, because the numbers of people serving on them will not, presumably, be increased in proportion with the increased population that they serve. Perhaps the Minister could deal with that.
Amendment No. 67 relates to magistrates. The schedule will remove the specific provision that exists at the moment, under the Police Act, for magistrates to have a guaranteed place on the body of police authorities. It could be that the independent members appointed to police authorities are magistrates, but it has historically been the case that magistrates form a part of police authorities. There are lots of good reasons why magistrates should be on those authorities. The APA feels quite strongly about that. Magistrates plainly bring their experience in relation to the administration of the local justice system and a guaranteed independence from political matters, which we will talk about in future. I do not understand why it is necessary to remove a reference to the place of magistrates from the Bill.
Amendments Nos. 68 and 69 are designed to tease out a debate that we had, albeit imperfectly, on Second Reading, and which I suspect will become more important as time goes by, about whether police authorities are sufficiently in touch with and known by their communities and able to respond to concerns and discharge their functions properly.
One change that has taken place, and one of the threats to the tripartite relationship that the APA has discussed, is the way in which power has increasingly been centralised on the Home Secretary, as he has taken powers to intervene in police forces and authorities, and with the establishment of the centralised bodies that we were discussing this morning. The truth is that there has been an increasing, effective political control of the police, not from the local community, but from the centre by national politicians. To a greater extent than ever before in this country, the Home Secretary now seeks to dictate the broad, strategic framework, at least, of policing and seeks to take direct measures to lift standards and interfere in the operation of police forces, just as Secretaries of State have done in relation to health care and education.