Schedule 2 - Amendments to the Police Act 1996
Police and Justice Bill
2:45 pm
Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)
I am anxious to make a little progress on the issues.
I come to amendments Nos. 68, 69 and 70, which deal with directly elected police authorities and sheriffs. Goodness me. The hon. Member for Harwich went a bit too far from his policy review when he spoke about directly elected chief constables. It will be fascinating to see whether that is the position that emerges from the policy review.
As the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs said, it is not a new idea. We consulted on a range of options in our consultation paper, and the option of direct elections was almost unanimously rejected. People talked about the danger of extremist groups capturing police authorities, the potential for single-issue groups to dominate, the prospect of short-term policing decisions being made in the run-up to election periods and the potential for politicisation.
I feel strongly that directly elected police authorities would reinforce to some extent the silo approach to tackling problems of crime and disorder. We have tried in the community safety plan and in making the connection with crime and disorder reduction partnerships to recognise that many of the crime and disorder problems that communities face cannot be solved simply by policing. The best way to do it is to have a partnership dealing with social services, education, housing and the health service as well as policing. Simply having directly elected police authorities could reinforce that silo mentality, which would not be to the benefit of communities at all.
When the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) was the shadow Home Secretary, he said about the possibility of directly elected authorities:
“I reject entirely the view ... that there should be directly elected police authorities. That would be a recipe for politicising the police service.”—[Official Report, 26 April 1994; Vol. 242, c. 112-3.]
Perhaps the Opposition have moved full circle in their approach to the matter.
The amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs are short on detail. I am not sure how his commissioners would be elected, how long their term of office would be or what the voter system would be—