Schedule 2 - Amendments to the Police Act 1996
Police and Justice Bill
10:30 am

Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)

I beg to move amendment No. 30, in schedule 2, page 64, leave out line 17.

Derek Conway (Old Bexley and Sidcup, Conservative)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 31, in schedule 2, page 64, line 36, leave out paragraph 11.

No. 32, in schedule 2, page 65, line 36, leave out paragraph 12.

No. 33, in schedule 2, page 65, line 41, leave out paragraph 13.

No. 34, in schedule 2, page 66, line 3, leave out paragraph 14.

No. 35, in schedule 2, page 66, line 11, leave out paragraph 15.

Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)

The purpose of this group of amendments is to tackle the level of power given to the Secretary of State to direct the activities of police authorities—in particular, policing objectives, policing plans and policing reports. The central amendment is amendment No. 31, which would omit paragraph 11. During our last sitting, the Minister accused Opposition parties of having a conspiracy theory about Government interference in local decision making. It is difficult to reject the idea of such a theory, however, given the extraordinary interference allowed by paragraph 11. Proposed new section 6ZB(3) states:

“An order under this section requiring plans to be issued”—

on the direction of the Secretary of State—

“may contain provision as to ... the periods to be covered by plans ... the matters to be dealt with in plans ... persons who are to be consulted ... persons to whom copies of plans are to be sent.”

That may not go so far as to direct the page numbers or type-faces in which the plans and reports are to be designated—not yet—but it is clearly going in that direction. I do not know who in the Home Office will be given the responsibility to vet the plans and objectives, the consultation, and the circulation lists of all the reports and plans to be issued by local police authorities, but it will clearly be a job for life.

That provision gives the Secretary of State extraordinary powers of interference in the activities of police authorities. Legislators in countries such as the United States or Australia have more seriously devolved government, where federal governments traditionally mind their own business. If we told them   that legislation would give Ministers the right not only to interfere in local policing priorities but even to determine the circulation lists of the reports that are produced, they would be speechless.

It is important to note that policing priorities are a matter of local knowledge and local expertise. There are major differences between Arundel and South Downs, Cheltenham, and Hornsey and Wood Green, and the constituencies represented by Labour Members, and policing priorities will vary from place to place. For instance, in Cheltenham there are differences between areas such as Hatherley, Springbank, Whaddon and Hester’s Way, but I doubt whether the Secretary of State even knows where those places are. It is extraordinary that that level of interference can be allowed.

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

The amendments seek to remove the flexible arrangements that the Bill will introduce in relation to police authorities’ responsibilities for setting local police objectives and issuing policing plans. The core functions of police authorities—to maintain an efficient and effective force and to hold the chief constable to account—will continue to be those set out in the Police Act 1996. However, I genuinely believe that second-order functions such as determining objectives, and issuing plans and reports should be set out in secondary legislation, because it will allow flexibility.

There have been too many cases in which it has been necessary to amend primary legislation because the world has changed. If we cover everything in primary legislation, we remove the flexibility that the use of regulations allows us. The hon. Gentleman has taken issue with some of the detail of the regulations, but it is right in principle to cover such matters in secondary legislation.

I have to reassure the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), as I have before, that this is not part of a sinister plot to centralise power in the Home Office. Responsibility for determining local policing objectives and issuing a force-wide business plan will rightly remain with police authorities; we are not removing those functions. The provisions in schedule 2 simply recognise that modern policing is a rapidly changing sphere, and that we need the flexibility to amend legislation if we are to streamline the planning process rather than making it more bureaucratic.

In particular, the provisions will enable us to merge the existing annual policing plan and the three-year strategy plan to produce a single rolling three-year plan, which can be renewed every 12 months to take into account—as the hon. Gentleman said—the changing policing priorities that are apparent in different communities. Different communities will have different needs, so rolling three-year plans will be important.

The Bill also gives us an opportunity to take another look at whether it is necessary for police authorities to continue to produce old-style annual reports. Many of them do at the moment, and some are very good. However, I am not convinced that a thick annual report is the best means of getting information across   to local communities. The local policing summaries that we are introducing will be much more user-friendly and direct and will give people information such as who their local officers are. The Bill will enable us to consider whether it is better to ask police authorities to continue to produce big annual reports every year or to enhance the local policing summaries. That is what I want to be able to do.

James Brokenshire (Hornchurch, Conservative)

I am interested in the Minister’s line of argument. Last week, she emphasised that the Secretary of State would give high-level, strategic direction. There is a distinction between that and the wording of the schedule, which refers to objectives rather than strategic objectives, which appear elsewhere in the Bill. Can the Minister explain the difference between a strategic objective and an objective? This wording suggests that the objectives mentioned here are at a much lower level than the strategic objectives that she mentioned previously.

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should look at paragraph 11, which would insert, in proposed section 6ZB(1):

“The Secretary of State may by order require police authorities ... to determine objectives”.

The strategic objectives are those of the Home Secretary, who will set national policing priorities. Clearly, police authorities will want to set objectives that relate to their local circumstances, which is exactly the point that I was making. This is not about Ministers setting objectives; it provides a framework within which police authorities will set their own objectives for their communities and ensures that that framework is consistent, so that people in each area go through a similar process in drawing up their local policing objectives. It is not a substitute for the Home Secretary’s decision making; it is part of the tripartite organisation of policing. That gives the lie to contention of the hon. Member for Cheltenham that this is somehow a move to the centre. We are trying to put in place a consistent framework within which there is a rigorous and effective partnership approach to deciding the future of policing. On that basis, I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.

Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)

I am afraid that I am not persuaded by the Minister’s argument that this does not give the Secretary of State extra powers, because the Bill sets out a raft of extra powers. However, I am content at this stage to beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel and South Downs, Conservative)

I beg to move amendment No. 133, in schedule 2, page 67, line 5, at end insert—

‘Requirement to conduct cost benefit analysis of alterations 28In section 32 (power to alter police areas by order), after subsection (3) there is inserted—

“(3A)Before exercising his power under this section the Secretary of State shall commission from an independent body a cost benefit analysis, including the financial costs and benefits of the proposed alterations.

(3B)The Secretary of State shall publish the cost benefit analysis commissioned under subsection (3A).

(3C)The Secretary of State shall not exercise his power under this section unless the cost benefit analysis conducted under subsection (3A) above concludes that the benefits of the proposed alteration significantly outweigh the costs.

(3D)In this section “independent body” means a body which is wholly separate from central Government, police forces or police authorities.”’

Derek Conway (Old Bexley and Sidcup, Conservative)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 82, in schedule 2, page 72, line 5, at end insert—

‘Objections to alterations proposed by Secretary of State 28In section 33 (objections to alterations proposed by Secretary of State), after subsection (3) there is inserted—

“(3A)Police Authorities shall, before the end of the period of four months specified in subsection (3) above, make provision to obtain the views of every registered elector in the area which their authority covers by way of a referendum.

(3B)Where a majority of electors vote against the proposed alterations in a referendum initiated under subsection (3A) above, the Secretary of State shall not proceed with such alterations.”’.

Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel and South Downs, Conservative)

The amendments relate to the Government’s powers under the Police Act 1996 to amalgamate police forces. They are, therefore, very relevant to current debate and to yesterday’s announcement, yet again by way of a written statement, that there will be a further round of police force mergers in the south-east and east midlands. Amendment No. 133 would require that a proper cost-benefit analysis be conducted to assess whether the benefits of amalgamation outweigh the costs, before that amalgamation takes place. Amendment No. 82 would require that a local referendum be conducted, and that unless a majority of the public voted “Yes”, the amalgamation would not take place.

I shall speak first to amendment No. 133 and the cost-benefit analysis. We know, because we have had sight of a document published in July 2004 by the Home Office and the Downing street strategy unit, that both warned of the dangers of restructuring, and in particular, of amalgamations. The final report of the joint project proposed that,

“major reform emphasis should be devoted to achieving best practice at current scale”—

in other words, without amalgamations—

“and that any proposal to merge forces is based on proper analysis of costs, benefits and risks recognising consequential costs for the rest of the criminal justice system.”

As I said on the Floor of the House yesterday, the report continued:

“Evidence from other sectors suggests that merger can be a costly, protracted exercise which does not always deliver expected benefits and inevitably causes distraction for management and staff.”

The section concluded:

“Any case for merger would need to show that the likely benefits outweigh these risks.”

My amendments seek to put into statutory force what the Downing street strategy unit and the Home Office themselves have said—the simple proposition that the costs of a merger should be outweighed by the benefits.

Michael Fabricant (Whip, Whips; Lichfield, Conservative)

Was my hon. Friend as surprised as I was during Home Office questions yesterday to hear so many Government Back Benchers attack the Home Secretary and Home Office Ministers? Was he also surprised at their frustration when the Home Secretary said that he would not allow any local referendum and would rule that idea completely out of hand because local democracy was unimportant?

Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel and South Downs, Conservative)

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. Concern has been expressed on both sides about the Government’s amalgamations, including by Labour Members, who expressed concern yesterday. Shortly, I will turn to referendums and the Home Secretary’s inadequate reply to the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) at Home Office questions yesterday.

I turn to whether it is necessary to have a measure that puts into statutory force the Government’s own proposal that there should be a proper cost-benefit analysis of the amalgamation procedures. I have no doubt that the Minister will say that Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary has undertaken such an analysis. Is that really the case? None of the financial assessments that the Government say they have done on the costs of amalgamation have been made available to this Committee or to those of us affected by the Government’s proposed amalgamations. Yesterday, the Home Secretary’s statement said:

“I now have the professional policing and financial assessments to enable me to identify which options will be of the greatest benefit to three more regions”.—[Official Report, 20 March 2006; Vol. 444, c. Column Number 6WS.]

The Home Secretary has professional policing and financial assessments, but we, Members of the House of Commons, do not. We have not been given those financial assessments.

Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin, Conservative)

Is there not a fundamental inconsistency in the Government’s position? On the one hand, when the police ask for more powers and give professional advice about terror legislation, the Government are happy to give way to the professionals. When it is a matter of local policing in Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Shropshire, however, they choose to ignore professional advice. Is not that inconsistent?

Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel and South Downs, Conservative)

Of course it is inconsistent. The Government rest their case on the fact that they have received advice from Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary. My point about that advice is, as I said on Second Reading, that the analysis in the inspectorate’s report of the costs and benefits of amalgamation, particularly in relation to the financial costs, which is the subject of the amendment, is very weak.

Only nine of the 113 pages of the O’Connor report, plus two slender appendices, are devoted to finance. That report estimated that mergers would facilitate long-term economies of scale of about £70 million a   year, but there was no study and no supporting evidence to show where those economies would be found. Police authorities have, as we know, undertaken their own costings of the proposed amalgamations and arrived at a figure of more than £0.5 billion for the costs of restructuring.

The Government keep telling us that those figures are wrong. If so, they should publish the costings. They cannot simply rubbish the police authorities’ professional costings and claim that they have carried out their own financial assessments unless they are willing to publish their own costings of those amalgamations, so that we and the public can judge whether it makes financial sense for the amalgamations to proceed, and whether costs will fall to the local taxpayer.

The fear, of course, is that the money that the Government have so far made available to cover the costs of amalgamation is far less than the costs that have been estimated. The Government have said that police authorities will have to borrow. Inevitably, that borrowing will fall to local taxpayers, with implications for rising council tax.

There have been numerous criticisms of the quality of the “Closing the Gap” report and, in particular, its statistical analysis. I remind the Committee that the report was not peer reviewed. It has been criticised by Professor Darlington, a professor of statistics at the university of Warwick, and by Professor Seifert, who described it as

“poorly written and riddled with inconsistent and unclear use of critically important terms”,

and criticised the use of

“randomly selected benchmark activities”

and of false extrapolation

“from the atypical to the typical.”

Indeed, the North Wales Police Federation went so far as to describe the report as a “dodgy dossier”.

The Minister will need to persuade us that the O’Connor report, or the Government’s own work, have produced a robust cost-benefit analysis of the proposals and, even if that is true, she will need to show us what is wrong with a provision requiring that an independent body should produce the costings before amalgamations can proceed. What confidence can we have in the Government’s proposals unless such independent costings are undertaken or the Government are willing to publish their own?

James Brokenshire (Hornchurch, Conservative)

Much of the debate has centred on whether proposals in the Bill would have a centralising effect. The Minister argues forcefully that it is not a matter of centralising and is all about localism, whereas Conservative Members have reservations about that line of argument. Does my hon. Friend agree that a proposal of the kind that he suggests could help the Minister, by producing an objective justification for changes? The impression from the outside is that the grouping has more to do with centralisation than localism. The amendment might help the Minister.

Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel and South Downs, Conservative)

I agree. If the Government want to demonstrate that the Bill is not a centralising measure, the obvious thing to do is agree to provisions that will clearly inject some local input into the consideration of police force amalgamations. I strongly suspect that the Government do not wish to subject themselves to any test of British public opinion in addition to those they will face in the near future, but we shall see.

Michael Fabricant (Whip, Whips; Lichfield, Conservative)

Does my hon. Friend recall that during an earlier debate on amalgamation, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale, East (Paul Goggins), estimated from the figures available that the cost of amalgamations would be between £600 million and £800 million? It was also made clear that only £150 million would be available centrally to fund it. As my hon. Friend rightly pointed out, that £400 million deficit will have to be picked up by the council tax payer.

Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel and South Downs, Conservative)

My hon. Friend is entirely right. The deficit will have to be picked up by local council tax payers. In some areas, the situation will be worse because of unequal precepts. When my own police authority merges with Surrey, which has a higher police precept, there will be a problem in West Sussex unless some mechanism is introduced to equalise the precepts.

That is a separate issue, however. The real question is whether, overall, the costs of proceeding with police amalgamations will be justified by the benefits. As amendment No. 133 makes clear, I do not mean just the financial costs but the overall costs and benefits of amalgamating police forces. In my view, they have not been properly assessed.

Amendment No. 82 would introduce a requirement that local referendums should be held when amalgamations are put through by the Home Secretary without the consent of police authorities. Let us remind ourselves that at the moment, only two police authorities, Cumbria and Lancashire, have agreed to amalgamation. All the other police force mergers are being contested. It remains to be seen whether the ones announced yesterday will be contested, but I suspect that many will be. My amendment proposes that where amalgamations are contested, local referendums should be held. I am certainly open to the argument that local referendums should be held whether or not police authorities have agreed to the amalgamations.

Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin, Conservative)

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is rather wrong that the Government will ask local communities what they would like new amalgamated police forces to be called, yet will not seek local people’s opinion through referendums on whether they want amalgamations in the first place?

Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel and South Downs, Conservative)

I shall deal with all those matters a little later, if my hon. Friend will bear with me.

In July 1994, in a debate on the Police Bill that now provides the statutory basis for driving forward amalgamations, the Prime Minister, who was then the shadow Home Secretary, pointed out:

“When the previous settlements were formed in the Police Act 1964, it was preceded by a royal commission. It was discussed, debated and properly consulted on. Where amalgamations occurred, they occurred as a result of public agreement.”—[Official Report, 5 July 1994; Vol. 246, c. 273.]

He suggested, and he was surely right, that public agreement is important on fundamental constitutional changes, and the O’Connor report admits that the proposals are of constitutional significance.

The question, therefore, is why the public should not be properly consulted about the arrangements. So far, they have not been. One might think that the Government would be sympathetic to that suggestion, but it is clear from the Home Secretary’s response yesterday that they are not. After all, when the Government consulted on their proposal for elected regional assemblies, they published a document called “A New Voice for England’s Regions”, which said:

“For 17 years the Conservatives have governed in a rigid, centralised and topdown manner. A constant stream of legislation has been imposed from above with little real consultation or local involvement ... Labour has no wish to govern in this way. It is in no-one’s interest that we impose unwanted new structures of government on areas of the country that have no great wish to change. We are determined to work in partnership with the people—with their active support and understanding”

and continued:

“Our advocacy of referendums to measure popular support for elected assemblies is not intended to be a blocking device to prevent progress, but rather is a means of ensuring that these assemblies have their own legitimacy amongst local people.”

That statement was of course wrong in one material respect: it was the most unfortunate blocking device to the Government’s intentions because, on 4 November 2004, 78 per cent. of those polled voted no in the north-east referendum.

The Government have proposed referendums on many other matters, none of which has been held. They proposed them on proportional representation, the euro and the European constitution. However, the substantive issue before us is whether it is right that local communities should be formally and properly consulted before amalgamations can happen.

In the foreword to the precursor to the Police and Justice Bill, the 2003 Green Paper, “Policing: Building Safer Communities Together”, the then Home Secretary said:

“But we want to see a deeper, stronger connection between the police and communities ... We want to strengthen that local connection and we are clear that communities must be at the heart of reform ... We understand that public services, including the police, can no longer be seen as services ‘done unto’ people; they can only be successful if they are conducted with people.”

If that rhetoric is to mean anything, it is surely perfectly reasonable to consult people about changes of real significance to their local police forces.

The Home Secretary appeared to suggest in the House yesterday that he did not want to consult people because they might come up with the wrong answer and might not properly understand policing needs in their area. However, if the case that the Government are putting for amalgamation is so robust and   convincing, why cannot we trust local people to make the right judgment about what is in the interest of dealing with serious crime, terrorism and other matters in their area? Why are the Government so frightened of trusting people to make the right judgment?

I think that I know one of the reasons. In every local opinion poll conducted so far on police amalgamations, people have shown that they do not want change. In Cleveland and in Essex 70 per cent. of the public said so. In Lincolnshire 79 per cent. expressed fears and concerns about the merger proposals. In West Mercia, 88 per cent. of people expressed their hostility towards or concerns about amalgamation. The roll call goes on. That, surely, is the real reason for the Home Secretary’s rejection of the proposal yesterday.

I suggest that there is no respectable argument at all for rejecting the idea that local people should at the very least be formally and properly consulted about the changes. In my view they should be given a block on amalgamations, unless a majority of local people are happy with them. If the Minister intends to reject the proposal, in line with the Home Secretary’s response yesterday, please will she at least spare us any future hyperbole about the localism that is at the heart of the Bill, about the way in which it empowers local communities and about making policing more responsive to local needs. That is the doublespeak that I mentioned in the Committee last week.

The Government should by all means reject the proposal, but only if the Minister recognises in doing so that the reason is that the Government have a view about the structure of policing that is out of tune with the view of local communities, but the Government think that they know best.

Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)

Amendment No. 133 falls into the category of amendments we wish we had thought of. It is welcome. As the hon. Gentleman says, a rigorous cost-benefit analysis of the current merger proposals would have been extremely beneficial. We face enormous potential bills—it is estimated that the cost of merger for the south-west is some £60 million—which may be paid for through debt, increases in council tax or central Government taxation, or the new funding formula of endless deficits, which is being pioneered in the national health service. Whichever process is adopted, we will incur huge costs but will not gain a single extra police officer. There is a great risk of enormous cost without much benefit. If the effect of the amendment will be to apply the brakes to the Government hastily forcing through the mergers, that will be welcome, and we will be happy to support it.

Amendment No. 82 is also worthy of consideration. Again, there is a risk that there is no active consent to the process that is being gone through. The Minister is well aware of the strength of feeling in the south-west, both from the meetings that I have had with her and from my early-day motion, which has wide support   across all parties in Gloucestershire—I think that I was the first Member of this House to table a motion expressing concern about the merger process. Across the south-west, there is a large measure of all-party support for questioning the mergers, and the same is true in other parts of the country. The hon. Gentleman’s figures showing popular opposition to the mergers reinforce my point. Therefore, if the Bill can force the Government to take account of popular opinion, if they are not willing to listen, that will be welcome.

There is a slight practical issue with the idea of referendums in this context. It is one thing to have a referendum on the devolution or decentralisation of power to one authority, to which the answer is yes or no. It is slightly more difficult if the question is about the configuration of authorities. What would happen in my area if, for example, Avon and Wiltshire were to vote yes and Gloucestershire no to a merger? Would Gloucestershire have a veto against the other two authorities? In such circumstances, it will be difficult for any Minister to plan any kind of reform.

Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel and South Downs, Conservative)

Did not exactly the same situation apply in the case of the European constitution? It was agreed by many countries, including ours, that there should be referendums and that the vote of a single country could—in the event, it did—put a block on the progress of the constitution. Surely the hon. Gentleman agrees that in those circumstances any country was entitled to do that. My understanding is that the Government’s position was that any country was so entitled. This vote would be on the potential loss of a local force. Is it not right that local people should be able to apply the brake, unless they are persuaded of the benefits of being part of a wider group?

Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)

That is an interesting example, because it raises the question of what would have happened had every European country voted in favour of a reformed European constitution, but Malta voted no. Would the Conservative party be happy with Malta having a veto over the whole of the rest of Europe? The hon. Member for Harwich (Mr. Carswell) is nodding. That is an interesting variation on democracy. The practical problems with referendums deserve more thought, but for now we are happy to support amendment No. 133 in the initial vote.

Douglas Carswell (Harwich, Conservative)

I support the amendments proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert). It is important that we should have some form of cost-benefit analysis. We are constantly told that the amalgamations will have benefits and that, particularly on cross-border policing issues and level 2 policing, there will be advantages and economies of scale. However, I would like an attempt to be made to gauge the costs of losing local accountability, particularly in terms of level 1 crime and disorder. Since the enactment of the Police Act 1964, local accountability and the tripartite system have been continually eroded under Governments of both major   parties. A gap has steadily grown between the police and the communities that they are meant to police. If you are not willing to accept the amendments that we have suggested for directly elected police chiefs, which I see that a national newspaper advocated yesterday, and you are not willing to propose that sort of localism to close the gap between—

Derek Conway (Old Bexley and Sidcup, Conservative)

Order. The hon. Gentleman must not keep referring to the Chairman in that context.

Douglas Carswell (Harwich, Conservative)

Forgive me, Mr. Conway.

If the Government are not willing to consider those amendments, they should at least be willing to consult about the changes locally, in the way suggested in amendment No. 82.

Michael Fabricant (Whip, Whips; Lichfield, Conservative)

I support amendment No. 133. There is considerable concern in Staffordshire about the regionalisation programme that the Government seem to be obsessed with at the moment. There is great fear in Staffordshire that the risk to life and limb—literally to life—will increase with the forced merger of the Staffordshire ambulance service with what in theory will be the West Midlands ambulance service. We believe that the same will happen as a result of merging the Staffordshire police and the larger West Midlands police force. We are not at all sure that a cost-benefit analysis, if it were ever done, would show a net benefit to the people.

Let me say at the outset that I would have no objection to a police merger if it were voluntary. I was a member of the Committee that considered the Police and Magistrates’ Courts Bill in 1994. It was a Conservative Government who said that if one, two or even three police forces wanted to merge voluntarily for the betterment of policing in the area, they should be able to do so. There is nothing wrong with that, but I object to it being enforced. It is all very well for the Home Secretary to say, as he did yesterday, that he opposes referendums but that he will listen sensibly to what people might say. However, he chooses to ignore the representations and still insists that a merger must go ahead. It is that to which I object.

If the Staffordshire police were to merge with another rural constabulary or two—perhaps with the West Mercia force of my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard)—it would make sense, but to force us to merge with an urban constabulary such the West Midlands would be plain stark bonkers. I admire the independence and honesty of the chief constable of West Mercia, who, in a far more articulate and informed manner than I can display today, gave the reasons why urban and rural constabularies should not merge.

It seems that unless an independent cost-benefit analysis is undertaken, there can be no real openness. The Government talk about the need for localism, but it is lip service. They argue that what they are doing is for the net benefit of the people, but they are not prepared to undertake an independent analysis. One has to question their motives. I tie that in with an emerging pattern that seems to have nothing to do with socialism—and I do not understand what it has to do with new Labour. It is an obsession with   regionalism. What has regionalism got to do with new Labour or the price of eggs—or the price of anything else?

The Government seem obsessed with the idea of forming police forces into large groups that take away powers from those whom the police are meant to serve. If the Minister is so convinced that what the Home Secretary is doing is right, why is she not prepared to say yes to an independent cost-benefit analysis, which would prove that what he is doing is right? I rather suspect that she will reject our reasonable amendments out of hand. When she does, we will all know why.

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

I certainly do not intend to reject the amendments out of hand. I may recommend that the Committee resist the arguments of the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) after a logical and rational discussion of such an important matter. However, given that the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives party are united in their opposition, I am even more convinced that we are absolutely right in the course that we are pursuing.

Listening to the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs speaking about what happened 10 years ago was a little like “Groundhog Day”. If his policy review, which is considering the whole range of Conservative party policies, is going to be at least 10 years out of date, we look forward to its conclusions.

Amendment No. 133 seems to ignore the fact that Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary is an independent body of professional policing experts, which is there to reach conclusions independently and to advise the Home Secretary on the appropriate steps to be taken. The amendment refers to a

“body which is wholly separate from central Government, police forces or police authorities.”

That is exactly what HMIC is. All those proposals have been subject to HMIC assessments of protective services, cost and benefit. We have engaged a range of independent bodies to help us with that. The business cases are being scrutinised by a team involving a variety of consultancy firms such as PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst and Young. The Office of Government Commerce has managed the consultancy team. A huge range of independent bodies are involved in scrutinising the various cases.

Michael Fabricant (Whip, Whips; Lichfield, Conservative)

Do those bodies support the costs quoted in an earlier debate by the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), of between £600 and £800 million for the funding of the mergers?

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

Clearly, since 23 December, when the business cases were submitted, a huge amount of work has been done and some of the figures that were originally submitted have been changed and refined. I am pleased to be able to tell the Committee that the costs have come down significantly from the early estimates put forward by police authorities. As decisions have been made on the way forward on each of the proposals, business cases and financial analyses have been published. Those are on the Home Office   website. The cases on the first decisions made, about Wales, the north-east, Greater Manchester and the west midlands, were published on either 1 or 6 March.

The papers in relation to the decisions made yesterday about the south-east, the east midlands and the eastern region were put on the Home Office website yesterday, and I can undertake to circulate those papers to members of the Committee. A lot of information on the costs and the protective service analysis is in the public domain. Clearly, there is a proper intellectual basis to our decision making. We would not have it any other way.

Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)

I am extremely puzzled by the chronology. Surely, normally, a cost-benefit analysis is carried out before a decision is taken. In this case, that analysis seems to have been published at the last stage when we have already been through the decision-making process. Certainly, no cost-benefit analysis was published with the O’Connor report.

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

Clearly, the hon. Gentleman was not entirely listening to what I said. We received the business cases on 23 December, following which came a period of intense engagement between the forces, the police authorities and the various consultants, who went through the business cases to see what the initial set-up costs were, what the likely savings would be, two, three, four and five years down the line and how those likely savings could be reinvested to enhance protective services for each of those areas. Clearly, those details have been covered.

Those discussions with the forces and authorities concerned have been ongoing, which is why I said that those figures have changed during that process. The direction in which they have changed means that the set-up costs in many cases are lower, although in some cases they are slightly higher, and the long-term savings show that the exercise is worth while, in terms not just of costs, but of the ability to achieve savings that can be reinvested to ensure that we can meet the threat of serious and organised crime and counter-terrorism. That is what the amalgamations are designed to achieve.

Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin, Conservative)

What consideration has been given to the existing regional task force in the West Mercia police force, the co-operation between special branches in west midlands police forces generally, and the advent of the Serious Organised Crime Agency? Surely, a lot of the roles that those organisations have already undertaken do not have to be replicated by a new super police force with the excuse that terrorism is going to be better dealt with under that new structure.

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

The hon. Gentleman raises serious issues about the fitness for purpose of our police service to tackle counter-terrorism, public order and serious and organised crime. It is important that we do not duplicate resources. We want to ensure that we get the maximum out of the significant extra investment that we have put into policing in recent years, and that   police forces work together. We are amalgamating forces to ensure that we have proper specialist teams to deal with those things.

The hon. Member for Lichfield said that a merger between two rural forces, for example, would make sense. Actually, that is not the case. In many amalgamations, an urban force with significant capacity to deal with serious murder, major incidents and counter-terrorism can act as an anchor and hub for the smaller forces around it. That can give those forces the ability to get up to good capacity more quickly than if they were simply merged with a range of rural forces that have perhaps underinvested in level 2 services and are not able to carry out those functions. I take issue with his suggestion that communities of interest should be the basis for amalgamation. We must look at the forces’ resilience and capacity to introduce it.

Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)

The Minister referred to a number of business case documents as though they were the same as a prior cost-benefit analysis, and as though all those business case documents support the process that the Government are going through, but that is not the case. In Gloucestershire, the business case supported a stand-alone force. Does she intend to pay attention to those business cases when they have a different view from that of her own Government?

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

Absolutely. We are not just paying attention to the business cases but examining them line by line. As much as anybody else in the Committee, I want amalgamation decisions to be right and to last for the next 15 to 20 years. I am not entirely sure that I will be a Member of the House then, but I shall certainly take an interest in ensuring that those decisions are robust and sustainable, and that the benefits outweigh the costs. The benefits are not simply financial; they also involve ensuring that our police service is fit for purpose for the next 15 to 20 years and can meet the threats that people face.

It is not simply a matter of bean counting; it is also about looking seriously at the future configuration of our police service. If the hon. Gentleman goes to the Home Office website and looks at the documents that are available in the public domain, it might add to his store of knowledge on the matter.

Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South, Labour)

Does my right hon. Friend agree that Opposition Members could have done their homework a little better by looking at the information available on the website, rather than quoting things that were raised 10 years ago?

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I am sure that we will all add to our knowledge during the Committee’s proceedings. I urge hon. Members, particularly Opposition Members, to ensure that they speak from a position of informed knowledge.

Michael Fabricant (Whip, Whips; Lichfield, Conservative)

May I bring the Minister back to the fact that she said that the costs of merger are analysed to have been reduced from the £600 million to £800 million that the Under-Secretary mentioned?

I cannot remember whether the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Flello) was present at our meeting with the police authority and John Giffard, the chief constable of Staffordshire and architect of some of the mergers. Ten or 11 of the 12 Staffordshire Members of Parliament, of whom only three are Conservative, were present, and all of them bar one said that the business plan was unbelievable and incredibly shallow.

Derek Conway (Old Bexley and Sidcup, Conservative)

Order. The hon. Gentleman is making a long intervention. I am sure that if he wants to contribute when the Minister has concluded, he will catch my eye.

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

All I can do is to urge the hon. Gentleman to read the documents in the public domain and to have a look at the finance. I am sure that he will have every opportunity to come back to that point if he wishes.

Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin, Conservative)

I am a little puzzled by the Minister’s use of tenses. She used the past tense in response to the hon. Member for Cheltenham. Then she used the future tense, and then she went back to the past tense. Is it past or future tense in relation to the business cases? Have they been analysed and have conclusions been made, or are they being analysed line by line, as she said, in which case the future tense is appropriate and the decision has been made before they are analysed?

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

Perhaps I can refer the hon. Gentleman to the Labour party manifesto at the general election: “Forward not back”. As to the financial situation, work has been ongoing. Since 23 December when we received the cases, and when many of the figures were estimates from the Association of Police Authorities, those figures have been refined through a process of work with independent consultants and the Office of Government Commerce.

We now have a statement in each summary showing year by year the up-front cost, the long-term savings and the point at which break-even can be reached; it is then possible to reach a point at which savings can be reinvested in protective services. Hon. Members will see that, but I have no doubt that discussions will continue on financial issues, because we shall not arrive at an absolutely clear final view, down to the last pound, of where we are to go.

If the hon. Member for Cheltenham has any business experience—I do not know whether he has—he will know that debate and dialogue will continue. We have a pretty clear view of the costs and benefits, the savings and the initial set-up costs. He will see that from the documents, which he will perhaps have the opportunity to study on the Home Office website during the lunch break. I urge him to do that.

I want to take my remarks back a little, away from finance issues. As I said to the hon. Gentleman, this is not simply a question of financial benefit; it is also a matter of policing benefits. The independent report from Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary contains some stark and shocking facts, which surprised me. It states that only 13 of the existing 43   forces have specialist murder units, less than 6 per cent. of more than 1,500 big organised crime gangs are being targeted by police in the course of a year, and the ability of some forces to deal with terrorist or domestic extremist incidents would be strained within a matter of hours.

Only seven out of 43 forces deploy special branch, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for The Wrekin, alongside neighbourhood teams to ensure that it receives the community intelligence that is so vital to the anticipation of crime and a proactive approach to it. Some officers have several crisis management roles and they can conflict. An officer could leave a fatal traffic accident to attend a firearms incident because no other trained person was available. A ports officer might have to leave a ports operation to conduct a surveillance operation because the specialist skills were not available.

Some forces have no independent armed response capacity at some times of the day and must borrow from their neighbours. Only two forces—the two largest in the country—scored well in the HMIC assessment of their ability to handle serious crimes. All other forces fell significantly short of what it believes is necessary in that respect.

What is proposed is not simply a matter of getting the figures right. That is important, but there is an imperative involved. As I said to the hon. Member for Lichfield, in his area the Staffordshire, Warwickshire and West Midlands forces are keen to come together, because they recognise that in many cases they do not have the capacity and resilience to respond to the threats that I have described. There is a serious point to make about leadership in showing that we need to reconfigure our police service so that it will be fit for purpose in HMIC’s terms. It is not at the moment.

Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South, Labour)

Will my right hon. Friend comment on the observation by the hon. Gentleman that Staffordshire would not want to merge with West Midlands police because it would be the merger of a rural force with an urban force? What is her view on the fact that Stoke-on-Trent is not a rural area, but an urban area, and that Longton police station is the busiest police station in the whole of Staffordshire?

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

My hon. Friend makes a good point. He will know that as a matter of the wider police reform agenda, we want to make basic command units, together with their local authority partners and the crime and disorder reduction partnership, the engine of neighbourhood policing. That deals, I think, with the comments of the hon. Member for Harwich about localism. We are making the basic command unit the absolute local unit of policing to which many communities will relate. There are clearly matters of urban concern in his basic command unit, which may need to be dealt with differently from those of rural areas.

Lynne Featherstone (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Hornsey and Wood Green, Liberal Democrat)

Does the Minister understand that we are not arguing that there is a gap in provision of level 2 services, but that the Government’s solution—merging forces—is not necessarily the answer,   particularly if it is done against the will of the forces? Commissioning in other groupings could have been done without the huge expense that will be incurred by what the Government propose.

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

We have travelled some of this ground before, and debated the benefits of greater collaboration and whether a federated approach would have been suitable. In the majority of cases, we did not receive detailed business cases for federation; we certainly did not have the detail, the analysis or the financial information to consider them in that way. We also had advice from HMIC that in many cases collaboration had been, in its view, woefully inadequate and that federation would lead to a confusion about accountability and who would pay for the services. It genuinely did not believe that federation and collaboration could give the extra capacity and high-quality police services that amalgamations can deliver.

Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin, Conservative)

Will the Minister give an undertaking that no chief constable who has objected to the amalgamation plans will be overlooked for possible promotion to oversee any future merged police force?

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

The hon. Gentleman can be assured that when police authorities consider recruitment—in the interests of localism and partnership, it will be police authorities that recruit their command teams—they will conduct a proper process with propriety and integrity. No matter that it would be improper to consider will figure in their decision-making processes.

Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)

The kind of selective quotation from the HMIC report that the Minister gave reinforces the need for amendment No. 133. She mentioned the failures of smaller forces compared with larger ones, yet if one looks at the detail of the O’Connor report, one finds that it is far from the ringing endorsement of wholesale merger that it appears at first glance. For instance, it says that stakeholders have mixed views, that the performance of some smaller forces is very good by comparison with that of larger forces, and, particularly, that in things such as level 2 resilience, forces such as Gloucestershire and West Mercia perform well. It also draws attention to the importance of leadership in the performance of small forces. Is not one of the risks of merger the removal of a tier of leadership across the country when the number of chief constables is reduced from 43 to 12?

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

It is quite breathtaking that the hon. Gentleman should say that I quoted selectively from the report. Does he not regard as important the relationship with special branch, the tiny minority of forces that have major incident teams and the fact that we are tackling proactively hardly any of the organised crime gangs in this country? Those are substantive issues, and I would hope that he would acknowledge   that it would be irresponsible of any Government not to act on the recommendations of a report such as that from its professional experts in HMIC.

Of course there are issues. There is not an exact match between size of force and performance; some smaller forces perform better than larger ones. However, it is also the case that our police performance framework often does not measure level 2 performance—it measures, broadly, level 1 performance—so it is difficult to obtain that sort of read-across. However, there is a broad correlation between size of force and ability to cope with the challenges of the serious and organised crime agenda. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that and not persist in refusing to recognise the imperatives from HMIC. This responsible Government are prepared to take them on board and to show a bit of leadership in order to find the right way forward for the country.

Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)

As my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone) said, no one is denying that there are gaps in level 2 resilience and that real concerns have been raised by HMIC. The Minister is right to tackle those problems, but she once again draws specific applications from general trends when it may not be appropriate for particular forces. The simple argument is that we should not have a one-size-fits-all solution, in which the general trend toward efficiency among larger forces and against smaller forces is made to force specific mergers on them all.

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is wrong again when he says that it is a one-size-fits-all solution. In the north-west, the Cumbria, Lancashire and Greater Manchester forces will stand alone, but the Cheshire and Merseyside forces will amalgamate. In the north-east, the recommendation is for a regional force. It is the same in the west midlands. In the south-east, the three forces of Kent, Hampshire and Thames Valley will stand alone, and Surrey and Sussex will come together. That clearly shows that it is not a one-size-fits-all solution.

Proper analysis has been undertaken of what is the right solution for particular areas, and we have tried to achieve agreement and consensus. We asked forces and authorities in September last year to suggest how we could better protect the country at level 2, given the threats that face us. We did not go out from the centre saying, “This is the map that we have drawn, and these are the forces, like it or not.” We said that we would look at the business case and then take the necessary decisions. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that his assertion that we are taking a one-size-fits-all monolithic approach is very wide of the mark.

I want to give an illustration of the financial position, because I am aware that hon. Members have not yet had a chance to look at the Home Office website, although I am sure that they will be doing so within the next couple of hours. It is projected that the merger of Surrey and Sussex will result in up-front   costs of about £27 million. It will bring together IT systems, and we are trying to ensure that any redundancies can be properly dealt with and be minimised.

Within a few years, net annual savings will result—for example, from reducing the command teams from two to one, and having better procurement and better back-office services. It is estimated that, by the fourth year, the total annual saving from merging forces will be about £16 million, and that that will continue year on year. That money will be available for reinvestment in protective services in the region. The people of Surrey and Sussex will have a better policing service because they will gain from the efficiencies of the merger.

I hope that hon. Members will agree that we have received independent advice from HMIC and independent consultants. We all want to ensure that the benefits outweigh the costs, and that there has been a proper process. I therefore ask the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs to withdraw amendment No. 133.

Amendment No. 82 calls for local referendums. I remind the Committee that the Police Act 1996 makes perfectly adequate provision for amalgamations. That legislation was introduced by the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) when he was Home Secretary. The hon. Member for Lichfield mentioned the Police and Magistrates’ Courts Bill. That, too, was enacted by a Conservative Government, and I understand that it removed a provision for local public inquiries to be held before proposed amalgamations took effect. He does not have a proud record of involving people and giving them the right to a say. I hate to make him blush.

As hon. Members know, there will be two separate procedures for making amalgamations. With a voluntary request, any order will be subject to the negative resolution procedure. If the Home Secretary makes an order on the grounds that it is in the interests of efficiency or effectiveness, it will be made under the affirmative resolution procedure. If the Home Secretary initiates mergers, people will have four months to make objections, and all those matters will have to be properly considered before the Home Secretary can decide whether to lay an order. My right hon. Friend has already indicated how he intends to proceed in relation to Wales, the north-west, the north-east and the west midlands. A time scale has been laid out and yesterday he gave a series of further indications on how those matters will be dealt with.

Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin, Conservative)

Is the Minister aware that Holyhead remains the third busiest port in the United Kingdom for footfall, and that many of those people travel through my constituency in Shropshire? If so, can she tell the Committee why five special branch officers have been told that they will be made redundant, especially as the mergers were supposed to enhance the way in which we deal with the threat of terrorism?

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

Contrary to the view of the Opposition, I do not make decisions in Whitehall on operational matters involving individual police forces. We do not have that sort of centralised police system. Clearly, those operational matters are a matter for the chief constable involved. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman can raise his query with the chief constable in North Wales. I hope that he will get a satisfactory answer about why that decision was made.

Referendums have their place. This Government put in place the statutory framework in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. The UK has a parliamentary system of government. We elect our Government to make decisions. Referendums should be reserved for issues of major constitutional significance and change.

The hon. Member for Cheltenham made the point that, if we were to have a referendum and to give one part of an area a veto over what might genuinely be in the interests of the rest of the area, we might find ourselves with a recipe for institutional inertia and unable to reconfigure our public services to meet the challenges of the world we live in. If Opposition Members are saying that they want to cling to the status quo or to go backwards, that they are not prepared to consider change and that they are prepared simply to hand over the issues, that is quite disappointing. There is a role for Government—not an overweening centralist Government that imposes their will, but a Government who look at the country’s needs and decide the appropriate step forward.

During the 1960s and 1970s, when major changes took place in police force numbers, no referendums were held. Decisions were reached that brought about significant change in many communities and that could not have received 100 per cent. support. However, decisions clearly needed to be made to ensure that the police service was fit for purpose. That is exactly what we are trying to do. It is important that the decisions are properly scrutinised by Parliament, and the Bill provides for that.

Amendment No. 82 provides a high threshold for the referendum: the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs would have to obtain a majority of electors, not a majority of the turnout. I am not sure that he would be able to achieve that. The amendment is also silent on how the referendum would be organised, what the question would be, whether public money would be spent on it and how it would be conducted. I am not sure that it is practical, and I oppose it in principle.

It is important to consult communities. Since last summer, we have urged police authorities to consult in their areas on the issue, but if we simply ask people whether they want their police area to be merged, it is virtually guaranteed that an awful lot of them will say no. It is important that people have information. If we ask communities whether they think their police service should be able to cope with the threats of terrorism, serious and organised crime, drugs, money laundering and people trafficking, that kind of referendum question will get a very different answer. Proper debate is important.

The hon. Member for Harwich thought that there was a huge gap between police and communities. I hope that he has now seen the introduction in his area of neighbourhood police teams, which are rapidly closing any gap between police and communities. London has nearly 300 safer neighbourhood teams and will have 600 in the next few months. The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green, being a London Member, will recognise that those teams have been an asset in closing the gap and creating a better relationship with communities.

I do not regard referendums as the litmus test of whether we are engaging with communities. It is much more about neighbourhood police teams, crime and disorder reduction partnerships, relationships with local government and BCUs, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South mentioned. That is the reality of engaging with communities. Referendums are a distraction in that regard, and I ask the Committee to reject the amendments.

Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel and South Downs, Conservative)

I am grateful to the Minister for her reply, but I do not find it satisfactory. As she pointed out, there is no disagreement in this Committee about the need to strengthen protective services. The question is how best to achieve it. At all stages, we have been at pains to agree that the gap needs to be closed. The question is how to do it and what arrangements between police forces will best achieve it.

Amalgamation is not the only option available to the Government. It was not the only recommendation of the O’Connor report, which proposed other alternatives, such as forces sharing their services. In particular, the Association of Police Authorities has urged the Government to consider carefully the option of forces sharing services as an alternative to amalgamation in many areas.

The Minister says that she has not considered those options because they were not put to her. However, that option was put to her by the APA. She also said that it was necessary for the Government to show leadership. Surely, that alternative should have been properly assessed, not least because the kind of savings that she suggested—giving as an example, I think, what could be achieved for Surrey and Sussex through, for example, the sharing of back-office functions and procurement savings—could be achieved just as easily through arrangements under which forces share their services.

The interesting thing about what is happening in the south-east is that there has been a failure to consider the sharing option. A number of forces will remain as stand-alone strategic forces. I am pleased that they have been reprieved. However, the opportunity has been lost to put pressure on those forces and authorities to get together to make arrangements to share their services, which could yield the necessary savings.

I remind the Committee that the Association of Chief Police Officers has estimated that the gap—the amount of investment necessary to bring level 2 services up to scratch—is some £300 million. So far,   the savings that have been identified have not been in that sphere. The Government have produced a figure of more than £700 million over 10 years. Again, that figure has not been published in this House—it is being presented by Home Office officials to police authorities and others—so we have not had the opportunity to examine it properly. It is plainly not going to be sufficient for the level of investment in protective services that ACPO suggests will be necessary.

Michael Fabricant (Whip, Whips; Lichfield, Conservative)

Does my hon. Friend accept that there is doubt as to the rigour with which the figures were calculated? When they were presented to Staffordshire MPs, Labour and Conservative, they were rejected as not having been thought through properly—that was from the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, backed by Conservative and Labour MPs.

Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel and South Downs, Conservative)

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. First, the Minister relied on the fact that Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary had conducted the independent study. She said that there was no need for our amendment to call for an independent body to produce a cost-benefit analysis, because HMIC had already done that in the O’Connor report. That report is seriously deficient when it comes to financial analysis. There is just one page of assessment of where costs will occur and where savings will be made. That is not a credible alternative to a proper, rigorous assessment by an independent body. Denis O’Connor was quoted in Westminster Hall as saying:

“This process looks like five years and not 18 months to me . . . I was asked to put forward a protective services argument, not a critical assessment of forces . . . I recognise that there are key issues such as legal principles, the precept, consultation and the business cases that I did not have time to consider”.—[Official Report, 29 November 2005; Vol. 440, c. 8WH.]

If the inspector who wrote the report concedes that the financial analysis that should have been part of it was not there, it is not an acceptable alternative to the amendment to say that a study has been conducted by the inspectorate; it has not. The Minister said that the business cases that have been assessed by the Home Office have now been published on the Home Office website. I am grateful for that information; it is certainly news to me. When I met her and asked when the cases would be published, I was not informed that they were, or would be, on the website. I was simply told that they would be published in due course. I am looking forward to reading them on the website. However, I should have thought that it was proper, at the same time as the written statements were made by the Home Secretary, for the assessments to be put in the Library of the House, where they would be available to hon. Members, rather than being buried on an obscure part of a website that we have been told about for the first time in this Committee. I do indeed look forward to reviewing the information at lunch time, and reviewing exactly when the figures were published.

In any case, that is not the same as an independent cost-benefit analysis, because the figures have been produced by the Home Office itself—or by   management consultants employed by it, under the auspices of the chief constable of Staffordshire, who has been retained by the Home Office for that purpose. They are not an independent assessment of the kind that we seek by means of the amendment.

I was interested in the Minister’s response to the concern expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield that rural forces should not be forced to merge with urban forces. The Minister said that there was a good case for such mergers, because the urban component would help to strengthen protective services. However, in the example of Surrey and Sussex, the example that the Minister used, two rural forces are being merged. I am not sure that what she said follows, in relation to the announcements that have just been made.

The Minister said that referendums should be reserved for constitutional issues. I made the point—and am happy to mention again—that the O’Connor report, on which the Government rely, stated at paragraph 2.4 that the constitutional implications of this work are significant. If that is to be the test of when there should be a referendum, by the inspector’s own assessment, the change in question has passed it, and should be made the subject of a referendum.

The Minister said that there was no need for a referendum because the proposals are being properly scrutinised by Parliament. As I have said, Parliament has been denied much scrutiny of the proposals. A debate was not permitted until just before Christmas. The subsequent debate had to take place in Opposition time. None of the statements have been made orally by the Home Secretary. All the announcements about amalgamation have been slipped out by way of written statements. There has been very little parliamentary debate and scrutiny of the proposals. The idea that such scrutiny has been an adequate substitute for proper consultation with the people will not wash.

The truth is that the one group of people who have really been excluded from the process of amalgamation is the public. They have felt that they have had no real say in the matter, and no ability to affect what is happening to policing in their communities. It is not a respectable argument to suggest that the Government know best and that they must take decisions that they believe to be in people’s interest. That is the argument of tyranny. [Interruption.] It is indeed the argument of tyranny. The idea that it is possible to drive measures through because the Government know best is a denial of the democratic principle, which is that local people are entitled to a say over matters that directly affect them, and that we should pay attention to their views. The arguments that were advanced against referendums were very thin.

I accept that my amendment, which was effectively a probing amendment, was deficient and that a referendum would have to be designed carefully to ensure that it could be conducted in the usual manner by police authorities. We can return to that issue later. However, the arguments on the need for an independent cost-benefit analysis have been well   made. It is a perfectly respectable amendment and it is precisely in line with the proposal made by the Home Office strategy unit, not 10 years ago but two years ago, in a document that was not published until recently. That independent cost-benefit analysis is essential, and I will seek therefore to press amendment No. 133 to a vote.

Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)

I beg to move amendment No. 36, in schedule 2, page 67, line 7, leave out paragraph 21.

Derek Conway (Old Bexley and Sidcup, Conservative)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 37, in schedule 2, page 67, line 9, leave out paragraph 22.

No. 38, in schedule 2, page 67, line 25, leave out paragraph 23.

Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)

We have talked about the possible threat to civil liberties posed by some parts of the Bill. In some respects, the Minister made light of that. This is the one part of the Bill that potentially poses a serious threat to civil liberties, and we need to consider it in a sober fashion.

Amendment Nos. 36 to 38 propose the deletion of paragraphs 21 to 23 of schedule 2. The crux of the matter is that, under those paragraphs, the Secretary of State would set police authorities’ strategic priorities, currently a major power for police authorities. Those provisions pose a threat. If one political party is dominant—less the situation now than in recent years, although still broadly the case—it might abuse the powers under the Bill to set policing priorities to its own advantage and to suit its own political agenda.

I would not be so ungenerous as to suggest that the Minister is a tyrant—the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs seemed to suggest a minute ago that she had that potential. Obviously, she is a perfectly reasonable and liberal Minister, and she has an equally reasonable and liberal Home Secretary. However, we must imagine those powers, not in the hands of reasonable, liberal people but, potentially, in the hands of unreasonable people. In the end, the only civil liberties that matter are those that protect us against Governments’ doing unreasonable things that we did not expect when those powers were drafted.

We can imagine how the strategic priority provisions might be used in the wrong hands; local priorities might be set aside and priority given to controlling disruptive and unpatriotic elements. I can think of an example from living memory. Had the Government of the United States—a fundamentally democratic and tolerant country—been given powers such as those before us during the McCarthyite era, they would have been able to set policing priorities that might have posed a real threat to the civil liberties of American citizens. The powers before us contain the same possibility.

It could be imagined that people who are, or have been members of the Liberal Democrat party might be at risk from powers used in the wrong way. That is a light-hearted example. More seriously, in the current political environment and under current political pressures, particular Muslim or minority groups might find themselves on the wrong end of policing priorities that followed a populist agenda. Those priorities could be imposed on police authorities to give them a specific steer on the way in which to direct policing in their areas. The paragraphs confer serious powers on the Secretary of State, which in a free society are best left in the hands of the police authorities.

James Brokenshire (Hornchurch, Conservative)

The schedule and the amendments tabled by the Liberal Democrats highlight key elements of where the Government are coming from. There is a small but significant change of emphasis under the schedule. The Government have been able to set objectives for police authorities, but the Bill now makes a subtle but important change: it sets strategic priorities. There is a big difference between saying to an authority that it has an overall objective to do something and saying that it has strategic priorities. That suggests that there is a greater drilling down and more influence on what individual police authorities can do. The crux of the debate is whether the provision is a centralising measure.

In many ways, the Government have set their stall behind the concept of the safer neighbourhood team, the basic command unit and the crime and disorder reduction partnerships as having the localism element, to which I am sure the Minister will refer. Above that, strategic priorities must lie behind what the individual organisations want to achieve with the resources that are allocated to them. The schedule shows that the balance of power is firmly with the Secretary of State, not local organisations that, in some ways, reflect local aspirations and policing needs. The influence will come from the centre, not local neighbourhood communities.

Safer neighbourhood teams are good. I have a close working relationship with the teams in my constituency but, given their resources, there are limits to what they can achieve. A safer neighbourhood team would usually comprise six individuals: a sergeant, two police constables and three community support officers. The teams are unable to police 24 hours a day. They would usually police together, which tends to make them more effective. On an eight-hour shift,   therefore, two thirds of the day and the night would not be addressed in the local community by the safer neighbourhood team and that is when much of the crime could be taking place. It is not realistic to expect the safer neighbourhood team to work a late shift each day of the week, so we rely on the core teams and the resources that are allocated to them. A more specialist team would have to deal with certain crimes, such as armed robbery.

It is easy for the Minister to say, “The safer neighbourhood teams will bridge the gap”, but they depend on the direction and focus that are given to them. Last week, she politely and in a cuddly way told me that we are talking about high-level stuff and that the Secretary of State would not be involved in more operational matters. However, let us consider a strategic objective. In the past, we have seen how the Prime Minister can suddenly decide that a priority should be in place. For that week, the priority could be street crime. In effect, that is a strategic priority. If it had been set, the basic command units, the safer neighbourhood teams and the CDRPs would be subject to it. Whatever the local issues, the direction will come from the centre and that is what the units and teams will follow for a certain time.

The emphasis on setting strategic priorities rather than broader objectives is extremely important and in many ways goes to the heart of our debate on centralisation. The strategic priorities are set from the centre, and the safer neighbourhood teams and all the locally oriented organisations, by which the Minister seeks to set great store, are subject to such objectives, which override the local priorities.

The measure is about centralisation because the powers vest greater control in the Secretary of State rather than in the safer neighbourhood teams and other local bodies. The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, going through the House at the moment, seems to vest in the Government great power to change everything, virtually at the drop of a hat, without having to introduce primary legislation and have proper scrutiny. We have to look closely at such provisions, because there could be a subtle change that would vest even greater power in the centre.

The measure is an important shift in direction which changes the dynamic. It puts much greater emphasis on, and gives much more influence to, the Secretary of State, and takes power away from local bodies, which may have been established as a front to suggest that the emphasis is on them to deal with management and other issues. In fact, setting strategic objectives takes power away from neighbourhoods and local communities and vests it in the centre. It means that priorities are driven by the Government rather than by the local teams on the ground.

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

I do not know whether these are probing amendments, but they would return us to our current position of having to have a national policing plan. That is a rigid requirement because we have to publish it by 30 November every year and so on. With the national community safety plan, the first of which   was published in November last year, I have tried to move towards working across government on such things and to recognise that trying to build safer communities is not simply a job for the police.

Probably half the work of making people safer is done by local government and the health service. The national community safety plan involves 12 different Departments and discusses what contribution they will make—for example, the health service might help with drug treatment and the education service might help divert youngsters away from crime and antisocial behaviour. The amendments would take us back to a more rigid and siloed approach to policing which would be more about the Home Secretary dictating from the centre the police’s priorities and what they should be getting on with. We are trying to implement a much more integrated plan for tackling the problems that beset many of our communities and to draw in all our partners from both national and local government to ensure that we work together to tackle such problems.

Last week I was with a safer neighbourhood team in Hackney, where there is a problem of drug dealing on the streets. In the past, the police had simply used their enforcement powers to tackle it; they tended to move the drug dealers on, so there was displacement. That solved the problem in the short but not the longer term. However, the past 12 months have been different: the police have worked with the local council, involved drug treatment agencies and got youngsters involved in more constructive activities. The problems on the Holly Street estate have now been removed for the long term. I spoke to a lady there who said that she had slept the whole night through for the first time in 18 months because of the more holistic approach.

I am concerned that the amendments would take us back to the rigidity of simply having a national policing plan. I am trying to get localism into the relationship between the police, the local authorities, the health service, the primary care trusts and the education service, all working at the local level. I hope that the hon. Members for Cheltenham and for Hornsey and Wood Green will think about that.

Celia Barlow (Hove, Labour)

I commend the Minister and her team for putting a great deal of money into Brighton and Hove city council to assist the treatment of addicts. That has had a huge knock-on effect on crime in the area. Burglary and vehicle crime have gone down by 20 per cent. in the past year.

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

I am delighted that my hon. Friend has seen tangible improvements on her streets, and I am sure that her community will appreciate them as well.

The hon. Member for Hornchurch (James Brokenshire) raised the serious concern of getting the right balance between the Secretary of State’s strategic policing priorities and the local plans that police authorities will draw up. The legal position is that police authorities must have regard to the national strategic priorities that the Home Secretary sets out—the hon. Gentleman will know that that has a   particular legal meaning—and must take account of them. It does not mean that the priorities substitute entirely for the local policing plan.

In the past year, I have tried to move away from rigid, centrally controlled targets for vehicle crime, robbery and burglary, which is how we dealt with things previously, to much more overarching targets for areas to try to reduce crime by at least 15 per cent. overall. The make-up of that 15 per cent. will be different in different areas. I want more reductions in high crime areas, because the people who live in such places are entitled to live in safer communities. However, within that overarching target, the composition of the crime mix that will be tackled will be different in most areas. Robbery might not be such a big issue, particularly in a rural community, but criminal damage or shoplifting—some of the problems that have not had attention—might be. There is more flexibility in the system that we are introducing because it will enable local people to ensure that the police focus on what is important to them.

The hon. Member for Cheltenham is concerned about the Home Secretary’s ability to set strategic priorities. One of the strategic priorities for this year is to tackle antisocial behaviour. I do not know whether it is his party’s view that that should not be a priority for communities, in view of the stance that it has taken on antisocial behaviour, but I am convinced that it is exactly what the public wants us to do. Every community I visit says that tackling antisocial behaviour is top of its agenda. I do not know whether he wants to suggest that his party does not believe that tackling antisocial behaviour should be a core responsibility of our police service. Perhaps he would like to tell us?

Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)

I am happy to tell the Minister that Liberal Democrat-led Cheltenham borough council has been a pioneer in the use of antisocial behaviour orders. That is why I support the orders and why my party supports them in appropriate circumstances. We obviously think that antisocial behaviour is a serious problem for citizens of this country and that it needs tackling rigorously.

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

I am delighted that the Liberal Democrats are now coming on to Government territory. It is getting very crowded, but that is because the policies are popular. I hope that the hon. Gentleman has an influence on his colleague, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green, in ensuring that antisocial behaviour is central to our priorities.

Lynne Featherstone (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Hornsey and Wood Green, Liberal Democrat)

Will the Minister give way?

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

No, I am going to be a tyrant for a short time.

As I say, it is a matter of balance. Our national priorities are to tackle drugs and antisocial behaviour, to reduce crime in a more flexible way for local communities, and to try to increase the number of offences brought to justice, which everyone would recognise is important for public confidence. Our final   priority is to tackle terrorism. If any member of this Committee were to say that that was not a priority for this country, I would be surprised.

Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin, Conservative)

If the Minister is a tyrant, she is the most charming tyrant that I have come across, and there are many uncharming tyrants in this place.

If the Government are serious about dealing with terrorism, why have they delayed in appointing a homeland security Minister and in forming a department for homeland security or resilience? My party and my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) have been calling on them to do that for some time. If they move to our position and create that department, I can think of no better candidate to fill that role.

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

I did not realise that the hon. Gentleman disliked me quite so much as to map out that future for me.

That debate has been going on for some years. I remain convinced that embedding the responsibility for counter-terrorism across government is important in our system. If one Department were responsible, there would always be a temptation for others to leave that Department to get on with it. Terrorism covers a range of issues—civil nuclear installations, protecting our vulnerable infrastructure and preparing for the consequences of terrorism, where local government has a real role in resilience—and it is not simply a matter for enforcement authorities and the police. That is why it is important that the Department for Transport, the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and other Departments take their responsibility as seriously as they do. If there were simply one central Department dealing with the matter, there would be a temptation to leave it to that Department. Also, we would lose the expertise embedded in many Departments, which helps us to make more of our resources. That is a difference of opinion; the debate will no doubt continue. This country has an integrated way of dealing with the problem, and many other countries look to us as having some of the very best practice in terms of our resilience in that regard.

With that, I ask the Committee to resist the amendment. We have got the balance right between the Home Secretary’s powers and powers at the local level. It is important that he can map out the priorities for the country as a whole, while leaving local areas to get on with the kind of neighbourhood policing that, I am delighted to hear, Members of all parties welcome in their communities.

Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)

I begin on a positive note by agreeing with the Minister about rejecting the idea of a department for homeland security, which the hon. Member for The Wrekin suggested. I have to declare a constituency interest: I represent GCHQ, the work of which would doubtless be complicated by setting up yet another Government institution. I do not think that the American Department of Homeland Security has been such an unqualified success as to justify our   using it as a model. Setting up such a department would be a classic example of what the Government do more often than we propose, whereby they find organisational fixes to problems.

The Minister has somewhat mistaken the intention behind the amendments and talked about particular priorities that were either a good or bad idea. She mentioned reducing crime, including vehicle crime, and antisocial behaviour, all of which are laudable priorities. We have no objection to national Government setting national priorities for policing; that is partly what national Governments are there to do. The power to which we object is the power to impose particular priorities on police authorities at a local level. That is the subject before us. She claims that the Bill introduces a more flexible system, but that beggars belief. It certainly gives more flexibility to the Home Secretary and Ministers, but it clearly cannot give more flexibility to police authorities because they are being imposed on. I am afraid that I have to reject that particular assertion.

The example of antisocial behaviour is a good one. Authorities such as Cheltenham have taken a particular approach to antisocial behaviour orders and have used them imaginatively. It is looking into acceptable behaviour contracts, and there many other ways of tackling the problem of antisocial behaviour. That is a classic example of how towns with suburban areas that have a particular problem with antisocial behaviour have different priorities to rural areas and big cities. We need to set our own policing priorities. The powers to allow the Home Secretary to say, “Well, whether you believe that this priority is good or ill, I know best what a particular authority’s priorities should be”, undermine the very examples of good local initiatives that the Minister gave.

If the authorities that the Minister quoted were so effective in developing strategies for dealing with drug crime, for instance, why not let them set those priorities at local level? Why does the Home Secretary need the power to tell an authority what its priorities should be? The powers are unnecessary. Nevertheless, I accept the political reality of the Committee and realise that we would not win a vote on this occasion, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel and South Downs, Conservative)

I beg to move amendment No. 75, in schedule 2, page 67, line 36, leave out paragraphs 24 to 26.

Derek Conway (Old Bexley and Sidcup, Conservative)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 78, in schedule 2, page 68, line 5, leave out ‘he may’ and insert

‘and the failure is serious and permanent, he may exceptionally’.

No. 79, in schedule 2, page 68, line 5, after ‘may’, insert ‘as a last resort’.

No. 76, in schedule 2, page 68, leave out line 6.

No. 39, in schedule 2, page 68, line 9, at end insert—

‘(1A)Such a direction must be laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.’.

No. 40, in schedule 2, page 68, leave out lines 10 to 18.

No. 77, in schedule 2, page 68, leave out line 14.

No. 41, in schedule 2, page 68, line 42, leave out from beginning of line 42 to end of line 5 on page 69.’.

No. 80, in schedule 2, page 69, line 25, leave out ‘he may’ and insert

‘and the failure is serious and permanent, he may exceptionally’.

No. 81, in schedule 2, page 69, line 25, after ‘may’, insert ‘as a last resort’.

No. 42, in schedule 2, page 69, line 27, at end insert—

‘(1A)Such a direction must be laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.’.

No. 43, in schedule 2, page 69, leave out lines 28 to 32.

No. 44, in schedule 2, page 70, leave out lines 6 to 16.

Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel and South Downs, Conservative)

The amendments relate to the proposed power to give directions to police authorities or chief officers of police, which is set out in schedule 2.

They reflect the fact that a number of concerns have been expressed about the directions. The Committee should examine more closely exactly what the powers will entail and how they will be used.

A briefing was prepared by the Association of Police Authorities for this Committee. There was support for the principle of a police authority being able to request an intervention in its force but concern about the proposed powers to intervene in police authorities, as it is doubtful that the Home Office has the depth of skills and knowledge about police authorities to undertake such an intervention.

The briefing raised several specific issues about the powers of intervention. The first is whether a new power is needed. The APA points out that, after all, the existing powers of intervention have not been used since they were introduced four years ago, in 2002. An agreed protocol is in place for forces that are in need of assistance and it works well in practice.

Let us consider the celebrated case where the previous Home Secretary directed Humberside’s police authority in 2004 to sack the then chief constable, David Westwood. When it said that he should remain, the Home Secretary was able to show in court that he had exercised his existing powers properly to direct that the chief constable be removed. Given that, what is the need for new powers? That is the first question that the Minister might wish to address.

The second issue is whether it is right for the Home Secretary to take new powers to intervene not just in the police authority but directly to the chief police officer without reference to the police authority. The APA said that such a provision might create direct accountability between the chief officer and the Secretary of State, which might interfere with the operational independence of the chief officer and would also undermine the tripartite relationship. The creation of fewer chief officers runs the enhanced risk that they are increasingly answerable not to their local   police authorities but to the Home Secretary. If the power is exercised in that way, I suspect that the trend will be reinforced.

Thirdly, there is the issue about whether the test that is applied is adequate. After all, the proposal relates to a serious principle: where a police force is failing to such an extent, it merits direct Executive action, through the Home Secretary’s intervening in it. The problem is that the Bill’s wording is effectively subjective; it is a subjective test. The Bill states:

“Where the Secretary of State is satisfied that the whole or any part of a police force is failing to discharge ... its functions ... he may direct ... the chief officer ... the police authority ... or both of them”

to remedy the failure.

The APA points out that such a provision effectively leaves the discretion to the Secretary of State, who can act as judge and jury in his own right. It sought either reassurance on this point or some mechanism to prescribe more closely the circumstances in which the Home Secretary would be able to intervene, because otherwise we would be creating a sweeping power to enable future intervention.

It is not enough simply to rely on Home Office assurances that these are to be reserved powers. On Second Reading, in respect of the use of the powers, the Minister said:

“My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary referred to a backstop and a last resort.”—[Official Report, 6 March 2006; Vol. 443, c. 686.]

Interestingly, the Bill’s explanatory notes also make such a reference. Note 89, on page 17, states that the measures are

“intended to ensure that the power to give directions is only used as a last resort.”

However, there is nothing in the Bill to ensure that they will be used as such. They could be used entirely according to the Home Secretary’s judgment about whether a force was behaving effectively. The precedents in this respect are not particularly good. Not only was there the unedifying row between the then Home Secretary and Humberside police authority, to which I have referred, but there was the even more unedifying example of the previous Home Secretary telling the Evening Standard in 2002 that Sir John Stevens had six months to reduce the level of street crime or be sacked. The report on BBC News online on 17 February 2002 went further:

“Mr. Blunkett threatened to send in government managers to run the force if violent crime was not reduced.”

I do not think that we can rely on assurances given by Ministers that powers are only intended as a last resort, when, as a matter of fact, they are drawn in such a way that they could enable significant additional intervention in circumstances that we could not foresee.

It is because of that concern that I have tabled amendments to include in the Bill the wording given in the explanatory notes and which the Minister gave on Second Reading. Amendment No. 79 makes it clear that such intervention may occur “as a last resort”. If the Minister means what she says about the powers only being taken as a last resort, I see no objection to the inclusion of those few words in the Bill.

I proposed an alternative amendment, No. 78, which begins to do what the Association of Police Authorities wants, which is to define more closely the circumstances in which the Home Secretary may intervene in police forces. It suggests that the failure must be “serious and permanent” and the intervention must be an exceptional one. That is a probing amendment. Perhaps, at a later stage, a better form of wording could be discussed that deals more appropriately with this problem, because at the moment the powers of intervention are completely unconstrained.

I am so concerned about the operation of this provision that I have tabled amendment No. 75, which would remove it from the Bill. I hope that that will not be necessary and that we get the reassurances and amendments that we seek.

I look forward to hearing the Minister, but I hope that she recognises that these concerns have been expressed not just on our part, but by the Association of Police Authorities. She has been at great pains to reassure us that she is not seeking to behave in a centralising manner, still less a tyrannical one, and that the purpose of the Bill is to enhance local accountability, although I find that claim difficult to accept. However, she might understand that when a provision allows the Secretary of State to take powers directly to intervene in the running of police forces—not just police authorities—that gives rise to real concerns that this is, effectively, a centralising measure. We need to understand how those measures are intended to be used and we need to be reassured that the Bill will only allow them to be used in exceptional circumstances.

Derek Conway (Old Bexley and Sidcup, Conservative)

Before I call the next hon. Member to speak, perhaps I may just point out that because this group of amendments is pretty wide ranging and the Committee’s previous consideration this morning and on Thursday on the schedule was also fairly wide ranging, I do not intend to allow a debate on whether it should stand part of the Bill.

Lynne Featherstone (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Hornsey and Wood Green, Liberal Democrat)

I rise to speak to amendments Nos. 39, 40, 41 and 42 to 44.

These paragraphs provide for a serious centralisation of power, because to allow the Secretary of State to issue directions both directly to a chief police officer without reference to the authority and to an authority directly goes beyond anything that we have seen to date. He will do that—as the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs said, but which is explained only in the explanatory notes—“as a last resort” or if he believes that the force or the authority is failing. Again the tripartite relationship is undermined, with power shifting completely and neatly to central control.

There are no objective criteria for that intervention; there is no need for negative reports from Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, which the Minister praised so highly earlier in this sitting, and there is no definition in the Bill of what constitutes   “failure” or “a last resort”. To add insult to injury, that intervention can come merely if the Secretary of State believes that such a force or authority will fail. He is a clever chap, but I am not sure that clairvoyance is one of his skills.

We totally support the police and the police authorities being able to request help, but we are extremely concerned about intervention enabled without examination or a report from HMIC. The absence of objective criteria means that intervention could be determined by political pressures rather than an assessment of the performance or operational ability of the force. There is no way on earth that a Labour Government would have given this carte blanche power had there been a Tory Home Secretary. This must not be about an individual person or the party; it has to stand for all time, and political intervention must be totally resisted. We cannot jeopardise the operational independence of the police in what appears to be a cavalier manner.

We are told that this will broaden the triggers for intervention because it will allow the Secretary of State to look at the national performance assessments of police forces or ask the new chief inspector of the joint inspectorate for his opinion. I would hope that that would happen in any case, but I am not reassured that that is an adequate safeguard.

I have been trying to work out why the Minister and the Home Secretary want these powers and do not want to include a definition of them in the Bill, and I have come to the conclusion that that goes to the heart of something that we see in respect of the Labour Government—a paranoia about devolved responsibility. This is what the terror seems to be: if there is a bad headline in the papers, for instance about a type of crime rocketing in a particular part of the country, the consequence is the Government’s need to be seen to be taking action. In response to such a headline, there is always that need and a knee-jerk reaction.

Not unnaturally, the Government bear the brunt of the blame when things go wrong, even if that is the fault of the local force. That is an understandable concern for the Government. However, if in their mind the need to act swiftly is automatically followed by a need to cut out all the checks and balances of democracy to enable direct intervention, that whole trend—as discussed in the previous sitting—is about the Government wanting to centralise power so that they can intervene for political reasons by being seen to be dealing with what is a political embarrassment in the media. The consequences are draconian and they undermine the structures that are in place and the balance between the Government, the police and the police authorities in their tripartite arrangement.

No one is saying that the Government do not have a duty to intervene when things are going wrong, but we are saying that we must have objective criteria for judging what that wrong is, and that there should be a genuine rationale for intervention, instead of political reasons. It seems that the Government are moving to batten down the hatches so that anything for which they might be blamed will not be left untouched. Their   intervention may be based on their embarrassment rather than on remedies identified by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary. The danger is that the Secretary of State will find himself micromanaging the police.

I suggest to the Minister that the better way forward would be to strengthen the democratic institutions, the measures, the inspections, the monitoring and the triggers, so that objectives and independent assessment can be improved. The answer is to put resources into improving the quality of the processes rather than jumping up and down at particular or defined outcomes mentioned in the press. That is not what needs to be tackled. It is the qualitative processes that need the Government’s attention and resources.

This part of the Bill demonstrates how little faith the Secretary of State has in professionalism. He has no trust in the system of inspection, no trust in chief officers and no trust in the police authorities. That is what the schedule is about.

Under amendment No. 39, such directions would be laid before Parliament. If these swingeing powers are to be given to the Home Secretary, the public would at the very least expect Parliament to debate and to scrutinise them. The Association of Chief Police Officers was extraordinarily strong in its criticism of the schedule:

“Far from empowering communities, we believe that the Bill empowers the Secretary of State ... This replaces the tripartite arrangement with its checks and balances preventing any one arm exercising power inappropriately”.

Hear, hear.

Amendments Nos. 40 and 44 would delete proposed new sections 40(2) and 40A(5), which will give the Secretary of State the power to intervene if he believes that a police force will fail. We would like a better definition of how he is to make that prediction and the basis on which he might think it fair to intervene in advance.

Amendments Nos. 41 and 43 would delete proposed new sections 40(5) and 40A(2), which allow the Secretary of State not to consult the police authority if he is satisfied that the authority has already been made aware of the problem. Those provisions are confusing. They use a sort of doublespeak. On one hand, the Bill purports to allow the police and police authorities to see the evidence that they are failing. On the other hand, the provision to allow the police authority and chief officer further opportunities to deal with the matter and to make representations does not apply if they have been made aware of those matters. I take it, from that rather mixed message, that when the Secretary of State wants in, he will butt in.

Amendment No. 42 would ensure that regulations relating to this part of the Bill were properly laid before Parliament.

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

The Government are making changes to the existing intervention powers to try to make them more fit to respond to performance failings identified in police forces and, importantly, in police authorities. The Bill provides for police authorities to be inspected   for the first time. We therefore need a mechanism to allow intervention if authorities, as well as forces, are failing.

The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs spoke of the suspension of the former chief constable of Humberside. It is important to recognise that those powers were exercised under section 11(3)(a) of the Police Act 1996, as amended by the Police Reform Act 2002. The Bill does not amend those powers. They are separate powers relating to the suspension of chief constables and deputy chief constables in certain circumstances. They cannot be read across to the intervention powers in the Bill, which are about the performance of a force or an authority and not about individual chief officers. It is important that we do not mix the two.

The purpose of the powers is to build on our experience of the past few years in driving performance. All the chief constables whom I have met welcome the increased focus on performance over that time, which has led to significant reductions in crime in a range of areas. Their forces have welcomed the rigorous performance framework, which did not exist three or four years ago. As part of its ethos, the police service now recognises that performance is really important to local communities. These powers—I have said this, but I am happy to reiterate it—are steps of last resort, to be taken only where serious and enduring performance problems arise.

Where performance problems persist and the service to the public is affected, it is important to remedy the situation quickly. The amendments put a number of unnecessary obstacles in the way of that process. Amendment No. 75 would do away with the changes all together, so we would not be able to learn from the past few years in order to make continuous improvements. Effective intervention powers must be in place to ensure that we can take action when a police force or police authority takes too long to show an acceptable improvement in performance, is incapable of addressing its failings or, in an extreme case, refuses to co-operate to remedy failings that have been identified.

Under amendment No. 78, the Secretary of State would intervene if the performance failure were serious and permanent. There is value in trying to be clear about the criteria for intervention. However, I would be concerned about waiting for failure to be permanent. It is difficult to decide when that point is reached. I have used the words, “significant and enduring”, which is fairly clear. It is not fair on communities not to act until a failure is serious and permanent—the standard of service that they receive is at issue, so to wait until failure is permanent is to wait far too long.

Amendment No. 81 seeks to include the words “as a last resort”. It is not necessary to do that. I fear that, if we put “last resort” in the Bill, we will find ourselves having a series of legal arguments about what is last, what is resort and what the whole phrase means, and we will end up with a long delay in introducing the power.

Let me make a general point on that issue. The powers that the Secretary of State will exercise—as the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green said, the Secretary of State has only to be satisfied—are subject to the general legal framework of judicial review. That means that the Home Secretary has to take into account all relevant considerations. He has to reach a decision that any reasonable Home Secretary could reach in order for the power to be exercised. There is a perfectly proper legal framework within which the Home Secretary makes such decisions. The hon. Lady will know, if she has any experience of legislation or the legal system, that the Home Secretary’s decision making is always constrained by the fact that it has to be rational and reasonable, otherwise it is subject to challenge.

One of the other amendments proposes that we remove the provision that enables the Secretary of State to route the powers direct to the chief officer in respect of forces that are failing or will fail. Again, that is not about bypassing the role of the police authorities in holding forces to account for their performance, but it is trying to reflect reality. In the rare cases in which a police authority is unable or unwilling to act, it might be necessary to go to the chief officer, who has the power to do something about the failings.

Amendments Nos. 39 and 42 require Parliament to debate and to approve the issuing of a direction. The provisions require the Home Secretary to produce a report to Parliament when he exercises those powers, and I do not agree that a further change, making provision for a debate, would help. In fact, if there were to be a national debate about failings in a force, it might be alleged that the force was being put in an intense spotlight, when it would be in everybody’s interests for it to address the performance failings, get its organisation back on track and start providing a decent service to its community.

Amendment No. 40 seeks to remove the provision that says that the Secretary of State may intervene when he considers that a police area or police authority will fail. I understand the concern; people do not want the power to be exercised in an unnecessarily pre-emptive way. However, when a failure has been diagnosed, through engagement with the Police Standards Unit, and consideration of inspection reports and a series of performance information, and when it is clear that unless remedial action is taken that force or authority will fail, we have a responsibility to intervene. Clearly, that will be a matter of judgment. As I said, those powers would be a last resort and have never been exercised.

There is a lot of voluntary engagement between the Police Standards Unit and police forces—those engaged with the unit have improved twice as fast as those that are not. There is a clear route through for performance. However, where there have been signs of systemic weakness, rapid deterioration and things starting to go seriously wrong, there should be intervention. In a lot of cases, it will be right that first   there is collaboration, and that people work to improve services in that area, but intervention must be a last resort.

The usual route through those issues is to give forces the opportunity to remedy the problem with, as I said, the Police Standards Unit. Clearly, in most cases, we will do that. However, it is important that, in those rare cases in which that will not happen, when people are either unwilling or incapable of remedying those failures, the Home Secretary can intervene. At the end of the day, those powers are not a sign of the Government’s paranoia—if the Home Office were worried about bad headlines, we would be seeking to introduce new legislation virtually every day.

Lynne Featherstone (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Hornsey and Wood Green, Liberal Democrat)

Will the Minister give way?

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

Let me finish my point.

We do not want people to get ineffective policing and to live in fear in their communities. We have a responsibility to ensure that our police service is the best that it can be, and that can be done in a number of ways—through support, collaboration, the Police Standards Unit, the inspectorate and so on. Of course, we trust all those mechanisms. and in fact, our previous debate was on the HMIC’s expert advice, which we have taken very seriously.

I think that the hon. Lady is seeking to face two ways at the same time. I say genuinely that the Liberal Democrats have had a tendency, not just in the current debate, but in previous ones to will the ends but not the means. Of course, we all want good policing, antisocial behaviour to be tackled and public services at the highest level, but in order to make that happen, the Government must be prepared to take decisions, and it is right and proper that we protect some of our most vulnerable communities, which have lived with crime for many years. I feel a personal responsibility, as do the Government, and I am sure all hon. Members, to find a way of remedying those problems and ensuring that our police service is fit for purpose and can tackle the really important problems.

Lynne Featherstone (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Hornsey and Wood Green, Liberal Democrat)

The Minister must forgive my cynicism, but the Government have just introduced recommendations to address the situation of loans to political parties as a result of political embarrassment.

Siobhain McDonagh (PPS (Rt Hon John Reid, Secretary of State), Ministry of Defence; Mitcham and Morden, Labour)

Of course, the Liberal Democrats don’t do that.

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

I could get into a debate about Liberal Democrats taking loans from foreign donors that have to be repaid.

So far in our deliberations, the Committee has enjoyed a constructive atmosphere. Hon. Members have raised some serious points in their amendments, and until recently, there appeared to be a genuine desire to see how we can get the best legislation to enable our police forces to serve our communities. I think that we have seen graphically where the priorities of the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green lie. They are not in the best interests of providing good policing for her local community. I hope that she will take part in the debate more constructively.

Lynne Featherstone (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Hornsey and Wood Green, Liberal Democrat)

Will the Minister give way?

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

No. On that basis I ask hon. Members to reject the amendments.

Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel and South Downs, Conservative)

I expected the Minister to be a little more constructive—the word that she used in her response. These are serious amendments that we, and I believe the Liberal Democrats, tabled on the basis of concerns raised partly by the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Association of Police Authorities. The more that she speaks, the more concerned I am that the power to intervene in police forces will be relatively unrestrained. The more that she spoke about the passion that she felt about the need to do so, the more clear it became to me that it is the Government’s intention to use those powers.

We could debate the extent to which such powers should be used in all but the most serious circumstances, but the question is whether there are sufficient checks. In my view, a provision that gives the Secretary of State complete discretion, on the basis of his or her judgment, to decide whether

“a police force is failing to discharge any of its functions”

is not sufficiently constrained.

The Minister said that she takes Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary seriously, but the inspectorate will effectively be excluded from the process, will it not? There might be a respectable reason for doing that, relating to the Government’s desire to intervene directly when, for instance, a public inquiry recommends action, as in the case of the Bichard inquiry. That was her point on Second Reading. It is still possible to write into the Bill that, in normal circumstances, such intervention should be triggered by the inspectorate. One would think that that would be the proper balance and process. The independent inspectorate should first say that there is a problem and then empower the Home Secretary to intervene, although there might be exceptional arrangements for the Home Secretary to intervene—for instance, in the case of public inquiries. As far as I can see, the Bill does not provide for that.

I thought, perhaps naively, that the Minister would accept amendment No. 79, which would insert into the Bill the words “as a last resort”. After all, that is written in the explanatory notes to the Bill. If those powers are to be used only as a last resort, why not accept the amendment and thereby offer the reassurance that that is how they are intended to be used? Her quite casual dismissal of that proposal on the grounds that it was simply not necessary was sufficient to convince us that the reason that the amendment will not be accepted is that the Government wish to use the powers in a relatively unfettered manner.

Another concern is that police authorities could be bypassed under the provision. The Minister said that it might be necessary to bypass a police authority if it were unable and unwilling to act. Again, perhaps it should be written into the Bill that, in normal circumstances, the police authority should be   approached first, but in exceptional cases, if the police authority is unable or unwilling to act, there should be a power of direct intervention. All those would be improvements to the Bill, but would limit the exercise of the power.

I am sure that we shall return to the matter. We have already voted against clause 2, which will bring the schedule into force. Therefore, I do not think that it is necessary to divide on the amendments now, but I must say that the Minister’s reply has persuaded me that we did the right thing in opposing clause 2. It is very difficult to argue, on the basis of what she said and her refusal to accept quite moderate checks on the exercise of the power, that it is anything other than a centralising measure. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Lynne Featherstone (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Hornsey and Wood Green, Liberal Democrat)

I beg to move amendment No. 46, in schedule 2, page 72, leave out lines 3 to 5 and insert—

‘(5)An order under this section shall not be made unless a draft of it has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament’.

This is a probing amendment to help us to understand the Government’s thinking on why an order under this proposed section in the schedule should be annulled in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament. That seems to diverge in methodology from other parts of the Bill.

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

We are trying to simplify section 96 of the Police Act 1996. It is a general principle that the key functions should be on the face of the Bill and that the secondary functions should be in regulations. The provision deals with regulations about obtaining the views of local people on how we should consult. It is proper for such detailed matters to be in secondary legislation. We have to consult ACPO, the APA and others before making orders. However, as I said, I will take into account the views of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee if it feels that there should be a different procedure. It is proper that the regulations relating to public consultation should be in secondary legislation and subject to the negative procedure.

Lynne Featherstone (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Hornsey and Wood Green, Liberal Democrat)

I thank the Minister for her explanation, which clears up a couple of things that I was concerned about. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.