Schedule 2 - Amendments to the Police Act 1996
Police and Justice Bill
11:30 am
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.