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

I beg to move amendment No. 144, in clause 21, page 22, line 15, at end insert—

‘(3)The Chief Inspector shall maintain complete independence from the Government and shall not be directed by Ministers except where specifically directed under the provisions of this Act.’.

I am glad that you survived the threat to life and limb suggested by the fire alert, Mr. Conway.

The amendment is designed to provoke debate on the important fact that the chief inspector of the new combined inspectorate should be constitutionally independent from the Government. There are reasons to worry about whether that will be the case. The inspectorates are nominally independent now. On the Home Office website, which I am always keen to quote, the introduction to the inspectorate of constabulary says that it is

“independent both of the Home Office and of the Police Service.”

Lord Chief Justice Woolf has observed, in relation to the prisons inspectorate, that

“a system without an independent element is not a system that accords with proper standards of justice.”

However, we know from what previous chief inspectors have said about the operation of their inspectorates and how they work with the Government that that independence is often sorely tested. Lord Ramsbotham, the former chief inspector of prisons, noted in his book “Prisongate” that during his time as chief inspector, he and the Prison Service were working to different agendas and that the permanent secretary in the Home Office did not

“like or understand our independence.”

He further describes the way in which the Government sought to interfere, sometimes with the content of his inspectorate reports. On one, he says:

“I would have liked to complete a further thematic review called ‘Inequalities’ to address my deep concern about how five separate minority groups were treated in prison,”

but the Minister

“suddenly announced that he did not want me to include race in the review”.

Lord Ramsbotham says that he tried to persuade the Minister to include a review, but was not successful.

Similarly, Chris Woodhead, the former chief inspector of schools, sets out in his book “Class War” the relationship that he had with the Government, which was not one of proper independence. He says:

“Never at any point in its history was HMI wholly or constitutionally independent of government”.

In fact, prior to the creation of the Office for Standards in Education, the inspectorate was a member of the permanent secretary’s senior management board, working with other civil servants to an agreed agenda. Then, the Department was able to determine

“what it said and did not say”.

In 1992 Parliament made Ofsted constitutionally independent, but Mr. Woodhead says that in practice

“the Department continues to hold the purse strings. Officials and politicians alike seek to exert influence over the supposedly independent inspectorate in a variety of ways.”

He concludes:

“An independent inspectorate: In theory, it is fine. In practice, of course, people do not like it.”

As to the part that will be played by the existing inspectorate of constabulary in the combined inspectorate, we had a debate at the beginning of our consideration of this Bill about how the national policing improvement agency would sit alongside the Government’s Police Standards Unit and the independent inspectorate. As there is already a national policing improvement agency giving advice to police forces and the Government, and a Police Standards Unit operating in the Home Office that gives advice to Ministers, it is vital that the inspectorate sits properly outside the Home Office and is not interfered with in any way by Ministers. At the very least, that would avoid overlap, but it would also mean that the inspectorate could do its constitutional duty.

My concern about the matter was reinforced on a closer reading of the Bill. It transpires that subsection (3) of clause 25, which we will come to later, states:

“In exercising any of his functions the Chief Inspector shall have regard to such aspects of government policy as the responsible ministers may direct.”

That is a very wide phrase indeed; it appears to give Ministers power to direct the chief inspector in any way that they want. Furthermore, in clause 24 there is yet another order-making power. It says that the Government may

“by order confer on the Chief Inspector additional functions in relation to anything that is, or is an aspect of, a matter in respect of which he has a duty under this Part to carry out inspections.”

So the provisions contain sweeping powers under which the inspectorate could be directed in ways that it is difficult for us to foresee.

The purpose of my amendment is to enshrine a principle that I am sure the Government will accept as right—namely that the inspectorate should be properly independent from the Government. The amendment states that the inspectorate will

“not be directed by Ministers except where specifically directed under the provisions of this Act.”

I must say that in many respects the amendment is not adequate to protect the independence of the combined new inspectorate because of clause 25(3), to which I referred, under which the Government can effectively give the inspectorate new functions and therefore direct it to carry out those new functions as they see fit. However, even if the amendment is imperfect, the   principle that the inspectorate should stand apart from Ministers should somewhere be written into the legislation.

It is extremely important that the public can have confidence in an independent body that assesses whether certain standards have been met. That applies to our public services across the board, but as we discussed in the last sitting, it must apply particularly to the prisons inspectorate, the police and the other safety services caught under the new inspectorate. If not, the constant temptation for any Government, not just this one, will be to seek to influence the work of the inspectorate. That will result in confusion about the role of inspectors in some areas, which is to act as advisers to Ministers; that is certainly the case for the inspectorate of constabulary. That role may be proper, although I question whether it is necessary given the plethora of bodies established under the new arrangements with the national policing improvement agency. Nevertheless, that advice cannot be a two-way street; it cannot result in the inspectorate being directed or influenced by the Government. There is concern that that will be the case.

In our debate on the previous amendment, I mentioned the importance of ensuring that the inspector of prisons is someone of independent standing who brings a fresh eye to the inspection regime and commands public confidence in his or her pronouncements. That has too often not been the case for other aspects of the inspectorates. For instance, in relation to the police, the senior inspectors of constabulary are drawn from the ranks of serving chief constables. There is a very close relationship between them and other chief constables. They are not allowed to inspect their own forces, but nevertheless the networks are very strong. I question whether that is the right arrangement for an independent inspectorate, or whether we need people from outside the police service who have some expertise, but more importantly, have an independence that enables them to enter and assess properly whether forces are performing up to scratch. Perhaps setting up a combined independent inspectorate provides the opportunity—I see that the Minister is shaking her head—to entrench that independence. I accept that that may be an argument for the combined inspectorate, although my concerns stand about the prisons aspect. However, that constitutional independence should be enshrined in the Bill.

See this speech in context