Clause 1
11:15 am
Vernon Coaker (Minister of State (Policing, Crime & Security), Home Office; Gedling, Labour)
It is unnecessary to do that, because those are included in the definition of the term “people”. There is not actually any disagreement between us. I agree that the voluntary sector should be consulted. I agree that businesses should be consulted, as I agree that any of those on the other lists that I have put forward should also be consulted. It is not necessary, however, to include them on the face of the Bill. There are regulations with respect to the Police Act 1996, as with respect to this Bill, about who should be consulted. We want a wide range of people to be consulted, and that is what will happen as a consequence of the Bill and the arrangements that will be made.
The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds did not say much about local attitudinal surveys, but I thought the point he was getting at was the same sort of point he is making with respect to “people”. What he is concerned about—he is quite right to be concerned about it—is what consulting people actually means. I thought that, as well as the points he was making about “people,” he was going to talk about the meaning of local attitudinal surveys.
I am trying to be helpful to the Committee. I said at the evidence session that I do not believe that consulting the public should be just a leaflet pushed through the door. There are those who would say, “Oh, we consulted with the local people. We gave out a leaflet.” That might be how some of our police authorities would say they had fulfilled that duty. That is not sufficient. They may well need to survey, whether or not it is a local attitudinal survey. The hon. Member for Chesterfield is right to raise what that means, who would pay for it and other issues around it. That would be a matter for people to sort out locally. But there are issues about surveys and about how they should be included. There are issues about public meetings and how they fit in with the neighbourhood policing teams, the pledges and all the other things that people are committed to. There are also other ways of doing it, such as inviting people to write in. Not only is it about who should be consulted: there is a big issue about how they should be consulted, and ensuring that they are consulted in an effective way. Surveys should be part of the consultation, whether or not they are local attitudinal surveys, but they do not need to be put on the face of the Bill. The arrangements that we will put forward deal with this.
Moreover, it is important to ensure that we do not just survey, send leaflets or get to public meetings. The same people always turn up at public meetings and respond to surveys. Part of this has got to be about trying to get to those people who usually do not respond. We can call them hard-to-reach groups or anything else, but there are often a number of people whom we ordinarily do not reach.
That is extremely important. I do not want the situation that sometimes occurs—I am sure that we have all experienced this—where one goes to a meeting about hospital closures and meets a group of people there, and then one goes to a meeting about a level crossing, and the same people turn up. We must find a way to encourage more people to participate.
This has been an important debate. There is a distinction between “obtaining the views of” and “having regard to”. We need to ensure that we consult the widest possible group of people. We also need to consider how we consult them. It should not just be a question of putting out the odd leaflet; it should be a wide range of things. I would say that that should include surveys, although they would not be the only measure. Again, I would not put that in the Bill, but I have read those things into the record and they are important.
In many respects, the points that I have made agree with the points made by the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds. The only difference between us seems to be that he believes that those things should be in the Bill, whereas I think that they are implicit in the work that has been done since 1996, following the Police Act. In addition, the comments that I have just read into the record take into account the points made by the hon. Gentleman and demonstrate the importance that we attach to a wide range of people being consulted, in exciting and innovative ways, so that we obtain the views of the broadest cross-section possible of people, businesses, voluntary organisations and others.