New Clause 4
4:00 pm
Julie Kirkbride (Bromsgrove, Conservative)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point. I am glad that he has got it off his chest, if it was troubling him during lunch. I have a great deal of sympathy with his point. My own family has experience of a fatal road traffic accident, so I know only too well how heartbreaking they can be. I am glad to put it on record that resources certainly need to be applied to traffic and speeding enforcement.
My point, to reprise quickly what I was saying, is that there is a democratic deficit in police representation of all the views in the community. My concern involves exactly such cases as when a chief constable has a bee in his or her bonnet about a particular issue. Accountability from the public’s point of view as to whether that is the correct priority is somewhat unclear. It must go through the police authority, which may be happy with how precious, scarce resources are being spent. Despite the speech made by the hon. Member for Chesterfield, who called for communities to be allowed to raise as much of their own resources as they see fit, resources will always be limited, because the public have only a certain appetite for paying taxes and have other priorities. Policing must live within its means and decide on its priorities. The question is, how do the public make those priorities their priorities, and what accountability is there in respect of the police having to ensure that that happens?
As all parties have agreed that there is a problem of democracy and representation, it is disappointing that the Government have come up with a damp squib after they had suggested that they would do something more exciting. To be fair to the Government, I agree that it is a difficult and complicated area of public services to reform and that we need to proceed with caution. Democracy is highly desirable, but it could have some malign consequences if reform does not proceed as we would like it to.
One of the questions brought out in this morning’s debate was, “If we were to democratise police accountability, how would we organise that?”. The first problem is the police force area. In some places it is very distinct and clear-cut: it is a county force, there is already a county council, everyone sees a community of interest and it becomes much clearer to administer. In my constituency, it crosses county boundaries. It is not obvious that people in Bromsgrove have a community of interest with other parts of the West Mercia force area. It is therefore more difficult to find one person who can speak for everybody and in whom everybody has confidence.
Similarly, that one person who might seem to represent a police force area could, in foreseeable circumstances, be encouraged to inflame incidents to attract votes come the all-important election. That leads to the question of when the elections should be. Should they be tied to other local authority elections? What turnout would we expect, hope or desire to achieve? Were they to be stand-alone elections, turnout would be a worry to anyone interested in democracy, because there is often a disappointing turnout at local authority elections and occasionally even at general elections. If the public had not bought into the idea of electing their police representatives, would they have a proper mandate? How would one try to increase the turnout?
Those are difficult issues. I was interested in the arguments advanced by the hon. Member for Chesterfield. I am sure that he will not be surprised to learn that I do not agree with all of them, but I did think that there was something in the idea of an elected representative representing a smaller area, where there is a more obvious community of interest. Having more than one elected representative in control of a police area reduces the prospects of what the hon. Member for Stourbridge talked about—a single BNP candidate, who has been elected and therefore is sacrosanct, taking charge of one of our primary police forces. That would be an area of interest if we were to proceed down the democratic road. It is disappointing that the Government did not have more ideas. As I said, I sympathise with the reasons why. We might all have to wait for a general election to hear more elucidation from all sides of what we might do with police forces.