Lords amendment: No. 81.

Motion made and Question put, That this House disagrees with the Lords in the said amendment .—[Mr. McNulty.]

The House divided: Ayes 313, Noes 272.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Lords amendment disagreed to.

Lords amendments Nos. 82 to 85 disagreed to.

Before Clause 2

Lords Amendment: No. 1.

I beg to move, That this House
disagrees with the Lords in the said Amendment.

With this it will be convenient to take Lords Amendment No. 71, the Government motion to disagree thereto, and Government amendments (a) to (k) to words so restored to the Bill.

The Amendment would alter the process for making changes to police force areas. There are already perfectly adequate provisions for revising police areas; indeed, those very provisions were substantially revised by the last Administration in the Police and Magistrates' Courts Act 1994. Under the current arrangements, a merger may take place either if the police authorities concerned have volunteered or if the Home Secretary considers that a merger would be in the interests of the efficiency or effectiveness of policing. In the latter case, the Home Secretary must give notice of his intention to merge forces to the affected police and local authorities, and give them a minimum of four months to submit any objections. The Home Secretary must then consider those objections and respond to them before an order is made. Moreover, with Home Secretary-initiated mergers, the necessary order is subject to the affirmative procedure, so there must be a debate and vote in both Houses.

The new Clause that the amendment would insert removes those two routes, and instead requires both that the police authorities volunteer and that the Home Secretary considers the change to be in the interests of efficiency or effectiveness. I appreciate the value of requiring that the Home Secretary must be satisfied that a voluntary merger would promote the efficient or effective policing of the affected area, but the amendment also removes the ability of the Home Secretary to initiate changes to police areas. It is the function of the Home Secretary to take strategic decisions about policing—that is his traditional role in the tripartite relationship. Decisions about police areas are clearly strategic in nature. Therefore, it is right that the Home Secretary should be able to alter police areas, after proper consultation and with due parliamentary scrutiny. A provision for the Home Secretary to initiate mergers has long been on the statute book—going back to the Police Act 1964, and, indeed, before that, and rightly so. There remains a place for such a provision in the future.

In making the case for retaining the existing provisions in the Police Act 1996, I can do no better than refer the House to the police reform white paper of June 1993. It contains the following passage, which rings as true today as it did 13 years ago:

"The Government considers that...it may be desirable in the long term to reduce the number of police forces...The Government intends to ensure...that it will be possible to implement a programme of police force amalgamations in the future when the time is right...Where in future police force amalgamations become desirable, the Secretary of State will be able to prescribe new police force areas."

I commend the forethought of the then Home Secretary, Mr. Howard, and I trust that he will join us in the Division Lobby to reject this amendment, should things come to that.

I know that the amendment was agreed to in the other place during the controversy over the police merger programme initiated by the previous Home Secretary in response to a report of Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary, "Closing the Gap". That might have skewed its judgment in this matter. I therefore think that it is appropriate to take this opportunity to update the House on where we are now in respect of addressing the gap in forces' capacity and capability to tackle terrorism, serious and organised crime, other threats to public safety and what are generally called level 2, or protective, services.

On 19 June, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary made it clear that he was not going to force through mergers where they were not wanted. As a corollary to that clear statement, the notices of intention to merge that were issued on 3 March and 11 April were withdrawn on 13 July. That is not to say that the problems of providing adequate protective services in a 43-force model have gone away. There is widespread recognition that the status quo is not an option. We need to make progress in enhancing forces' capacity and capability to protect the public from the threats posed by terrorism, serious and organised crime, civil emergencies and similar matters; but we are now more focused on the outcomes we want to achieve, and less on structural questions. I have said before on the public record that I think that in the past we got to a stage where the concerns in the strategic forces and merger debates were more about structure and process than about policing.

I have written to all chief constables and police authorities, seeking their views on how best to proceed in the absence of mergers. I have followed up that letter with a series of constructive meetings with chief constables and chairs of police authorities, out in the country as well as in London, to hear their views at first hand. As part of that dialogue with the service, we have made it clear that we are open to all possibilities, ranging from collaboration to federation and the lead-force model, and all other permutations. We are ready to do what we can to facilitate any innovative solutions to this issue. There is a real appetite for that debate out in the country in the service, and a recognition that the gaps indicated in O'Connor's report still exist.

What matters is delivering real improvements in the quality of protective services while protecting neighbourhood policing. That is what we all want to achieve. It is not a culmination, but just next week I shall see all the chief constables and chairs of police authorities in the Home Office for a day that will be spent principally on this matter, although also on other matters to do with policing. The public want their local force to tackle crime and antisocial behaviour. They also want, and deserve, to be properly protected from threats posed by serious organised crime and terrorism, and I am heartened by the willingness that there is among forces and authorities to tackle that issue.

Accordingly, while we have made it clear that we have no plans to return to the issue of forced force mergers in the foreseeable future, we cannot—and I contend that no responsible Government could—rule out entirely the option of Home Secretary-initiated mergers in future. We must retain the ability to initiate mergers where that would be in the public's best interests because it would enhance their protection. Therefore, I ask the House to reject Lords amendment No. 1.

Lords amendment No. 71 relates to the Home Secretary's powers to intervene where serious and persistent police performance concerns have arisen. We have listened to the concerns expressed in the other place, and we are bringing forward two changes to our original proposals, which we believe address those worries. Policing is a service that should be delivered and governed locally, but it should also be delivered to a consistent and acceptable standard to all our communities. The responsibility for ensuring that such a service is provided rightly resides with the chief constable and the police authority. However, there might be occasions when it becomes clear that a particular local area is receiving an unacceptable standard of policing and the local force and authority have been unable to take the necessary steps to address that.

Beyond choosing where to live, local people have no effective choice about the police service they receive. For that reason, the Government need to have reserve powers to intervene in those cases where policing has fallen below an acceptable level and other non-statutory resolutions to performance issues have proved insufficient. Our proposals in the Bill as passed by this House modify the reserve powers to intervene in an underperforming force or police authority. I should stress that we are not taking new powers; in the case of police authorities, these powers have existed since 1994, and in the case of police forces, they have existed since 2002.

How many times have those existing powers been exercised since 1994?

Let me return to that shortly, if inspiration comes my way; otherwise I shall write to the hon. Gentleman on the matter. The question he asks is entirely fair.

What was the trigger for those interventions?

I shall return to that question as well, if I may, as it goes to the heart of many of our proposals in lieu of what the House of Lords has come up with.

The Bill simply ensures that these existing Intervention powers are fit for purpose. The changes that will be made by the Bill draw on our experience over the past four years in supporting forces to embed a performance culture, and on our work helping underperforming forces to turn around their performance.

The Bill widens the sources of information that the Home Secretary can consider in deciding whether to exercise his powers. At present, intervention can only be triggered by an adverse report from HMIC, but there might well be other relevant sources of information such as the findings of a public inquiry—the most germane recent case in that respect being the Bichard inquiry.

Secondly, the Bill streamlines the intervention process. In all but the most exceptional cases, statutory intervention will be considered at the point when all other means of collaboration and support have been attempted, but performance has failed to improve. In such circumstances, it may be that it is taking too long to show an acceptable level of performance improvement; that the force in question simply does not have the capability itself to address its problems; or, in the most extreme and unusual cases, that it refuses to co-operate to remedy its failings. In these circumstances, it is only right that we be able to act decisively and swiftly to address problems that are failing the communities whom the force and the police authority serve.

It is interesting to note that the debate on intervention powers has moved on from that of five years ago. There seems to be more of an acceptance that the Home Secretary should have the powers to take action where the circumstances necessitate, and we have debated instead the right safeguards and the most appropriate path for their use. We recognise the strong feelings expressed about the changes, which would allow the Secretary of State—on some occasions—to direct a chief constable on performance matters, and not require him to route such direction through the police authority first. That is an entirely fair point.

The provisions were by no means developed to shift the balance of power, and it has always been our intention that the usual route for intervention be directed through the police authority. The ability to direct the chief officer had been developed in the light of experience, which shows that there could be occasions when a police authority might not feel able—or, indeed, be able—to take the necessary steps. It was in such circumstances that we proposed direct intervention with the force, to enable us to get to the heart of the problem quickly and to take the necessary remedial action. We listened to the concerns raised in debates about this issue, and our amendments restore the position under the Police Reform Act 2002, which routes the intervention power through the police authority on all occasions. The amendments recognise that the police authority is primarily charged with holding the chief constable of a force to account.

The second main concern has focused on what we feel is a misrepresentation of the intention behind these powers—namely, that the Secretary of State could use them on a whim or for trivial purposes, which he clearly would not. We have made it clear throughout that they are intended to be used only where serious and persistent performance concerns have arisen and other attempts to address them have failed. However, to provide further reassurance we are introducing an Amendment that requires the Secretary of State to consult the inspectorate of constabulary when he proposes to use these powers and imposes a duty to publish the inspectorate's opinion on the evidence leading to the proposed course of action.

The intention is to ensure that the inspectorate's professional and independent advice is available to the Secretary of State on whether the use of the powers is, in its opinion, the right course of action. That should provide confidence that the inspectorate's opinion will remain in view when deciding whether to invoke the powers. The Government agreed on Report in the other place that it is right that this safeguard also be extended to include police authorities, and our amendments make such provision accordingly. So our amendments are intended to provide the Government with effective but proportionate intervention powers. We have listened to the concerns expressed about how those powers might be interpreted or used, and we have responded accordingly with some specific safeguards.

These amendments need to be seen in the context of a series of Government amendments tabled in the other place that rightly reflected the concerns expressed there, and by the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Association of Police Authorities and others over the summer. We have sought to listen and to get this right, so it is almost with regret that I ask the House to reject amendment No. 1. It is important that the Home Secretary retain this reserve power, regardless of what party and Government he represents. I believe that we have moved sufficiently to deal with the concerns expressed about the extent of the Home Secretary's intervention powers. Routing the process through the inspectorate and taking full account of the police authority, in the way outlined in our amendments, is the way forward and addresses those concerns. I therefore ask the House to accept our amendments and to reject the Lords amendments.

I cannot deal fully now with the question that Mr. Walker asked earlier. Regarding the powers that have been in place since 2002, the answer to his question is none. As yet, intervention of that sort has not been required. But that is not to say that the police standards unit, as was—the Home Office changes its name all the time; I cannot remember what it is called now—has not engaged with constabularies in need of assistance in a largely informal, supportive and professional way to try to turn them round. The baseline assessments published by HMIC and the Home Office today show that such engagement does work. In the past couple of years, some eight forces have been engaged in such a fashion. As of today, the figure is only three, and their baseline assessments show a significant improvement compared with last year and that everything is moving in the right direction. I do not have to hand the figures on the use of the powers since 1994, about which the hon. Member for Broxbourne also asked. If I do not get some inspiration by the time the debate finishes, I shall write to him.

I therefore ask the House as humbly as I can to reject amendments Nos. 1 and 71, and to accept the words in lieu.

I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation of why the Government disagree with Lords amendments Nos. 1 and 71, but I want to explain why we believe that the Lords are correct in seeking to amend the Bill in this way.

On Amendment No. 1 and mergers, the Government are asking us to agree to the retention of a power to enforce the merger of police forces, against the wishes of police authorities, to drive through compulsory mergers. Let us examine the manner in which the Government attempted to use that power in the past year, because doing so will inform the House as to whether it should continue to be happy that the power remain available to the Government.

The uncomfortable fact for the Government is that they tried to drive through the biggest reorganisation of the police for 40 years with minimal debate and consultation. They dismissed the concerns of police authorities, many chief constables and councillors, and were frankly contemptuous of opinion in this House. They did their level best to avoid parliamentary debate, and when we finally secured a debate just before Christmas, it was only on a motion for the Adjournment.

My hon. Friend will know that as recently as today, the Government published a league table. Staffordshire came right at the top with 18 points—the Associated Press worked out the points system for what is virtually a league table—and West Midlands had only 12 points. Does that not demonstrate that if the Government's original plan to merge Staffordshire with the West Midlands police had happened, Staffordshire's standards would have been lowered to those of the West Midlands?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point, which he makes very well. He is rightly proud of his local police force. Had that merger been enforced, it would have been against the will of one of the major police forces concerned, which felt very strongly that such a merger would have resulted in its being subsumed into the larger force, and in a loss of accountability. People in rural areas in particular felt very unhappy about the creation of a West Midlands super-force, which, ultimately, is one reason why the proposal fell. But the absence—

I am sorry to stop the hon. Gentleman mid-flow, but I just want to make clear two points. First and importantly, Staffordshire was not the force resisting merger with the West Midlands. Secondly, I need to correct Michael Fabricant: we did not publish any such league table. Indeed, I have spent all day on TV and radio saying that league tables are utterly invidious and meaningless in this regard.

The Minister knows that he has published performance assessments. People are entitled to compare different forces' performance. He is right about Staffordshire—the force did not object to the merger. Indeed, the former chief constable of Staffordshire was the Minister's chief adviser on amalgamations. However, that does not reflect the view of the people of Staffordshire, for whom my hon. Friend Michael Fabricant spoke. They greatly opposed the merger, as every opinion poll showed and the Minister knows. Local people opposed amalgamations. Not a single police force area showed a Majority of the public—the people who experience the policing—in favour of the mergers.

My hon. Friend is right. The Minister knows that Staffordshire Labour Members were also greatly concerned about the merger, just as we were worried about the merger of the Staffordshire ambulance service with that of the west midlands.

It is generally true that the public have been left behind in the reorganisation of public services—the police are not alone in being reorganised. The public have not been properly consulted about health service and police changes. We tried to draw that major point to the Government's attention when the proposals were considered.

Before the interventions, I was considering the absence of parliamentary debate. Conservative and Liberal Democrat Members always initiated discussion and the Government tried to avoid parliamentary debate. That was one of the worst aspects of their proposals for mergers. They drove the process to an absurdly tight timetable, giving police authorities only three months to prepare their cases before Christmas, and ignored the offer that we made in February to allow a year for proper consultation. They gravely damaged the perceived independence of Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary, and many Conservative Members fear that the inspectorate's reputation was unnecessarily undermined by the Government's pressing for early publication of an inadequate report. The Government proceeded regardless of the financial implications, and before they had secured adequate financing from the Treasury to make even the first voluntary merger, between Cumbria and Lancashire, work.

As the Home Office director general of crime, policing and counter-terrorism said last month, the process was

"not well enough planned... not well enough managed".

That is a masterpiece of official understatement. What did the Government achieve? They secured a delay in voluntary co-operation, which we and the Association of Police Authorities had urged, to strengthen protective services, and a bill of more than £10 million that police authorities incurred in preparation for amalgamation. The Government have had to pay compensation for that—money that will come from the police budget.

The expensive waste of police time has made us wary of potential abuse of the power to force mergers in future. The Minister said that my right hon. and learned Friend Mr. Howard had originally proposed that power, but I could as easily have quoted the then Shadow Home Secretary, Mr. Blair, who opposed it and warned that forcing police mergers without proper process would be

"a denial of constitutional principle".

We cannot support the retention of that power unless the Government reassure the House that it will be exercised properly.

I therefore request five key reassurances. If the Minister can provide them, we will feel more comfortable about allowing the power to remain the Bill. First, we need to be confident that other options for improving protective services or otherwise enhancing force co-operation have been exhausted before the Government resort to amalgamation. The Minister has told the press that the power will be used as "absolutely" the "last resort". Similarly, Baroness Scotland said that it would be used only as a "last resort" and a "back-stop". It would be helpful if the Minister repeated that assurance in those words today.

Secondly, a proper case must be made for amalgamations with robust, costed and preferably independent evaluation of the options. Many of us believed that the O'Connor report—the report of Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary—on which the Government relied to pursue amalgamations fulfilled none of those criteria.

Thirdly, adequate public consultation must take place, and not only during the statutory period of four months' consultation once the Home Secretary has decided to press ahead with a force merger. There must be proper consultation with local people, police authorities, police forces and hon. Members before then.

Fourthly, the Minister mentioned due parliamentary scrutiny, which I welcome. However, there must be proper parliamentary consultation—not simply a short debate on any order that is laid, but proper debate on all the issues relevant to a compulsory merger, which, as Her Majesty's inspector of constabulary conceded in the report, has constitutional significance.

Fifthly, we must have an assurance that the financial implications have been tackled, not least precept equalisation, which effectively sank the merger between Cumbria and Lancashire.

I hope that the Minister accepts that those requirements are reasonable. Let me repeat them, because I am serious about our offer. First, we must be confident that all the options for improving services have been exhausted and that the power will be used as a last resort. Secondly, a proper case for amalgamation must be made. Thirdly, there should be genuine public consultation. Fourthly, proper parliamentary consultation and scrutiny must take place. Fifthly, we need an assurance about the financial implications.

We previously sought a local referendum on force mergers and an independent cost-benefit analysis of the proposals. We do not request those checks today. We simply ask the Government to assure us that if force mergers become necessary—in the main, Conservative Members hope that they do not—they will conduct the process properly and thoroughly. I hope that the Minister can give us the reassurances that we seek about the process. If so, we will not try to oppose him when he asks the House to retain the power for force mergers as a last resort. We dislike the power, but the reassurances will give us the knowledge that the House and, importantly, the other place, can hold the Government to them should we and they consider and vote on a proposed merger in future.

I welcome the Minister's acknowledgement that there should be a debate on outcomes rather than structures. We will support him in encouraging voluntary co-operation between forces to strengthen protective services. We accept that the gap needs to be closed and that the issue is important. We urge police authorities to be serious and to take forward as robustly as possible the proposals to make savings, which they can reinvest in protective services. Such savings should be achievable through sharing, for example, back-office functions. We support the Government on that.

Despite the concessions that I acknowledge that the Minister has made, we are not happy about the new power that the Government seek to direct police forces and intervene in their performance. Lords Amendment No. 71 deals with that. The Association of Police Authorities and the Association of Chief Police Officers perceived the power as a major shift in the tripartite balance between chief constables, police authorities and the Home Secretary, and an unwelcome step towards the accrual of central power. I acknowledge that the Government amendments would, to some extent, redress the balance, but they are not adequate to allay our concerns.

The Home Secretary can currently intervene only in the case of a negative report from Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary. However, under the proposals the Home Secretary could intervene without such a report. The Intervention could be based on his or her opinion, and the measure contains no definition of failure to discharge any of a police force's or authority's functions effectively. Indeed, the Government could intervene pre-emptively, so that the Secretary of State could divine that forces or authorities were about to under-perform.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his clear explanation of these issues. Does he think that the Home Office would have the power to intervene if local people were demanding from their police force a set of priorities to deal with their own local circumstances that was different from the national priorities that were being imposed? Such national priorities are now the driver of much of Britain's policing.

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. The powers are not circumscribed at all. It is not clear how they could be used, and there appears to be no limit on their use. The judgment as to whether a police force or authority is failing is largely a judgment for the Home Secretary, and there could indeed be a conflict between the way in which a police force was responding to local demands and the Home Secretary's desire for some other aspect of policing. I will return to that point in a moment.

During the passage of the Bill, Ministers have claimed that these powers of Intervention will be used only as a last resort. That explanation appeared in the notes that accompanied the publication of the original Bill. However, Ministers have consistently refused to put the expression "last resort"—or a similar check—into the Bill. It was in the explanatory notes, but it has never been in the Bill. The power that the Government are now seeking to take is not circumscribed; it is entirely open-ended.

The Minister said that he had made a concession to the Association of Police Authorities and to ACPO, and indeed he has. We need to examine the extent of that concession, however, and ask whether it really addresses the concern about the centralisation of power. Part of the concession is that the Government can now make a direction only through a police authority. But what that means is that it will be the police authority that is directed, rather than the force. If the police authority is so directed, it is not clear that it will have the discretion to do anything other than obey the direction. That change might preserve the amour propre of the Association of Police Authorities, but if authorities have to comply with a direction, what difference will the change actually make?

The Minister said that the Secretary of State would now have to consult the inspectorate of constabulary about an intervention, but the Bill does not use the word "consult". It simply says that the Secretary of State has to inform the inspectorate, and that the inspectorate can then make its own views known. I am not sure that that amounts to consultation. It certainly does not resemble the existing power that the inspectorate has to initiate the intervention of the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State is now taking that power to himself.

The hon. Gentleman is not quite right. We would be obliged under the Amendment to inform the inspectorate of the grounds of any Intervention. It would then be obliged to put in writing to us any concerns that it had about the matter, and we would be obliged fully to publish the result of the inspectorate's deliberations. That sounds an awful lot like consultation to me.

That might pass for consultation in the Government, but I do not think that it is meaningful consultation at all. The Government would simply inform the inspectorate of what they intended to do, and allow the inspectorate to publish its views. That is not the same as consultation, and it is certainly a major shift from the present situation, in which the request for an Intervention comes from the inspectorate. That power is effectively being taken away from the inspectorate and accrued by the Secretary of State.

It is not clear why the Government are seeking this power. Throughout the passage of the Bill, we have never been given an explanation of what the Government are seeking to direct. When will they want to intervene? It has been difficult for us to accept this open-ended power when we have no understanding of the circumstances in which it might be used. The Minister in the other place, Baroness Scotland, made an interesting concession, saying:

"Our experience of last resort is borne out by the first five years or so of these powers being available to the Home Secretary. He has not needed to use them".—[ Hansard, House of Lords, 9 October 2006; Vol. 685, c. 67.]

So why is there a need for more open-ended powers? I do not think that that case has been made.

For the same reason as the 1994 powers were on the statute book but never used. They will be a method of Intervention of last resort. I do not know, and neither does the hon. Gentleman or anyone else in the House, in precisely what circumstances—perverse or otherwise—a force or authority might go off the rails and resist an attempt to give it help, assurance or support. Any responsible Government would have these powers of last resort on the statute book.

I am grateful to the Minister for repeating the words "last resort", even though they are still not in the Bill. It is curious that he is saying that the Government have had these powers for five years and have not had to use them, yet they now feel that they will need greater powers over the next 10 or 15 years, or even indefinitely. They still cannot persuade anyone that they might have to use them, or give a single example of where they feel that the existing powers have proved inadequate over the past five years.

This is purely contingency planning by statute. Every statute in this area, and in many others, is littered with such powers, which are never used because whatever the Government of the day seek to do—short of using those powers—usually works, using exhortation or motivation, for example. I would also ask the hon. Gentleman not to misquote me. I made it very clear that we have had powers on the statute book for 12 years—and, happily, never had to use them—and not just since 2002.

I certainly do not want to misquote the Minister. I was quoting the Minister in the other place, who referred to five years. Now, however, it appears that the existing powers have not been used for 12 years. This is quite bizarre, and the more I hear about this power, the more I become convinced that it is unnecessary for the Government to take it, and the more I distrust them for seeking to do so. The Government's métier has been to accrue power to the centre and to direct public services from the centre. We are particularly worried that that is what they are now attempting to do in relation to the police. They attempted to do it in relation to the proposed amalgamations, and they are now attempting to do it again.

The history of attempted interventions in the affairs of police forces has not been an entirely happy one for the Government. In February 2002, the then Home Secretary, Mr. Blunkett, warned the then Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir John Stevens, that unless the Metropolitan police cut violent street crime levels within six months, he would send in his own management hit squad. Presumably, he intended to machine-gun recalcitrant officers in Scotland Yard. In June 2004, the then Home Secretary took on Humberside police authority and eventually succeeded in having the chief constable, David Westwood, sacked, against the wishes of the authority. In the new diaries of the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside, which I am sure the Minister has read, he says:

"In thinking back on it, my desire to see speedy action and to be decisive probably coloured my judgement...The spat between the Home Secretary and David Westwood was not in the interests either of improvement in the service or myself. It simply prolonged the problem."

We are worried that there is a danger of politicising policing. There is a fundamental difference in perspective between our approach and the Government's proposals. To whom should police forces ultimately be accountable? We believe that accountability should be primarily to the local community, and that policing should respond to the wishes and demands of local people, as my hon. Friend Mrs. Lait pointed out earlier. The Government, by contrast, have a mantra of double devolution, but will not let go of the strings and, in this case, are attempting to tighten their grip on policing. Our primary concern about the powers is the danger of central political direction leading to politicisation of policing. In 2002, the then Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir John Stevens, responding to the then Home Secretary and his threat to intervene in the force, said that

"accountability must never be translated into political veto over operational policing. The freedom for police officers to conduct sensitive inquiries must be sacrosanct in a democracy."

In spite of the Government's concessions, we still believe that the provision transfers too much power to the Home Secretary and upsets the balance that should exist between local people, a police force and Government. For that reason, we will support the Lords Amendment.

It will come as no surprise that the Liberal Democrats will seek to retain both Lords amendments.

First, the extremely hostile reaction by police forces and local people up and down the land to the Government's impossibly bullying and prescriptive—not to mention rushed and expensive—merger proposals was hardly surprising. The reaction was compelling, because it was a challenge not just to the future shape of our police forces but to the improper haste of the proposal, the consultation process, the cost and the consequences. In addition, the proposal to merge police forces threatened a double whammy for local communities. Undoubtedly, people recognised that they would be expected to fork out more council tax for the funding gap and for harmonisation between different councils, while having less of a say as to how their police force was run.

All hon. Members understood that there was a need to address gaps in the service, particularly with regard to level 2 crime, and recognised that smaller forces sometimes struggle with complex cases. Forcing a construct on them, however, was not the answer. The not so subtle carrot of the Government bribe—a share in the £125 million on offer for the good boys who volunteered to merge—was somewhat distasteful. The Government say that they are in favour of neighbourhood policing and local accountability. We support them in that. They say that they want a police service that is fit for purpose in the 21st century. We support them in that. Those are both laudable objectives. But then the Government's merger proposals zoomed off in a direction that would not deliver those objectives.

The insistence that police forces should merge even where local opinion was firmly against that, where the results could have been damaging for effective policing, and when the Government had not given any alternatives an opportunity to be debated let alone trialled, resulted in forces that did not want to merge in the way prescribed by the Government, and some rebelled to the point of legal action. I welcome the move to discussing outcomes rather than structures, which I have always felt was a more productive approach, and the Lords Amendment cleverly puts the decision to merge or reconfigure police forces back into the hands of police authorities. As the royal commission took two years to produce a report and legislation took a further year, I also welcome the Minister's statement that he is open to all suggestions and will take his time to talk to people about the future.

The downfall of the Government's proposals resulted from a previously cavalier approach to change. Merger is a serious business; any change in structure is. The eye is taken off the ball for many months as energies are put into change rather than front-line services. Mergers are more often unsuccessful than successful in the business world, and are not a panacea to paper over cracks. Targeted responses are more appropriate.

Research has shown unequivocally that about 80 per cent. of all mergers in the private sector either fail completely or perform worse than the previous individual organisations. One of the main negative consequences is that even if we get the merger right we create winners and losers, and while that dip in morale takes place, productivity declines. Even in the best of mergers, one can expect a minimum of 18 months to pass before efficiencies are recovered. If such a dramatic change is to be successful, buy-in is necessary from all stakeholders—local people, as Nick Herbert said, police officers, staff and local authorities. Otherwise, structural change has not a flying cat's chance—

A cat's chance in hell.

Thank you.

Another lunacy is that the Home Secretary would have imposed mergers disabling many police forces for a substantial period at a critical time in this country's security.

Can the hon. Lady tell me precisely which police forces were disabled as she suggests, and how she knows that?

If the Minister will forgive me, I did not say that forces had been disabled, but that there was the potential for them to be disabled if the merger had gone forward.

If we want joined-up police forces, we must make them into partners, good neighbours and allies, by sharing information and best practice, and perhaps by restructuring commissioning of any gaps in service. In private industry, restructuring is the last resort—a phrase that will be bandied around this evening—but in government, apparently, it is the first. Ultimatums, threats, bullying and bribes do not demonstrate confidence in the dynamic of a good idea or a natural imperative. If we have to force something, we are not likely to get the results that we seek.

The Government have clung to the "Closing the Gap" report as the answer to everything, and yet that report has been pulled apart by academics. The Government rejected all the alternative proposals for a federated model put forward by police and police authorities. I am grateful that the Minister has now said that he is willing to consider those. I agree with the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs that one is left suspicious of the motive behind the Government's conversion. Their attempt to steamroller though the merger, and their deafness to alternatives, made me consider whether they wanted to move towards a national police force, or perhaps more control with less trouble—12 chief constables being less trouble than 43.

Efficiency savings and economies of scale can be achieved in many ways. I have no doubt that several police forces would have been considering sharing back-office and payroll functions anyway, as the continual need to find savings sharpens minds as to the benefits of collaboration. Where there is to be merger, it should be voluntary and decided by the local police force in consultation with partners, and local people should be involved. It should be clear to local people what the costs are and who will be paying for them, and that information should be published.

Unless we receive assurances on the five tests that the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs put forward, we cannot agree with the Government's motion to disagree with the Lords Amendment. We will oppose it. Whether we move forward in a more constructive fashion, with the element of compulsion thus reduced, is therefore in the Minister's hands.

I am grateful for this opportunity— [Interruption.] I am sorry. Was the hon. Lady giving way?

Order. I am not sure whether the hon. Lady was giving way, but I suspect that she would like to add a little.

I am grateful, to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I apologise for sitting down too soon.

Lords Amendment No. 71 concerns Intervention in a failing police force. When a police force is failing, people will indeed want to be protected by Government intervention to ensure that they are safe and have a police force that delivers. There is no dispute about that. However, although the Government talk of localism and local policing, the Bill proposes to centralise power in the hands of the Home Secretary by empowering him to intervene directly in any police force that he believes is failing, or—even more scarily—any police force that he believes may fail in the future.

The critical issue for us is the lack of objective criteria by which such a power would be invoked. I acknowledge that the Minister has made some moves, but there is no actual commitment or specific detail. Gone is the need for a negative report cataloguing and evidencing failure, although there has been a marginal concession in that consultation, or the opinions of the inspectorate, will be published. The Government have gone a little way towards limiting the powers. The changes mean that an authority must be failing before the Home Secretary can intervene, or the authority must first request an intervention. However, the new relationship will change the tripartite balance and, given the constitutional implications, I do not think that the Minister's offer goes far enough to provide adequate safeguards.

The Home Secretary will direct the chief officer and/or the police authority to undertake specific measures to correct and address any failure that he perceives. That power goes beyond anything we have seen to date, and despite assurances in Committee that it would be used solely as a "last resort"—that appeared only in the explanatory notes—or when forces were failing, the Bill still contains no explanation or definition of "last resort" or "failing".

Not only can the Home Secretary intervene if he believes that a force is failing but, as I have said, he can intervene if he believes that it may fail. The Home Secretary may be very talented in many ways, but I do not think that he is a clairvoyant. I do not understand how he can predict whether a force will fail. According to what criteria will that prediction be made?

The Liberal Democrats entirely support the idea of the police and police authorities being able to request help, but although the Government have moved somewhat and Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary will now have some involvement, the Government have not said how, why or to what degree. The definition of that safeguard is far too unspecific, and the Government have given no commitments other than their commitment to publish the inspectorate's opinions.

Without independent scrutiny and examination, and without the oversight of a specialist agency making an assessment and a judgment, the way is still open for inappropriate intervention. The only rationale for such intervention—its sole basis—must be proper assessments of the performance and operational ability of a force. We are told that the triggers for intervention will be broadened because the Home Secretary will be able to look at national performance assessments of police forces, or ask the new chief inspector of inspectorates for an opinion. I hope that that would happen in any case, but I am not reassured that it is in itself a safeguard.

No one is saying that the Government do not have a duty to intervene when things are going wrong. What we want is a definition of "going wrong". We must have objective criteria in the Bill so that we can judge what "wrong" is, and there must be a genuine and evidential base for intervention. There is a danger that the Home Secretary will find himself micro-managing the police. It would be better to ensure that intervention occurs only when a force itself asks for help, or when a force is measurably and irrefutably failing to meet its performance and operational standards.

It is a great shame that the Government appear to have so little faith in the professionalism of the police, police authorities, inspectorates and chief officers. Unless and until we can be completely assured that objective criteria will be used to evaluate "failure", and unless and until we have a definitive and measurable quantum for what constitutes "last resort", we still cannot support measures that would compromise the operational independence of our police forces.

I fear that the House may have already heard the best of my speech, but I shall plough on regardless.

It is a great privilege to speak in the debate, not least because I have the almost undivided attention of the Minister for Policing, Security and Community Safety, which I am delighted to have. I have not had a chance to look at the performance table—not the league table—and establish where Hertfordshire resides in it, but I am sure that Hertfordshire is doing an excellent job. I regularly meet our chief constable and chief superintendent, and I know they are very much committed to the safety of my constituents. They could do with more resources, but I have yet to meet a public servant who does not demand more resources, and they are managing very well with what they have.

The debate has raised the vexed question of accountability versus independence. In principle I very much like the idea of an independent Hertfordshire police force, free to make its own decisions and pursue local objectives and concerns. However, I also understand the Government's wish for a level of accountability. I think that if a police force is clearly failing, there is good reason for some form of Intervention to address that failure if the police authority is struggling.

Two contradictory forces pull me in different directions. In Hertfordshire there is a drive for local accountability; meanwhile, understandably, the Government and the Home Secretary seek to ensure that most police forces deliver to a uniformly excellent standard throughout the country. The Government clearly need to be protected from persistent failure. I am delighted that since 1994 the Home Office has not felt the need to intervene in the running of a police force, and I hope that that continues for a long time, but I am sure that if a reason for intervention arose in the future, we who are here in the Chamber—and those in the many House of Commons bars and restaurants—would like to know the basis on which the Home Office and the Secretary of State would intervene. I do not consider that concern unreasonable, and I am sure that the Minister will take it into account.

The merger of police forces created a great deal of angst in Hertfordshire, as it did in many counties and constabularies. My constituents feared that mergers would cause forces to focus on issues that were not of local concern. Like many of my constituents, I watch police programmes in which, accurately or inaccurately—I know that it is fiction—we see many policemen making their careers by chasing international criminal masterminds, pulling down Mr. Big, securing an audience with the Prime Minister and having well-deserved medals pinned on their chests. However, although it is important, international crime does not keep my constituents awake at night. What keeps them awake at night is the fear of low-level thuggery and persistent antisocial behaviour. Let me add, at the risk of sounding repetitive, that they feared that a more "global" police force would view issues on a global rather than a local basis.

That is not to say that the people of Hertfordshire would turn their backs indefinitely on future police mergers if a good case could be made, but I hope that if the circumstance arose there would be full and proper local consultation: not a three-month consultation, but a consultation allowing a period of reflection and consideration, allowing the Home Secretary and his Ministers to devise a cogent argument and allowing us, the elected representatives of Hertfordshire and the local people, to respond.

I hope that as the Bill proceeds, the Minister will keep in mind the need for accountability. It is required at all levels, and I know it will ensure that the people of Hertfordshire sleep more soundly tonight and in the future.

With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

We have had a reasonable and reflective debate, rightly looking at some of the contextual issues around mergers in the summer. I do not deprecate that—it is perfectly reasonable in that context. It seems rather strange that I have prayed in aid Mr. Howard and Nick Herbert has prayed in aid my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister—and long may that continue in one way or another. I take seriously the points raised and also some of the offers suggesting what I need to do to resist a vote, at least on the first set of amendments. First, though, I shall look at the general context of the points raised by hon. Members.

I commend Mr. Walker for his honesty. He said—and I think that it would resonate with all of us—that his local constituents could not care less about protective services and level 2 crime. I accept that and it is part of our difficulty—mine as Minister with responsibility for policing, hon. Members' as responsible MPs, and the police forces. The only time they have concerns about level 2 provision is when it is needed but is not there. Beyond that, their immediate concern is volume crime, neighbourhood policing and whether local police are visible and accountable, as they should be, on our streets. I commend the hon. Gentleman for his honesty, and it goes to the heart of the debate—a debate that we are not planning to have in the near future, but one that I have had since I assumed this role last May, at the tail end of the mergers debate. I have certainly tried to deal with those matters since July when the mergers fell away—or whatever description people want to use. We then got into serious discussions about wither public protective services, if not through the mergers route. It is one of the dilemmas that we face.

On level 2 protective services, does the Minister agree that one of the benefits of closing the gap was raising the focus within all constabularies on the need to provide such services? One of the perverse benefits of the decision not to proceed with mergers was that many forces—my own of West Mercia included—have gone a long way towards addressing the perceived shortfalls in providing those services and are now, of their own volition, putting in even greater resources in order to meet those shortcomings.

I certainly agree with the thrust of what the hon. Gentleman says, although if I were pedantic I might dispute the notion of it being perverse. Some hon. Members have suggested today that all the effort put into the discussions over mergers were a complete distraction, a complete waste of time and got in the way of seriously trying to address the problems raised by O'Connor, among others. I am with the hon. Gentleman, however. If we leave perversity to one side, most forces seriously engaged with those discussions during the merger process and since its demise.

I have also said to many forces that, perhaps because of a shorthand—the speed of it all—much of the merger debate was carried out on the premise that such collaborations and discussions had not happened beforehand. There had not been enough, but there certainly had been some, so there was no total vacuum in respect of discussions, collaborations or actions.

The Minister is absolutely right that collaborations and discussions did happen. It seems to me that what has emerged from the merger process is a realisation of how multi-dimensional these relationships have to be. If we take the example of my own force, Avon and Somerset, it was looking into collaborating not just with other police forces, but with other local government agencies and even the private sector in respect of the provision of some back-room services. The Avon and Somerset force was looking to collaborate with neighbouring forces on some provisions, not just within the region but, for example, with those in proximity such as Gwent across the Bristol channel, which is part of the same crime pattern area, and also with West Midlands, Merseyside and other forces that have the same sort of crime problems and are facing the same enemy and need to co-operate.

Much of that work is at least under way, if not developed, in some parts of the country. Avon and Somerset force is developing a very interesting model that does not go the strategic or operational service level, but to back-office services, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned. It is looking across the public sector to secure some degree of rationalisation. That makes perfect sense, whether it be about pay, human resources—perhaps not IT, which goes to the operational sector of policing—and generic business, back-office functions. Why should the local health authority, the local council and local police forces have different and distinct systems with all the incumbent directives? Avon and Somerset will be first, and part of the model of investigation may be broadened out to the public sector across the south-west region. I commend that as it is worth pursuing. I take the hon. Gentleman's point about the other dimensions, both operational and strategic.

Moving on slightly from that point, does the Minister accept that the mergers discussion postponed precisely the sort of— [Interruption.] I do not wish to disagree with the Minister while he is still sitting, but I have to declare an interest here as my husband is the chairman of the Sussex police authority, so I am aware that before the mergers debates started the sort of process mentioned by Steve Webb had already been discussed by police authorities, and even some local authorities. The mergers discussions postponed it all for a long time and it cost people, including the Home Office, money.

No, I disagree with that, and I think that the hon. Lady will find that she meant to refer to Mr. Heath, not Steve Webb. I believe that I have met the hon. Lady's spouse and he is doing a very good job, too. She is right to the extent that Sussex was doing much of that with Surrey, but not much beyond—just partly, but not terribly much, with Kent. People are right to point out that a huge matrix is emerging, which is far more elaborate than simply back-office or operational service or strategic service sharing.

Where we are at now is that most forces recognise, as we recognise across the House, that counter-terrorism operations are probably not best done at the local basic command unit level. The substance and strategic nature of terrorism suggests that. Most forces recognise, merger aside, that a degree of authority needs to be ceded up to the regions at least, and in some cases up to the national level. It is still an issue to see how local level neighbourhood policing and BCU commanders are folded into the counter-terrorist effort, as they have a role to play from top to bottom. There is recognition of the need to cede some authority and sovereignty up the chain of command to the regional and national level. That is recognised in respect of expertise. I believe that Sussex has an excellent reputation and teaches many other forces about firearms. Why reinvent that wheel, assuming that we can talk about wheels and firearms at the same time, of course?

I hope that the Minister accepts that it was not my intention in my brief speech to diminish organised crime. Clearly, people trafficking, international terrorism and drug dealing are hugely important. Is the Home Office looking at a different formula for tackling those issues beyond the idea of merging police forces? It may be slightly off the point, but I would grateful if the Minister answered that question.

I want to make two points on that issue. First, what I said on counter-terrorism rightly does not prevail in respect of serious and organised crime, which belongs more readily at the regional or more localised level, albeit under the umbrella of the Serious Organised Crime Agency. However, we have taken out of that, almost sideways, our centre for human trafficking—although the hon. Gentleman will understand that we are against such trafficking rather than promoting it—and other elements such as the European action plan, so that runs alongside, though very much with the grain, what police forces are doing locally and nationally.

I repeat that I am hugely impressed and enthused by the co-operation and enthusiasm of police forces, services and authorities in taking this matter forward. I give a little to Mrs Lait in allowing that Sussex is ahead of the game—as are some other forces—but others are way behind in even thinking about filling the gap or protecting services. They have come on in leaps and bounds—perversely or otherwise, to pick up on the point made by Mr. Dunne—and we are already in a healthier position in terms of filling the gap that O'Connor recognised than we were before mergers were contemplated. We can argue cause and effect, but that would be like counting the angels dancing on the head of a pin.

Even given that context, it is right and proper that we have the ability to enforce merger if necessary. Nick Herbert mentioned five tests and I shall answer as sincerely as possible. He asked whether amalgamations would be a last resort, and I confirm that they would. My colleague in the other place has already made that clear and I am happy to do so, too. His second question was whether a proper case would have to be made for amalgamation, and the answer is of course yes. The Bill requires the Home Secretary to set out the case for merger and, having learned the lessons from the summer, we recognise that the case would have to be made very clearly.

The hon. Gentleman asked about adequate public consultation beyond the statutory period. That is what we tried last time, perhaps feebly. The four-month statutory period came right at the tail end of the process, which started last September and finished in July, which is somewhat more than four months. We will learn the lessons about the method of consultation. As a democrat, I would resist the call for local plebiscites, because I do not think that they are very democratic.

On the point made by the hon. Member for Broxbourne, Hertfordshire was enthusiastic about a merger, just not with Essex. It would have been happy to merge with Bedfordshire and there is still a strong desire for the two to work strongly together. Naturally, they look more to Thames Valley than to Essex for further help, assistance and collaboration. The picture that has been painted of the Government on one side and 43 forces railing against merger on the other is not accurate.

Any merger order would be subject to the affirmative procedure, and we have learned the lessons about exploring options for additional parliamentary debate and scrutiny above and beyond the orders at the end of the process. We must of course carefully consider the financial implications and have a proper resolution of issues such as precept equalisation, capping and others. Therefore, with a skip in my heart and in all humility, I think that I may give a broad yes to all five of the points raised by the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs.

I thank the Minister for the reassurances that he has given on four points. I also asked about the issue of proper parliamentary scrutiny and consultation. In that context, can he tell us whether the Government will set out any compulsory mergers before the end of this Parliament? Or will the issue of protecting services be settled by voluntary co-operation?

I am sorry if the hon. Gentleman missed it, but I did say that any merger order would be subject to affirmative procedure. I will ensure that we learn the lessons of the summer in terms of exploring options for additional parliamentary debate and scrutiny. I will do all I can, working with ACPO, the Association of Police Authorities and the forces, to ensure that the present process fills the gaps and obviates the need for compulsory merger. After that process has finished, I cannot promise that some forces—not just Lancashire and Cumbria—will not decide that the only way forward is merger. If forces want to merge voluntarily, that is fine, but given the present situation I can confidently say that no enforced mergers are on the agenda in the near future. I cannot give an absolute guarantee, however, and I suspect that a Conservative Minister would say the same in my position. We need to retain the ability to compel mergers just in case.

People have the wrong end of the stick on Intervention. The Bill is not meant to introduce a centralising regime. Some of the contributions made me dig out my parliamentary pass to check whether it read Honecker or Ceausescu instead of McNulty. The 2002 legislation provides that forces must comply with direction, and the changes in the Bill involve broadening the source of information so that the Home Secretary can draw on HMIC and bring police authorities into his scope.

If we may uncouple the Bill from the bad faith in the merger debate, I ask hon. Members to judge us by our actions, not policy or legislation changes. Even though we had the powers to intervene, from both the 1994 and 2002 legislation, we have not done so in all the years since 1997. That is not to say that there have not been opportunities to do so or even the need to do so—I have mentioned the eight forces we have dealt with, three of which we are still working with—but we have taken non-statutory, voluntary measures, working alongside the chief constable and the force involved. As a last resort, however, we need the ability to intervene in a failing force or police authority. There is no malice aforethought in the provisions. It is not in the interests of the Home Office or the Home Secretary to force or cajole intervention in a police force. We want to reach a stage at which we can work alongside police forces, in the interests of local council tax payers. The Bill is not Stalinist or government by a big stick. Statutory intervention would be a last resort, if fundamentally necessary in the case of an irresponsible or capricious chief constable or police authority—none of which we have at present.

Why will not the Government put the words "in the last resort" into the Bill?

Because that is not necessary, and has not been since 1994—that is, over the course of two Governments. Ironically, the undue specificity involved in defining "last resort" or "failure" means that statutory Intervention may be triggered sooner than people want. The more vague the definitions, the more scope there is for non-statutory intervention.

I want to make two more points. First, the Government have made some movement on these matters, so I hope that the House will accept the words that we propose in lieu in respect of Lords Amendment No. 71, and reject the amendment itself. Secondly, people can be flippant or gloating about the mergers, but the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs implied—and Lynne Featherstone said so more explicitly—that there had been a diminution in the independence or integrity of HMIC as a result of the O'Connor report or what happened during the course of the mergers. I will have none of that: it is very important that the House understands that HMIC remains full of integrity and utterly independent. It is not appropriate to make sharp and unnecessarily party political points attacking the inspectorate's integrity and independence, and both hon. Members should feel duly admonished.

Having said that, I ask the House to resist Lords amendment No.1, but to accept the words in lieu of amendment No. 71.

Lords amendment disagreed to.