Kevan Jones: Surely, if the employer thinks that the claim is frivolous and vexatious, the law allows them to ask for a pre-hearing assessment before the chairman of the tribunal. The chairman can determine that the claim is frivolous and vexatious, and direct that, if the case is taken forward, the other party will have to cover the costs if they lose.
Kevan Jones: Might not one way of reducing the number of applications be to educate small business and other employers to use proper procedures?
Kevan Jones: Does my hon. Friend agree that the root cause of the problem was the previous Conservative Government? I was a councillor 10 years ago, and I saw the effects of their policies on the care sector. They brought in differential charging, which allowed private sector care homes to charge higher fees than local authority homes, and that led to the boom of profiteering at the expense of elderly...
Kevan Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on his policy on debris on railway lines.
Kevan Jones: Somewhat ironically, the Conservatives' comments reveal the true nature of their opposition. As two such contributions have shown, they are against community support officers. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) nods, but in my constituency CSOs will be welcomed. In Stanley, our experiment with community safety wardens has proved very popular, and I am sure that...
Kevan Jones: I would be happy if the Conservatives had made it clear in Committee and on the Floor of the House that they are against CSOs—the hon. Member for Upminster did so a moment ago—but instead they are trying to neuter them. It is clear that the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) is not convinced that CSOs will be effective, but I am and so are the Government, who want to ensure that...
Kevan Jones: I find it strange that Conservatives are now acting as the trade union officials of police authorities. I welcome CSOs and so will my community. This Government should get a lot of credit for their introduction, but the Opposition will claim that credit, or—once they prove popular—they will say that they thought that they would work. We shall also see the usual double standards from the...
Kevan Jones: Has the hon. Gentleman asked those of his constituents who are ordinary members of the public whether they are in favour of CSOs and safer communities?
Kevan Jones: I have listened carefully to the right hon. Gentleman's arguments, but is he actually saying that under no circumstances should the Home Secretary or Parliament have any control over a chief constable or a local police authority? If that is the case, how are chief constables or police authorities to be democratically accountable to Parliament?
Kevan Jones: Was not it the previous Conservative Government who put in place the current structure of police authorities, which previously had a larger democratic element in the numbers of local councillors who sat on them? Is the Conservative party now proposing directly elected police authorities and chief constables?
Kevan Jones: That is not a very good example.
Kevan Jones: rose—
Kevan Jones: I asked the hon. Gentleman this question in Committee, and I shall do so again. Under what circumstances, in the Liberal Democrat wonderland in which he appears to live, would it be appropriate for the Home Secretary to intervene in a local police authority? Is he telling the House that a Home Secretary should never intervene in a police authority that was failing its local public? If so, I...
Kevan Jones: This afternoon and in Committee, we heard much from Conservative Members about political control of operational policing. The right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) made the extraordinary statement that it was important to keep politics out of local policing. In Committee, the Opposition tried to suggest that the Bill was all about giving the Home Secretary more direct control over...
Kevan Jones: I am grateful for that intervention. I agree with the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) that we should discuss reform of local police authorities, but the Bill does not cover that. The Liberal Democrats try to present a utopian vision of local police authorities that are somehow in touch with what happens locally or are representative. I cannot accept that. The...
Kevan Jones: I am grateful for that intervention because the hon. Gentleman gave an example of a Conservative Government changing local operational methods and placing political appointees on police authorities to control the direction of local policing. Those provisions were far stronger than the measure that we are considering. We are discussing not political control, but improving standards. That will...
Kevan Jones: I accept the logic of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's argument, but what would happen if the police authority decided to do nothing and take no action?
Kevan Jones: This would be a horrible moment in anyone's political career: I think that I agree with right hon. and learned Gentleman, about the need for local police authorities to be more accountable. I have argued previously for the introduction of direct elections, but he was a member of a Government who introduced measures to reduce the number of local councillors on the authorities. Did he argue...
Kevan Jones: I know that, back in 1994, the hon. Gentleman was just a humble spin doctor, but, if he had been a Member of Parliament, would he have voted to reduce the number of councillors on police authorities and to allow the Home Secretary to have a direct input into the appointment of independent members of those authorities?
Kevan Jones: I concur with the sentiments expressed by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary: the judge and jury on the success of the Bill will be the people in constituencies such as mine. One of the key issues is not the dry statistics—the public are now bored with politicians from all parties talking about those—but the effectiveness of the measures in local communities. Fear of crime is a major...