Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Baroness Randerson and Lord De Mauley

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

This amendment is a useful opportunity to draw your Lordships’ attention to something of a constitutional stand-off between the Government and the Welsh Assembly Government. This is an entirely different point from those that have been raised this afternoon. The problem exists because the Welsh Assembly declined to support a legislative consent motion, which was required to allow Parliament to legislate on behalf of the Assembly on a devolved issue. The Bill involves a devolved issue in an aspect which I shall explain in a moment. The issue in question is the establishment and make-up of the police and crime panels in Wales. Because those panels will involve elected councillors, the Bill will intrude on devolved powers. I urge a breathing space for the UK Government to discuss fully and constructively with the newly formed Welsh Assembly Government—so new it was formed only this afternoon—to find a satisfactory compromise on how the panels will be constituted in Wales.

As your Lordships will be aware, there has been something of a hiatus in government in Wales lately because of the Welsh general election, which was held last week. It would not have been reasonable to expect either the Government or the Welsh Assembly Government to have made progress on the issue since the vote in the Welsh Assembly at the very end of the previous Assembly in March. There has been no opportunity to make progress; but it is important that progress is made now.

It is important that your Lordships note that the Welsh Assembly has never before rejected a legislative consent motion. It is not its practice to do so, so that needs to be taken seriously—all the more so because the Home Secretary had agreed to a small role for the Welsh Assembly Government in the appointment of a panel member nominated by the Welsh Assembly Government. That was a compromise negotiated between the two Governments but rejected by the Assembly in a vote.

In response to that, the UK Government appear to have decided that the Home Secretary is to be responsible for bringing together locally elected representatives, but I believe that it is against the spirit of devolution to ignore the Welsh Assembly Government in the panel appointment process. So much of what the police do in Wales involves close joint working with local authorities. That joint working involves significant funding directly from the Welsh Assembly Government and the devolved budget. I give some examples: community safety, highways and transport, youth services, and substance misuse policy. All those and many more are devolved policy areas and the policy is funded by the Welsh Assembly Government. There is therefore a direct impact on policing from Welsh Assembly funding. It is important that that is respected. I give your Lordships another example, a stunning example of success in South Wales: the 101 non-emergency number, jointly funded and jointly operated by local authorities and the Home Office. The two work together in the same building; they funded it together. It is important that that success is built on.

[Lord De Mauley]

I hope that my noble friend will forgive me for intervening. Another group is coming up which deals with Wales in great detail. I hope that she is not getting ahead of herself.

[Baroness Randerson]

I take the point. I conclude by saying that the Welsh Assembly’s Communities and Culture Committee reported on this Bill. Its headline recommendation was that the Welsh Government should have a dialogue with the UK Government to persuade them to defer the introduction of those aspects of the Bill that relate to the abolition of police authorities and the establishment of police commissioners and police and crime panels in Wales, at least until the effectiveness of their impact in England had been assessed.

Later, we shall come to amendments that relate specifically to Wales. They go further than I am asking the Government to do. I simply ask them to take account of the issues, and I urge them to give this proposal a test drive before imposing it on Wales and on the Welsh Assembly Government and the Assembly.