Police and Crime Commissioners

Lord Bach Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for securing this short debate. I agree with his every word. I want to stress that I still support the idea of police and crime commissioners representing the public of a police force area in their relationship with the police, holding chief constables to account and performing a vital community and partnership role. As the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, said, there are some superb examples of PCCs and their achievements. However, my support nowadays is sometimes sorely tested. The speech by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, has added to my concerns.

As for the Veale case, this is a truly astonishing position. He was brought in to be my successor’s main adviser; got rid of all the others on day one, with a number of substantial contracts; and is facing a gross misconduct charge, still not decided, although it should have been decided in 100 days. Of course, he should have been suspended pending the tribunal decision, as normally happens in public life. This happened to a Minister from the other place just a few weeks ago during the Truss Government. He was immediately suspended from the Conservative Party, awaiting the result of an inquiry. That was the appropriate way to do it. I repeat the question: why has that not happened here, and why has the Home Office not insisted on it?

What has upset me as much has been what I describe as the masterful inactivity by my successor as police and crime commissioner for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland a couple of months ago, when there was much-publicised violence and trouble between minority communities in my city of Leicester. Surely it should be the priority of every police and crime commissioner to intervene and do what they can to prevent, stop and sort out community unrest of this nature by decreasing tensions, talking to the various leaders and bringing people together.

A prominent and senior Conservative asked me why I was staying silent on this. He said, “What is the point of police and crime commissioners anywhere if they do not act in such a situation as there was in Leicester a couple of months ago?” I agree with that senior Conservative. Given that, in my time, I had a deputy who understood the inner city, I believe that I and every other police and crime commissioner would have acted at once. Unfortunately, my successor did not, and a number of senior people of all kinds have confirmed what I am saying. Frankly, apart from a brief statement and a silent attendance at a post-troubles meeting with the city mayor, he kept out of it, finding displacement activities. Indeed, he was in London when the Home Secretary visited Leicester. That is just an example.

It pains me to say so, but this behaviour obviously gives police and crime commissioners a bad name. Being photographed endlessly enjoying tea and cake in beautiful Leicestershire villages is, frankly, no substitute for doing your job, and no excuse for not doing the hard grind, with the disappointments and the moments of success. That is what police and crime commissioners are elected to do, and most do it. If they choose not to do their job, particularly when it is difficult, who can blame the public for rejecting the system in place altogether?

I am sorry that I have had to say what I have said today, but I feel it strongly. I really think that it is time that the Home Office took an interest in this.

Police and Crime Commissioners and Panels

Lord Bach Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Bach]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the ability of Police and Crime Panels to hold Police and Crime Commissioners to account.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)]

My Lords, the two-part police and crime commissioner review considered the role of police and crime panels and concluded that they have the appropriate powers to scrutinise police and crime commissioners. However, the consistency and quality of this scrutiny can vary. Recommendations arising from the review have therefore focused on improving panels’ understanding of their role, the application of their existing powers and strengthening the professionalism and quality of the support provided to panels.

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister. Does he agree that, to do their core job of holding police and crime commissioners to account—nobody else does it, least of all the Home Office, I am afraid—it is necessary for a panel to be robust, challenging and fair? Much depends on the approach, attitude and style of the chair of the panel. Given the need for the public to have confidence in the system, would the Government consider amending the rules so that a chair of a police and crime panel cannot be from the same political party as the police and crime commissioner?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

As the noble Lord will be aware, the Government believe that panels have the appropriate powers, agreed by Parliament, to effectively scrutinise the actions and decisions of PCCs and enable the public to therefore hold them to account. As I have also just said, we concluded a two-part review. In part 1 we took steps to improve and strengthen the scrutiny of PCCs by issuing new guidance and a training package for panels. Through part 2 we are undertaking a fundamental assessment of the panel support model to further improve the professionalism, quality and consistency of support provided to panels. I am very happy to take the noble Lord’s suggestion on chairmen back as part of that ongoing assessment.

50th Anniversary of the Expulsion of Asians from Uganda

Lord Bach Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, 10 years on, I have even more pleasure in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Popat, on securing this debate. That debate was on 6 December 2012 and it was excellent. It involved 11 speakers. What does that make today’s debate, with more than double that number and, of course, celebrating a 50th anniversary?

I want to speak about Leicester, where it is estimated that one in five refugees from Uganda permanently settled. Certainly, within a few months, at least 10,000 people arrived, not put off by the now-notorious advertisement placed in Ugandan newspapers. Indeed, some of those who came may have been encouraged by that advertisement rather than put off by it. It should be said, and my noble friend Lord Parekh, who is not in his place today, said it 10 years ago, that the advertisement itself referred to advice then given by the Uganda Resettlement Board to the same effect. It was a few months later that the very valuable Section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966, which gave extra money, was introduced. By 1981, however, 44,000 people of Indian origin, following on from the Ugandan refugees, had made Leicester their home. They were, for the most part, welcomed by Leicester people and the city council, who recognised their obvious talents and the values held by these newcomers.

Now, many years later, there can be no argument that Leicester has become a better, more lively, more prosperous, more culturally alive and greater city as a direct result of Amin’s inhuman and cruel actions. I became a councillor in what was then called St Margaret’s ward, part of the Belgrave district, where many refugees from Uganda and east Africa settled. Indeed, my fellow councillor, Gordhan Parmar, himself from east Africa, became very proudly the first Asian Lord Mayor of Leicester. The increasing diversity of Leicester that makes it the city it is today faced serious and nasty opposition from the hard right, but it failed because the newcomers were obviously good citizens from the start, with a huge amount to offer.

Since our last debate, I have been privileged to be the police and crime commissioner for the city, with a major role in respecting and representing the community in its relationship with the police. This has involved working very closely with many who originally arrived from Uganda and the next generation—their descendants. There have been bad times, including the terrible kidnapping and murder of an elderly jeweller in the Belgrave area absolutely frightened the community—as it should—but the community showed huge good sense and solidarity, allied with support for the police. Thankfully, the serious criminals responsible were brought to justice by a mixture of brilliant policing and community help. Overall, it has been a joy for me to work with this new generation, whose parents and grandparents arrived, penniless and destitute, in a strange country and who, by their hard work, huge talents and great values have made Leicester and the UK a better place. In every conceivable way, this is an anniversary that we should celebrate.

Violent Crime, Gang Activity and Burglaries

Lord Bach Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate and thank my noble friend on securing this debate. I intend to speak about my experience as the police and crime commissioner for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland between 2016 and 2021, in particular in the area of serious violence and particularly as it affects young people. To be fair, it is an area in which the Home Office has acted over the last few years, significantly with the introduction of the serious violence duty—the guidance was published in May last year, the month I stood down.

However, to begin, it is important to state in the clearest possible terms, so it is never forgotten, that a major factor in the depressing figures around crime mentioned by my noble friend, including serious violence, was the early decision taken by the coalition Government to sharply cut the number of police officers in England and Wales year after year from 2010. This was a disastrous decision, the consequences of which are felt today everywhere. My feeling is that my friends on the Liberal Democrat Benches now regret their part in this, but I have never heard an apology from the major party in that Government, which continued the policy after 2015. There was no acknowledgement that the policy was wrong, counterproductive and hugely expensive in human and financial terms.

Of course, very late on, the Conservatives came to their senses and now boast constantly about the 20,000 new officers being created in the next three years. That is not enough to get back to the 2010 figures, but they are still not apologising for those wasted years. Will the Minister, who is new to his job—I welcome him very much to it—apologise today for cutting police numbers in that way and can he confirm that police cuts will not play a part in the cuts the Chancellor promised earlier this week? I am not sure that all Conservatives have learnt the lesson.

In Leicestershire, there were 2,317 police officers in 2010. At its lowest, the figure went down by 23% to 1,777. By 31 March this year, it was 2,242, with an agreed extra 100 officers by 31 March 2023, at last reaching the 2010 figure. I am afraid that my successor cut the 100 extra planned for this year, even though it was agreed by all parties. Claiming that it was unaffordable, he called in the Home Office civil servants to back him up. Unfortunately for him, both they and the then Policing Minister disagreed and the plan for an extra 100 was given a clean bill of health. The extra 100 officers would have mostly been in by now. Given the recent violence and unrest in the great city of Leicester and the need for four other forces to supply reinforcements at enormous cost, I hope the present police and crime commissioner regrets his damaging and irresponsible decision.

In 2006, there was one officer per 430 residents of Leicestershire and Rutland. In 2018, that one officer was for 615 residents. Last year, the figure was 500 residents. By March next year, it should have been 488 residents, but now it will not because of the cut of 100 officers. That is a sad story. My question to the Minister is this, although he may not be able to answer it: has the Home Office made any representations about the decision taken in that particular part of England, which is obviously against government policy?

I want to say a word about serious violence. Noble Lords will know of the Scottish violence reduction unit based in Glasgow, led by an ex-police superintendent, Niven Rennie, which over the years has inspired other police forces and police and crime commissioners in England and Wales and has, I believe, influenced the Government favourably too. We in Leicestershire were certainly inspired listening to him speak at a conference at our multiagency committee, the strategic partnership board, held at police headquarters in Leicester.

The principle behind all this is common sense. If action can be taken early with young people who have suffered what are called adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, and suffered trauma as a consequence, and who may be susceptible as a result to committing criminal and even serious criminal behaviour, including violence, that multidisciplinary action may prevent them becoming involved in crime in the first place and, if they do, give them a second chance to get out of it. Examples and evidence of success are there. Of course, it takes a long time.

The Government were impressed enough to give grants for the setting up and support of violence reduction units in 18 of the 23 police force areas, including Leicestershire. Ours has been going for three years now, brilliantly led by Grace Strong. It has much police force involvement, of course. It is a multiagency network, existing to tackle and prevent serious violence and violent crime, particularly that involving young people.

To give an example of what it does, it has organised a small team, often made up of young people, who visit the local A&E at the Leicester Royal Infirmary to try to talk to victims and perpetrators of knife crime, who of course end up in hospital, at what is called the changeable moment—that crucial moment—with the hope of persuading them that knife culture and violence is wrong and counterproductive. I think that is a wonderful initiative.

We set up something called people zones in my time in Leicester. These are small, specific geographical areas in which we established multiagency groups to deal with preventing all offending, from anti-social behaviour at one end to serious violence at the other. I am extremely proud of this initiative and am glad that my successor, who I have perhaps been a bit hard on in this speech, has confirmed the scheme. I congratulate him on doing so.

I end by saying how right the right reverend Prelate was in saying that we owe so much to our police. I learned that very much as a police and crime commissioner.

Mr Mike Veale

Lord Bach Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, I am more than happy to request that of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. I hope that my noble friend would agree that, through all his years of effort, a remedy is on its way to being sought through the misconduct hearing. In terms of the individual’s work in Leicester, that is, of course, a matter for the Leicester PCC. It might be that my noble friend, as well as my request for him to see the Home Secretary, might himself request that of the Leicester PCC.

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, how much longer must this farce go on? I am grateful to the Minister for her reply to my noble friend Lord Lexden, as I shall I call him, on this matter. I very much welcome the chance to talk to the Home Secretary about it. But you have a twice disgraced ex-chief constable awaiting a gross misconduct hearing that, by law, should have been heard months ago still advising for good money a police and crime commissioner in holding Leicestershire police to account. You could not make it up. A request for a meeting is actually the bare minimum. The Home Secretary is never short of advising on right and wrong; why are she and the Home Office so silent on this scandal?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, it is a matter for the legally qualified chair to convene a misconduct hearing. It is usually within 100 days but can be longer if the interests of justice will be served. Therefore, the LQC—the legally qualified chair—has obviously made a judgment on that. In terms of the issue of Leicester, that is a matter for the Leicester PCC.

Police and Crime Commissioners: Budget

Lord Bach Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Bach]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the decisions of Police and Crime Commissioners who have (1) cut the number of police officers in their police force area in their 2022/23 budget, and (2) applied for a grant from year 3 of the Police Uplift Programme.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, through the police uplift programme, police forces in England and Wales have recruited over 11,000 additional officers. Police and crime commissioners can also fund the recruitment of officers on top of the uplift allocations from local funding such as precept outside of the uplift grant. We collect data annually on local ambitions to recruit additional officers, to ensure that growth is tracked accurately.

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind the House that I am a former police and crime commissioner and I thank the Minister for her Answer. According to the Prime Minister himself, the Government are committed, as a priority, to increasing the number of police officers. How do they not see the need to criticise those PCCs, such as the new police and crime commissioner for Leicestershire, who even though they have the resources through government grant and maximum council tax, have chosen in their 2022-23 budgets to cut the number of police officers rather than increase it? Surely the Government have the courage to tell them that they are wrong.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

First, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Bach, whom I saw first-hand doing an excellent job as a PCC for Leicestershire. Secondly, how PCCs allocate their funding and their officers is obviously a decision for local areas. Thirdly, if that PCC does not perform in line with the public’s expectations, they have the remedy at the ballot box.

Mike Veale: Police Conduct Report

Lord Bach Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. Not only do I personally feel very honoured, but it is an honour for the House as well. As regards someone being up for investigation and now having a case to answer for alleged misconduct while drawing their salary, someone who is still innocent of misconduct is still able to draw their salary until it is proven otherwise. I can understand my noble friend’s frustration, but that is the case.

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness as well. I remind the House that I have been a police and crime commissioner for Leicestershire. Does the Home Office really have nothing to say regarding the behaviour of Leicestershire’s current police and crime commissioner in bringing in Mr Veale—unvetted, I believe—on his first day in office and continuing to employ him on high remuneration as his chief adviser, even though the local police force was embarrassed and many in Leicestershire are offended? The Home Office is not often shy about giving its opinion. Why is it so shy in this case?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his kind words. We are not shy. It is important that the various legal proceedings are followed before the IOPC and, indeed, the Home Office make a comment.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Bach Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Wednesday 27th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches want to probe whether Clause 13 needs to stand part of the Bill. Can the Minister explain to the Committee why there is a need for legislation to allow a local policing body, presumably a directly elected mayor or a police and crime commissioner, to assist in preventing or tackling serious violence?

I could understand if the clause stated that local policing bodies must assist or monitor what specified responsible authorities were doing and must report their findings to the Home Secretary, but that is not what it says. It says that such assistance, monitoring and reporting are voluntary, in that these bodies “may” assist, “may” monitor and “may” report.

Subsection (4) states:

“The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision conferring functions on a local policing body”.


Does that mean that, although in primary legislation—the Bill—all this is voluntary, the Secretary of State can by regulation make it compulsory?

Subsection (5) states that the functions contained in regulations

“may include provision ... for a local policing body to arrange for meetings”.

Why does the Secretary of State need to pass regulations for a directly elected mayor to hold a meeting? Can the Minister explain why Clause 13 needs to be part of the Bill at all? We on these Benches are struggling to understand why.

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for this stand part debate. If the Committee will forgive me, I will say, as quickly as I can, a word or two about how I perceive the role of police and crime commissioners up until now.

Clause 13 is clearly an important element in establishing, from the Government’s point of view, a serious violence reduction duty on a more statutory basis—if I can put it that way—than exists presently. This obviously involves police and crime commissioners in particular. It is important to remember—I think this is what the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, was getting at, in part—that police and crime commissioners have, in their nine-year existence, voluntarily worked hard to establish partnership working and commission partnership services. In many cases, they have taken a lead in those partnerships.

There is a fundamental misunderstanding—not, I am sure, in this Committee—that, somehow, the only real role for police and crime commissioners is to hold their police force, and the chief constable in particular, to account. That is a crucial part of their duties, but I point out—the Committee does not need this pointing out—that they are not just police commissioners but crime commissioners as well. At the very least, they should have a significant duty to find ways to prevent crime and its effects on victims and society, working alongside partners, of course.

This is not about dealing with crime that has taken place, whether it is antisocial behaviour or serious violence. It means dealing with what has become a hackneyed phrase but is crucial here: the causes of crime, going back to early childhood development and early intervention. It is always about poverty and its effect on crime. It is about bad and lousy living conditions, and it always involves looking after the vulnerable, whoever they may be—we are all vulnerable at some stage or other in our lives. Above all, it is about preventing lives being thrown away, whether they are those of victims or perpetrators. I have to confess—noble Lords may have already realised that this is what I am about to say—that this kind of work or duty, as I call it, gave me and many other police and crime commissioners the greatest buzz of all.

It was crucial to achieving anything that one worked with partners, local and national, very much including government. To their credit, the Government set up violence reduction units, changed their support—I do not mean that in any bad way—and became very keen on the public health approach to dealing with these matters. That was a huge and important change, and many of us were convinced by the work that we did and seeing what happened in Scotland that this was the right course to take.

Where I was police and crime commissioner, we have what we call a violence reduction network, rather than a unit. I argue that it has achieved quite a large amount already, with great projects. My predecessor as police and crime commissioner for Leicestershire ran and started an office of the police and crime commissioner-run strategic partnership board, or SPB, which, by the time I left office, included all—I mean all—of the main public services in the area covered by the force, from local government to health, education, the police, fire and ambulance services and more.

The other example I give is that I was the chairman of the East Midlands criminal justice board. Other police and crime commissioners were chairs of their local boards or whatever they chose to call it. Clearly, if Clause 13 and other parts of this chapter pass into law, there will be—I am guessing that this is how the Government will put it—more statutory backing for this way of approaching the serious violence reduction duty. I am not against that in principle, but my one concern is that, in my experience, police and crime commissioners are a little bit like elected mayors: if they are good, they are very good, and they can make a huge difference, but if they are not so good, they can make a huge difference the other way.

I was lucky in that I had a brilliant team working for me in my office. As it happens, it has been decimated by my successor, but that is for another day, certainly not for today. Also, when I was there, other police and crime commissioners, whatever their party politics or lack of it, seemed to me to be able people who wanted to do the right thing and were very committed. As the noble Baroness and the Committee will know, many new police and crime commissioners were elected in May this year, which is no doubt a good thing, and many more of them were women—it is about time, too. It is too early to say whether they will grab these extra opportunities, but I hope that they will.

There are two big issues as far as the future is concerned in the real world. One, of course, is data sharing, which the Bill is very concerned about, and so it should be. So often, people of good will get together on behalf of organisations that are not prepared to share data. That has to change in this area, otherwise there will be no achievement. The second issue—I hate to mention it but it is the usual one—is funding. If we are going to fund all these exciting proposals, it will require government to take a leading step in that.

I am grateful to the Committee for listening to my speech. I thought it might be useful in terms of this clause.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for her explanation of government Amendment 59. She said it makes a minor clarifying change, and we have no concerns to raise on it. However, I look forward to the Minister’s replies on the questions and issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and my noble friend Lord Bach. I am not sure whether I have fully understood this issue, and if what I am going to say now indicates that I have not, I apologise in advance.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, indicated in his explanatory statement, which he repeated, that he has tabled the Clause 13 stand part Motion so that he can

“probe how the provisions of this Bill and the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 will work in practice; and the relationship between Crime and Disorder Partnership and Police and Crime Commissioners.”

As I understand it, Clause 13 provides that local policing bodies, such as PCCs and the Mayor of London, may assist authorities in delivering the serious violence duty, monitor how authorities are exercising their duties, report back on their findings to the Secretary of State and be given authority by the Secretary of State to assist the duty in specific ways, such as providing funding or convening meetings on the duty. It also provides that authorities must co-operate with local policing bodies. The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 created community safety partnerships, and that raises the issue of how this duty will interact with the existing duties on CSPs.

The Government have published draft guidance on the serious violence duty. It says:

“In order to comply with the duty it is not necessary to create a new partnership, instead the specified authorities should use existing partnerships where possible and with appropriate modifications.”


It goes on to say:

“The Duty is an opportunity to simplify and add focus to existing partnership arrangements rather than add any additional complexity to the current multi-agency landscape.”

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Bach Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Monday 25th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak briefly to this group of important amendments, and declare my interest as a vice-president of the LGA.

The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blake of Leeds, set out the reasons for these amendments, and I fully support them. Those responsible for providing housing have changed over the years, from the time when it was solely the purview of local authorities to now, when it is a mix of elected councils that hold housing stock themselves through to housing associations and registered social landlords providing a mix of accommodation for couples, families and, less frequently, single people living alone.

Whatever their circumstances, tenants all deserve to feel safe in their home and free from violent attack. Women and young people are often the target of violence, sometimes with catastrophic consequences. Some of this will be domestic violence; in other cases it will be gang related. Whatever the cause or outcome, it is essential that the housing providers have a robust strategy in place—first, to prevent violence in the first place and, secondly, to deal with the aftermath once it has occurred.

Housing provider co-operation with the police is essential in dealing with violent abuse. Relying on GDPR protection to avoid releasing information is unhelpful at best and, at the other end of the spectrum, borders on ignoring the violent act itself. Of course, this release of information on behalf of the housing providers does not extend to medical professionals, the subject of the previous group of amendments.

Violence is abhorrent and prevents people enjoying the safety they should feel in their home, whether that is a bedsit or a three-bedroom family home. Local authorities will receive complaints about the behaviour of their tenants from neighbours. This might be about noise or anti-social behaviour. In more serious cases, the complaints will be about violence suffered by children and women, and sometimes men, living in a nearby home. It is difficult for local authority housing departments and RSLs to take action on what might be a malicious complaint, but I believe that where a robust serious violence reduction strategy is in place, officers will have the confidence to act before the violence ends in a tragedy, as in the case study the noble Baroness, Lady Blake of Leeds, mentioned.

I have only one caveat: the Government should ensure that local authorities, whose budgets have been slashed over recent years, have sufficient funding to be able to produce and implement a violence reduction strategy and not be expected to fund additional work on their already overstretched budgets.

Society is becoming immune to the level of violence experienced by some communities. This has to be reversed. A serious violence reduction strategy for each community living in social housing, whoever the provider may be, is a step in the right direction towards raising the profile of the damage that such violence causes and beginning to tackle its reduction. I fully support this group of amendments.

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, I support these amendments absolutely; they are practical and in the real world. From my experience as a police and crime commissioner over five years, it is quite clear that serious violence has a huge amount to do with place and a lot to do with housing in those places. If we are to have the partnership that is presumably behind the Government’s proposals on serious violence, it is absolutely essential that housing and those who control it have a vital role; without them, all sorts of disasters will occur.

When I was a police and crime commissioner, I would hear from police officers or citizens day by day about the problems in areas where they lived and the mismatch, sometimes, between those responsible for housing and their ability to talk to the police and get things done, on either side, as quickly as possible. These are very important amendments, and I hope that the Government will listen carefully to them.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, we support these amendments. It is not just victims of domestic violence who need help and support from housing authorities in escaping serious violence. Young people groomed and exploited by criminal gangs also need and deserve to be urgently rehoused in certain circumstances, as the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, so clearly set out.

Again, this needs to be a truly multiagency approach to reducing serious violence and not a police-led enforcement approach. The police need to provide information to housing authorities where they believe that someone is being coerced into criminal activity and is threatened with serious violence if they do not comply, and that taking that person out of that scenario by rehousing them can reduce the risk of serious violence.

I repeat that option 2 of the Government’s consultation on the serious violence duty is the best option and the one preferred by the greatest proportion of respondents to the Government’s own consultation—that of enhancing existing crime and disorder partnerships. These are the existing and well-established mechanism, where local authorities and police forces work together to prevent and tackle crime and disorder and where the local police chief and the local authority chief executive are equal partners in doing whatever each partner and others can do to reduce crime and disorder.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Lord Bach Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 14th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, I too look forward very much to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst. He comes to this House with an outstanding legal reputation and we are lucky to have him.

Clearly this is a major and massive Bill with important proposals in it, but am I alone in worrying slightly that the Government should be dealing today with all these matters when it seems, to me at least, that some urgent issues around the criminal justice system are causing it sometimes to be in a state of near crisis? Actually, the civil justice system is, in my view, in a real crisis of many years’ standing. Surely the Government and Parliament should be discussing and debating those issues. If that means getting rid of some of the no-doubt worthy clauses in this Bill, perhaps that would be a price worth paying.

There are issues around case delays, trial delays and the endless desires, wants and needs of victims. Then there is remuneration and legal aid. In the case of civil legal aid, if I may say so, the effects of the LASPO Act—arguably the worst piece of legislation passed in the last 10 years—have been baleful. It has denied, and continues to deny, a large number of our fellow citizens any access to advice and justice. This Bill cannot be a cover for lack of action in those areas.

I have just stood down as a police and crime commissioner, which I did for five years. Day by day, I witnessed policing at fairly close quarters. I believe I am firmly of the view—I think I am persuaded—that the case for raising the maximum penalty for assaulting emergency workers is made out. Every Monday morning, week after week, I would hear of the extraordinary number of police officers who had been attacked and assaulted over the previous weekend, albeit sometimes in a minor way, if there can be such a thing as a minor assault. Of course the prospect of higher sentences—I do not like it in principle, actually; I suspect that the House does not either—is nowhere near a total solution but, if it deters some from offending, it is worth at least trying because the level of assaults on emergency workers is just not acceptable.

I oppose the changes to the policy on the policing of protests. The proposals seem vague and risk undermining the balance between freedom and control that is so vital to our free society. I urge Her Majesty’s Government not to use the police as a cover for these changes. Police officers are members of the public too; this is very much in the Peelite tradition. They, for the most part, treasure and support the freedoms that we enjoy in this country. In my experience, albeit anecdotally, the police are at the very least sceptical about some of these proposals.

Would the Minister be prepared to see me about an amendment I want to make? It is small but reasonably important, and concerns the unique way in which anyone who wants to be a police and crime commissioner candidate—noble Lords may ask why anyone would want to do that anyway—cannot be one if they stole a Mars bar or scrumped some apples 30 or 40 years ago. The Act we passed 10 years ago makes it absolutely clear that anyone with a caution or conviction for an imprisonable offence is automatically excluded, whether they went to prison or not. That does not apply to the Home Secretary, High Court judges or, if I may say so, bishops. I hope that the Minister will, in her usual courteous way, be prepared to meet me on that matter.