Police Reform

Lord Bishop of Guildford Excerpts

Tuesday 18th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I can take my noble friend back to 2010-11, when the Labour Party, then in opposition, opposed police and crime commissioners in principle but fought the elections because when there is an elected position, you have to try to fight to fill it. We have looked at the issues of governance and at the issues that my noble friend mentioned. We think it is important that we have independence of policing, but we still believe that there has to be some oversight of that policing, of the budget and of the chief constable to make them accountable. That is why the directly elected mayor will have the responsibility, among many others, to appoint a deputy mayor, potentially, to run policing. In areas that do not have directly elected mayors, we will look to have an indirectly elected policing board comprising senior people from the council, but it is absolutely important that the integrity of that independence is maintained.

[The Lord Bishop of Guildford]

My Lords, I welcome this Statement and agree with its direction of travel. Fellow bishops serving in more urban contexts where elected mayors now hold policing functions speak positively about the clarity and democratic accountability that the new approach has engendered. Other communities, such as my own, have had to work extremely hard to interest the electorate in voting for a police and crime commissioner. I think we have done slightly better than average in that regard, but even then the turnout is comparatively low. Will the new policing and crime boards lead to tensions in communities where so-called upper-tier leaders, who are often not used to working together, take very different perspectives on policing priorities? What might be done at this stage to lessen the potential of stalemate in such situations?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

That is an important point, because in areas such as the right reverend Prelate’s there are always going to be tensions between rural councils and the urban council. There are going to be tensions in any authority between high crime levels and lower crime levels. Again, I hope that the policing board model—which I think will be the minority, because of the numbers of mayors that are either in place or coming on stream before the election in 2028—will be one of serious grown-ups having to set a rate for police funding, set a plan for police funding and then hold the chief constable to account for delivering it. Those are their three essential roles. With due respect to the police and crime commissioners, those three roles can be managed in addition to what council leaders are doing. It is no different from council leaders contributing to a wider district plan on environment, transport or housing issues, which happens in every other field of local government responsibility now.