Police and Crime Commissioners

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I am in rather a strange position, as I follow my noble friend, whom I consider the godfather of this system, and I will be followed by my friend the noble Lord, Lord Bach, who I am sure is conducting his duties in a most exemplary manner.

However, I would not have started from here. Well over a decade ago and some years before I came to your Lordships’ House, I spoke out in another place against the idea. I did so for two principal reasons. First, it is inimical to the British system to concentrate too much power in the hands of one man or woman. That is why, when we had a referendum on whether we should have a Mayor of London, I voted enthusiastically against the proposition. Nothing has happened during the tenure of three Mayors of London to change my mind. I do not like the concentration of power in the hands of a party politician when it comes to the police service, in which the whole community must have trust and confidence.

We are grateful to my noble friend Lord Lexden for using this opportunity to rehearse once again the deplorable events in Wiltshire: the traducing of the reputation of a considerable Prime Minister by a chief constable and the utter powerlessness, it would seem, of the police and crime commissioner to call the chief constable to account or even to agree to a proper review. I have always deplored the Government’s weak response to constant calls from noble Lords, including me, to do something about it. I hope that the new Minister, whom I this evening welcome to her duties and who will respond to the debate, will be able to be a little more forthcoming, and will at least say to the Home Secretary, “You have the power to review. Use it, even now, in the case of Sir Edward Heath. It is not too late”.

The proposition before your Lordships’ House tonight is that there should be a review of the role of police and crime commissioners. I have two suggestions for your Lordships; one for the short term, and one for the long. In the short term, the Home Secretary should appoint a senior judge—perhaps a retired Lord Chief Justice, who might be assisted by two former inspectors of constabulary, although personally I should be perfectly happy to settle for a former Lord Chief Justice—to review exactly how the police and crime commissioner system is working and how it should work in future. I accept that it is here to stay in the short term, although I regret that.

One thing that needs to be looked at, because it causes me concern, is who should be eligible to stand for office. I think that former police officers should not. Several have been elected as police and crime commissioners. I do not impugn the integrity or sincerity of anyone, but it must be an extremely awkward position for a chief constable, the chief operating officer, to be subject to the whims of someone who never attained that office but held a more lowly office in a police force somewhere. The whole eligibility criteria need looking at. I hope that will be done as a matter of some urgency. We have the elections next year, and I should like a report to the Home Secretary from a judicial figure or a panel in good time for recommendations to be implemented before the next elections.

However, I would go further, because that is the short term. In the long term, we need a royal commission on the whole role of the police in this country. I am glad to see a former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, indicating some measure of assent—if I have got him wrong, I shall gladly give way. Such issues as how national the police force should be, how local it should be, what its role is in this era of advanced social media and what should be permissible as evidence—we heard a Statement earlier about the new suggested rules for alleged victims of rape—and the whole position of the police force as we approach the second half of the 21st century should be looked at by a royal commission. I earnestly urge my noble friend, who is of course not in a position to give anything approaching a definitive answer, to commit herself to passing this suggestion on to the Home Secretary. The short-term and long-term reviews of the role of commissioners should be considered at the highest level.

We do not want no progress. Even the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, indicated in his honest speech that he believes that not all is necessarily for the best in the best of all possible worlds. His idea has been run with and implemented but not to his entire satisfaction. There is room for improvement. I now await with great interest the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Bach, to see how much room for improvement he feels there is. I say yes to review and yes to review in the short term, but the long term is even more important. We never again want to see the sort of scenes we saw outside the gate of Arundells in Salisbury, when a chief constable took leave of his senses and a police and crime commissioner did not feel able to review what had happened.