Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Viscount Brookeborough Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Brookeborough]

My Lords, please forgive me, someone from Northern Ireland, for joining a Second Reading debate on a Bill that is primarily about English and Welsh policing. I declare an interest as I was a member of the security forces in the Province for many years and worked closely supporting the police, planning and patrolling with them frequently—almost daily, sometimes—on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government. I was also a member of the first Northern Ireland Policing Board, formed in response to the Patten report produced by the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes. That Policing Board was in fact an enhanced model of an English police authority. I hope that that experience justifies my giving an opinion in this case.

I come from an area that, sadly, through necessity, had the most politicised policing in Europe. Remember that those opposing the Government shot and blew up the police, the supporting security forces and many others as well. The Patten report and the consequential Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000 set in place mechanisms to depoliticise the police and to make the force more acceptable and responsive to community opinions. We now even have the ex-terrorists in government, encouraging their community to join the police. Sadly, I realise that a small number of their erstwhile colleagues are still killing and maiming, which, of course, we all condemn.

Why on earth is the coalition moving towards greater politicisation, rather than away from it? The Minister said that the Bill would transfer power to communities and professionals. For the life of me, I do not see communities involved, except through local politicians. I cannot even see the professionals whom she talks about—professionals of what? They all look like politicians to me, except for two token independents appointed to the panels. For all the reasons given more eloquently by others, I am very much against the establishment of this elected police and crime commissioner working in isolation. I cannot see how an individual can do the work of an authority on his or her own. Who will do the committee work—the staff? It is not what they are there for. Will he or she have a deputy? If there is no deputy, how on earth is this going to run, not only if that person is away, but if they fall ill? The Minister said that the PCCs would be cost-neutral. Maybe, but the PCPs can only have teeth, which she insisted they would have, if they are provided with structure and substantial funding—in effect, mirroring the PCC’s office. This, of course, is unnecessary.

Although our governance of policing in the Province is by no means perfect, some of what we do is perhaps relevant. We have come from a long way behind, but now we are well ahead of these retrograde steps proposed in the Bill. Northern Ireland is the size of Yorkshire and our Assembly is equivalent to the Yorkshire council, to put it into perspective. Our Policing Board is the equivalent of a combination of the proposed PCC and PCP, with, if you like, the PCC becoming our chairman.

However, although we have Assembly Members equivalent to councillors in England and Wales on our board, we also have independent members who most importantly outnumber the political members. Collectively, they elect the chairman; it does not take much guessing to see that they will not elect a political one. We then also have another body even closer to the communities: district policing partnerships, which consist of councillors in our case, although in England and Wales it might be parish council members—again, critically, with a larger number of independents than elected representatives.

The independents on both these bodies are appointed to provide community balance. The Secretary of State appoints independents to the board, while the committee of the board appoints those on the district policing partnerships. I was on the first panel for appointing independents to DPPs. In carrying out this task, we had to take some of the following criteria, laid down in legislation, into consideration to provide balance: religion, gender, age, geographic location of people’s homes, the less able-bodied and the disadvantaged. We also had to include those who were victims. In her most moving maiden speech, the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, brought up this requirement and the option of having victims represented and involved. Whether that will come about, we wait to see. We have already got this in Northern Ireland. Perhaps the lesson is that, rather than going far away to the US, where there is a totally different scale and a totally different society, and where a lot of what goes on is quite questionable—the Policing Board made a lot of visits there—we should try looking closer to home, taking examples that are built on our own culture.

In respect of what I have said, in this Bill the coalition is tackling the issues from the top down when it should be tackling them from the bottom up from the community. The declared aim is to provide accountability and connection with the communities. Policing is about policing communities, especially the minorities, and protecting them. Where in the Bill is the inclusion of ethnic minorities, equal gender representation, the aged, the less able-bodied, the disadvantaged and the victims, among others? They simply do not appear. I just do not see that the Bill solves the problems; in my view, it will make them worse.

There is a myth that you often hear that more policemen on the street will not solve our problems. In Northern Ireland during the Troubles, we had what amounted to saturation policing, with the support of the military. As opposed to what we have now in my area, where there are 14 policemen, there were up to 650 security force people—it was saturation. What we called ODC—ordinary decent crime—was at a very low level because of the presence on the street. I accept that we cannot afford to do that here, but it is not true that police on the beat do not inhibit crime. They do, and we must find a way of getting them out of the stations and on to the beat.