Policing and Crime Bill — House of Commons, 2016-06-13
Topic: Law and Crime
Michael Penning (Conservative, Centre-right): It is real privilege to sum up the debate on this group of amendments. I thank the shadow Policing Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), for giving me more time—he could easily have risen to speak to the amendments. I am pleased that I have a bit of time to talk through some of the points that have been raised, and I have already given some indication of what I will say in interventions on right hon. and hon. Members. I have been told off by the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker, but that is understandable. It was not the first time, and it will not be the last time I want to say a little about the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) and the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) on the new inspectorate. At the outset, may I say that my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst was brutally honest when he said he would have liked to have made this change, but was prevented by circumstances when he was the Minister? Perhaps the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse—my predecessor in many different capacities, including as a firefighter—was also prevented from doing so by different circumstances when he was Minister. We must learn from our mistakes—to be brutally honest, we all make mistakes in life—so the first thing to say is that it is absolutely correct that the inspectorate will not be an old boys’ network. It will be based on Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, and on police effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy reviews. Firefighters will not have weeks to practise their escape drills, which I remember so vividly from when I was in the job. For people of a certain age, such escapes were done on the old ladders, which were on big wheels that could get firefighters to places some of the modern ladders will not reach Importantly, the inspector will have the power to bring in the experts he or she thinks fit to do inspections. The inspector should not be an ex-chief fire officer from somewhere, which is similar to the arrangements in Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary. I know that will ruffle a few feathers within the network, with people saying, "We’re experts, we know best", but it is important for the inspector to come in and ask, "Why? Why do you do it that way?" and then to bring in other expertise. I think that is the way to do it I think the former Fire Minister, the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse, will find that when we started to talk about this issue—it was raised in Committee by the shadow Fire Minister, the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown)—I had only been in the job for two weeks, because the role of Police and Fire Minister was very new. However, I knew what I wanted to do, as did the Home Secretary, and I freely admit that a little bit of encouragement from the shadow Minister has helped us on our way. There are areas in which we will be able to work much more along the lines of how Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary does its inspections, so that people are not prepared for the day having known about the inspection for weeks in advance, as happened in my time I want to speak to some of the Government amendments that I did not have the opportunity to talk about earlier, and I will turn to some of the excellent contributions made during this debate. One of the most important areas of agreement that I have reached, with the Home Secretary’s permission, is in relation to the 12-month rule for officers who have retired or left the force. Since long before I held my current position, it has always struck me as strange that, criminal proceedings apart, an officer of no matter what rank could step down and start their pension almost the day before they became subject to investigations within the police force. In some cases that does not happen. I have the duty of signing documents that revoke police officers’ pensions when they have broken the rules so badly that they lose their pension. I do that quite regularly. It is difficult to sign something that will dramatically change someone’s future, and I do not in any way do so lightly. I often quiz my officials about whether it is the right way to go, not least because a good proportion of the contributions to the pension were that person’s own contributions, not the state’s contributions. However, the rules are quite specific in those cases Although we did not want to leave things completely open—I know the shadow Home Secretary will understand that—we thought there was a real opportunity to leave a great legacy on behalf of the Hillsborough victims. The change to the 12-month rule will be for exceptional circumstances. It is difficult to put them into primary legislation, so we will do it by regulations. I hope that the shadow Front-Bench team will work with us on those regulations, along with other parties in the House. They will be one of the biggest legacies of what we are doing I am sorry that we do not quite agree with Her Majesty’s Opposition on two issues. On Leveson 2, the Home Secretary has set her position out in front of the Home Affairs Committee, and I have set it out too. I am categorically not saying that it is not going to happen, but no decision will be made until after the criminal investigations. That is the position that the Home Secretary has set out—it is way above my pay grade—and that is how it will stay.