Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-09-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Sally Rachel Hamwee (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, Amendment 1 is an amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Paddick and myself, as are Amendments 2, 3 and 7 in this group. The clause provides for duties in relation to collaboration agreements between the emergency services which are the subject of this part of the Bill. Clause 2 refers in two places to the interests of the "efficiency or effectiveness" of the relevant service and of other services. My first two amendments would insert the term "economy", which those of us of a certain generation from local government are accustomed to hearing alongside efficiency and effectiveness. My question is in two parts: first, is "economy" now considered to be covered by the terms "efficiency" and "effectiveness"—I can see an argument that it might be—and, secondly, why is there no reference to all three of these attributes? They are all referenced in Schedule 1 to the Bill, which comprises the new Schedule A1 to the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 Amendment 3 provides for consultation. I have listed a rather unambitious group of people to enable me to ask whether consultation is provided for elsewhere. If it is not, it should be. Even leaving aside Sir Ken Knight’s recommendation of trialling such agreements before their wholesale application, collaboration must, in our view, be on a case-by-case basis, best fitting the needs of the local community, hence the reference to the local community in our amendment, as well as to the employees of the proposed parties to the collaboration agreement. It needs no expansion that the views of employees should be important in the decision-making. A formal public consultation is required, not least because of the risk of politicising the process. Transferring responsibilities to police and crime commissioners is a political decision in terms of the service, and perhaps of how it is dealt with in each area. I am not making any pejorative comments about whether particular police and crime commissioners act with politics at the forefront of their minds, so I hope the noble Lord, Lord Bach, will forgive this comment. We now have far more politically aligned police and crime commissioners than we did after the first set of elections, when many independents were elected. We also believe that organisations such as the NHS, the Environment Agency and other emergency responders should be involved Amendment 7 probes the strength of the consultation, and would require that the chief officer of police be satisfied that there is no operational problem in the arrangement—a point made by my noble friend Lord Paddick, who will join us soon, after rowing for Queen and country, or at least this House. When the office of police and crime commissioner was created, there was great emphasis on the commissioner not interfering in operational matters. It is a continuation of that thought. Government Amendment 4 apparently innocently substitutes "or" for "and". However, the amendment is quite significant. In the relevant wording, the term "its" is used. It is not entirely clear to me whether the "its" in subsection (4)(b) refers to the "proposed party" referred to in subsection (4)(a) or the "other proposed party" referred to in subsection (4)(b). I read it as the original party, but I suggest that that bit might stand some tweaking at the next stage to make it completely clear, so that the casual reader does not go down the wrong route. The more important point is that I would need a lot of convincing that a party should be frogmarched into a so-called agreement, which is the effect of this amendment. I beg to move.