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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

moved Amendment No. 48: 48: After Clause 137, insert the following new Clause— ““Police and prison service pay: Secretary of State’s power to make regulations Regulations made by the Secretary of State— (a) specified in section 62 of the Police Act 1996 (c. 16) (functions of the board with respect to regulations) which do not follow the recommendations of the Police Negotiation Board as established by section 16 of that Act, or (b) under section 128 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (c. 33) (pay and related conditions) which do not follow the recommendations of the Prison Service Pay Review Board as established by that section, may not be made until laid before, and approved by resolution of, the House of Commons.”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this amendment, or something similar to it, was moved in Committee and it has changed only marginally since then in that we have been advised that we cannot include the Armed Forces in this Bill, even though they are in the same position as the Prison Service and the police. We have therefore excluded them from consideration at this time. However, the principle remains the same: where an independent review body makes a recommendation on pay for either the Prison Service or police, it should be a requirement that, if the Government are not going to accept those recommendations, they are obliged to bring the matter to Parliament. The three services—the Armed Forces, the Prison Service and the police—are all the subjects, or will be by the time this legislation goes through, of mandatory no-strike agreements. Therefore, there is an onus on the Government to ensure that their interests, which are held by the independent review bodies, are protected. The review bodies already have a clear remit as to what they have to take into account in coming to their decisions. That includes affordability, as defined by their funding departments. The Minister will recall that last year the Government staged the implementation of a pay review. This was the first time that they had not followed the review body’s recommendations. We argue that the consequence of short-changing members of these vital services is very serious indeed. The actions last year resulted in the threatened prison officers’ strike later this month, and the highly unusual police march on Parliament. The Government need to put themselves in a position of explaining their actions to Members of Parliament and having those actions approved by them by a formal resolution. I beg to move.