---

Queen's Speech

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to comment on the Government's intentions to increase the effectiveness and public accountability of policing to local people and to reduce crime and disorder. I must first declare an interest as president of the Association of Police Authorities for the past three years, and as the current chair of the Security Industry Authority. I congratulate the Government on some initiatives, many of which do not need legislation but which will make a real difference to policing. The first is the work being taken forward by Jan Berry to review and to reduce bureaucracy in the police service, which is being complemented by the review, under Sir David Normington, aimed at reducing the data collection which the Home Office undertakes in relation to the police service. Both of those are welcome developments towards ensuring that policing is firmly focused on the front line. They will be supported by a third review, looking at subsidiarity, with the aim of ensuring that decisions are made at the right level, be they national, local or the area in between, which I suppose could be described as regional. In principle, that is a sensible step to provide greater clarity, and I hope it will support the Government’s aim of greater devolution to the local level. In the past 15 years, two major trends stand out clearly in relation to policing in the UK: a dramatic and sustained fall in levels of crime and a steady increase in levels of satisfaction and of confidence in the police. Our chances of being a victim of crime now are lower than at any time since the early 1980s and, therefore, it is crucial that nothing which the Government propose to do in this next Session undermines all the good work that has gone on since the mid-1990s. A third development worth noting is the increase in effectiveness, strength and diversity of police authorities. They are now holding local police forces to account far more effectively on behalf of local people, and they are collaborating with forces to improve performance and the quality of service delivery. I welcome the Government's stated intent to build on the work of police authorities as a central plank of local police accountability arrangements. I also strongly support the Government's aim to become more strategic in their oversight of policing, with forces freed up from central targets so that they can be more locally responsive. I suspect that is easier to say than to do, but the good intentions should be applauded and encouraged. I want to single out three developments which I believe go far to explain why satisfaction levels with the police have risen so markedly, why police authorities have improved their performance so much, and why a range of local partnerships have been so successful in driving down crime levels. The first is the reforms of the early 1990s which introduced new-style police authorities, with independent members and a clear focus on working to hold police forces to account. One of the most important aspects of those reforms were the clauses to ensure that the councillor majority on police authorities had to reflect the political make-up of the force area, which meant, in effect, proportional representation and no party-political domination. Policing will always be political; after all, it is directly involved with issues of power at various levels; but in my view it should never be allowed to become party political. That was certainly the view of your Lordships’ House in the early 1990s, when it helped to improve the legislation introducing police authorities, by ensuring that authorities were politically balanced and that the Home Secretary of the day did not exercise political control by appointing all the police authority chairs. I believe that the great majority of people in this country share my view about governance arrangements which should keep party politics out of policing issues and ensure that the police can pursue operations in accordance with the law, but without fear of or favour to elected politicians. Our political culture is different from that of the United States, where they are much more party political at local level, and where, if a new regime is installed at city hall, out go the old police chiefs, the head of finance, the city managers and so forth, and in come new appointees made by the new political regime. Such direct and overt political control has never been, thus far, the British way. I am a great supporter of the British political culture and believe it serves policing particularly well. The second important development for policing came in 1998, with the introduction of crime and disorder reduction partnerships and, more recently, local criminal justice boards. Those measures ensured that, at ward and council level, the police and the CPS worked with other agencies, such as social services, education, health and housing, to deliver crime strategies and to target offenders. Very often all these agencies were focusing on the same families and individuals but in isolation. Sharing data, working together and setting local priorities have all paid dividends and led to important initiatives such as identifying and dealing with persistent offenders and setting up new drug programme initiatives. It took time for effective links to be made between CDRPs and police authorities, but now police authority members and local councillors play central roles in these partnerships. That is important, as local crime patterns are often closely linked to serious and organised crime, and the links between them need to be understood and acted on. Local crime must not be seen in isolation and separated off from force level and national issues. Sufficient resources must always be available to deal with serious and organised crime and counterterrorism. Most recently, the third development has been the introduction of neighbourhood policing. I strongly welcome that, as I have worked for it since the 1980s, and it has transformed policing and public attitudes to the police service. It has to be effectively organised and delivered—which is not always the case—properly resourced and aligned to local ward and council areas. It opens the door to innovation, to local initiative and problem solving, and to high levels of public confidence and satisfaction. Local people want the introduction of community support officers, working to beat bobbies and to local inspectors, and monthly meetings at ward level between local police officers and local people to prioritise crime and nuisance issues, deliver action on them and then report back on what has been achieved. In Lancashire, it has delivered further reductions in crime and rocketing levels of confidence and satisfaction, and that is true elsewhere too. I recently noticed comments in the press about falling numbers of front-line officers. However, numbers themselves are not important but how effectively those forces are deployed. In recent years, forces working with the Government and with police authorities have become much better at using officers to have the most impact and in deploying mobile technology to free officer time to spend on the front line. Whatever proposals are contained in the new policing Bill, I urge the Government to ensure that none of them is allowed to undermine all the good work and innovation of the past 15 years. Any measures that are seen by local councillors as divisive, that undermine partnership working or co-operation with local councillors, that encourage extremism or allow party politics to return to local policing will be carefully scrutinised by your Lordships. For my part, my test will be simple: will the new proposals improve on what is now on offer across the country in complex two-tier areas, such as Lancashire, or will it worsen the quality of policing and the tangible involvement and consultation on a regular basis that local people presently enjoy? I look forward to debating these issues more fully in the new year. I shall end with a brief mention not of crime but of disorder; namely, the disorder common now to all city and town centres after 11 o’clock as a result of excessive drinking by young people. This is not a new problem. I remind your Lordships that it was a problem very familiar to the Victorians, and one that the early temperance campaigners, who were so influential in the Labour movement, were trying as hard as they could to address. They had seen the evils of alcohol in their own homes and families and on the streets and wanted to save others from the misery inflicted by uncontrolled drinking. I remind your Lordships that their campaign was ultimately very successful; by 1932, the then Home Secretary, Sir Herbert Samuel, told the House of Commons: "““We have got rid to a great extent of drunkenness as a national vice””.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/4/1932; col. 1155.]" That was as a result of reducing the strength of drinks during the First World War, introducing licensing hours and developing alternative attractions to pubs, such as dance halls and cinemas. Alas, in the past 20 years, we have gone strongly into reverse with the abolition of licensing hours, the introduction of ever-stronger drinks for teenagers and the development of a celebrity culture that publicises and highlights excessive drinking and drugs. I welcome the Government’s suggestion of a mandatory code of conduct for the drinks industry to try to begin to tackle the widespread problem of heavy drinking, with its attendant health problems and rowdyism, but I particularly welcome the idea that local communities should look to introduce their own local solutions with a range of measures. I suggest that they could do worse than look back to the pioneers of the temperance movement for many practical suggestions.