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Policing Protocol Order 2012

My Lords, I was a little surprised when I saw the terms of the Motion because having lived through the Bill, as other noble Lords did, it seemed that the issue of a protocol was consulted almost into the ground. However, I realise that there may be a distinction between consultation on the content of the protocol and consultation on the statutory instrument. I should fess up; I am a member of the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee, but I was not there on this occasion. That committee is always particularly sensitive to the need for consultation alongside there being adequate time for Parliament to consider an order before it comes into effect, so I can understand how this arose. I wondered whether it may have been that the complaint was not about the time spent on consultation but about the fact that the consultees had not come from a sufficiently wide group of people. I am not sure that it could have been different at the time that the work was going on last year, but the landscape will change. There will be more players in place, and I for one am reassured by paragraphs 43 and 44 of the protocol. Paragraph 43 refers to, "periodic review, in particular during the first term of office of the first PCCs". The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has suggested that that should be a quite early review. That would be useful, because we will then see in office not only the commissioners but the police and crime panels. Police authorities have taken part in the consultation but the police and crime commissioner-I emphasise "crime"-has a wider remit than simply the policing function. I would like to see local authorities, possibly through the panels but in their own right, involved in any further consultation that might take place. As has been said, this started as a concern about what was meant by "operational". As I understood it from the fringes, there was endless drafting and discussion involving those who were most concerned about it. I heard one of those individuals say that by the end of it he wondered whether there was any need for a protocol at all. However, we have a statutory protocol and, as the noble Baroness has said, that was because there was such a call for it in the House. We are in an interesting position; we have something of a narrative in the order, which is almost a plain English guide to the statute. Regard has to be had to the protocol, but perhaps the Minister can give the House some assurance this evening as to the status of the protocol as against the statute. I assume that the statute must override it if there is any conflict, but I am not suggesting that I have seen any conflict. As I read this, the protocol deals not just with "what" but with "how". That comes not only from the protocol itself but from Section 79(6) of the Act, which says in the definition of policing protocol that it is a document that makes provision for, "ways in which relevant persons should ... exercise, or refrain from exercising, functions". So that has a purpose of its own as well. One of the players that need to find a way of operating will be the police and crime panels, and I made no secret during debates on the Bill that I would like to see them quite muscular. Their scrutiny role is a function that is being developed across Government and indeed across governance, and I think people's views of what it should comprise are changing-not confined to starkly vetoing an action nor indeed simply holding to account, which probably amounts to getting information into the public domain, but a constructive role. When the noble Baroness was dealing with the Bill, she took that on board and that is reflected in the statute. I would like to see the panels pushing the envelope there as far as they can. The noble Lord, Lord Dear, referred to "constructive tension" and I have written down "creative tension"; I guess it is the same thing. I use this opportunity to say that I hope the police and crime panels will have sufficient funding to do the job that we expect of them, not be treated as an easy candidate for savings in the police service. They ought to have access to sufficient funding, given that they are succeeding police authorities. They will have a role in budget-making and the budget is intrinsically political-not in the sense of political versus operational but in terms of what it will enable the police service to do. I, too, wrote down "plain English campaign" in thinking about the approach of the protocol; it can be useful in this incarnation and in future ones, but I do not take the point about lack of consultation.