Standing Committee B
Tuesday 3 March 1998
(Afternoon)
[Part II]
[Miss Ann Widdecombe in the Chair]
[Continuation from column 282]
10.30 pm
On resuming--
Mr. Moss: I shall be brief. I wish to raise a few questions with the Minister and I hope that he will answer my queries in his response.
Much of clause 21 is lifted from the 1996 Act, which refers to England and Wales. Subsection (1) reflects section 11(1) of the 1996 Act, and subsection (3)(a) is lifted from the 1996 Act. However, subsection (3)(b) has no equivalent in the England and Wales legislation. Again, one must ask why it is deemed necessary yet again to involve the Secretary of State, who, according to subsection (3)(b)
``shall . . . call upon the Chief Constable so to retire.''
The Police Authority has to accept what the Secretary of State directs and sack the Chief Constable. However, an equivalent power does not pertain to England and Wales. Yet again, everything from belt and braces is here and the Secretary of State looms large over everything. The question is why, for a population of 1·5 million--the same size as that of East Anglia, including the three counties of Cambridge, Suffolk and Norfolk--do we have almost draconian legislation, under which nothing moves in relation to policing unless the imprimatur of the Secretary of State is on everything.
That is not good law. I cannot understand a Labour Minister's approving the Bill. The Government's consultation document is all lovey-dovey stuff, with lots of consultations and listening to the people, bringing in the grass roots and taking on board the feelings, nuances and desires of ordinary people, some of whom believe that the police force is not working in their interests. Yet everywhere we turn, the Secretary of State drives the whole thing. Why? Ministers are happy to quote the 1996 Act for England and Wales when it suits them. Yet here we have something additional yet again, over and above the England and Wales legislation. I fail to understand why it has been included. Who has written it? I doubt whether it came from the Minister. I doubt whether it came from a previous Minister. Has it come from the Northern Ireland Office? It must have done. If it did not come from the current or the previous Minister, who is writing this stuff?
Mr. Ingram: The Second Reading debate.
Mr. Moss: I did not quite catch that sedentary intervention.
Subsection (3)(a) states:
Only those two considerations are mentioned--efficiency and effectiveness. The Committee on the Administration of Justice asked me, and no doubt the Minister, why it would not be grounds for sacking if a Chief Constable committed a fundamental breach of human rights or a dereliction of duty in that regard. Why should efficiency and effectiveness be the only considerations? Would there not be other grounds for sacking Chief Constables? I should have thought so, but they are not in the clause. The provision appears to be all about value for money. It is right to ask about all the other possible reasons for getting rid of a Chief Constable.
The questions that I am raising are small but important. As I pointed out earlier, the Police Authority seems to be in control, but cannot do anything without the Secretary of State's approval. Worse than that, if the Secretary of State says, ``Sack that Chief Constable,'' the authority must do so. It has no right of appeal, it just has to do it, so it is just a mouthpiece for the Secretary of State. If Ministers deem such powers necessary for the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, why bother commencing the clause, ``The Police Authority shall''? Why not just use some such wording as, ``The Secretary of State, when he or she chooses, will ditch, sack or get rid of any Chief Constable on grounds of efficiency and effectiveness.'' Why are we trying to give an illusion than another body--in this case the Police Authority--has any right, power or say in the matter? People see through the illusion. The Police Authority does, and so do we. What is the point? Why is the provision so different from what is deemed acceptable, sensible and practical in England Wales?
We are considering policing for a population of 1·5 million people. All the provisions--belt and braces, you name it--are provided for an area the size of East Anglia. My constituents in East Anglia would not put up with such a measure, and if I were in Northern Ireland I should not put up with it either.
Mr. Worthington: The hon. Gentleman did put up with it. The provision was lifted from the Police Act (Northen Ireland) 1970. It is simply consolidation. Clause 21(3)(b)--the provision about the requirement for the Police Authority to call on the Chief Constable to retire, if required to by the Secretary of State--is from the 1970 Act.
Mr. Moss: I know that.
Mr. Worthington: The hon. Gentleman did not say that. He asked who had written it--whether it was this or that Minister, or someone else. If the hon. Gentleman knew that it was from the 1970 Act, why did he not say so?
Mr. Moss: I did not have to say it. The similarity is clear from the documents. However, how much of the 1970 Act has been rewritten in the Bill? The Government just pick and choose what suits their purpose. They have fundamentally changed the 1970 Act. If it was so wonderful, why do we need the Bill? I am speechless.
Mr. Worthington: That was a very strange intervention.
The 1970 legislation is reflected in clauses 21, 22 and 23. It has, largely, served Northern Ireland well for 28 years.
Mr. Moss rose--
Mr. Worthington: I would rather make progress.
It is difficult to sack or retire a Chief Constable in a tripartite structure. Therefore, safeguards must exist. The safeguards that the Bill contains have worked well in the past. Sometimes people may be dissatisfied with the Chief Constable's performance, but disposing of the Chief Constable should be done with the greatest precaution. We must avoid the suspicion that a Chief Constable is disciplined or removed for political reasons.
The phrase, ``efficiency and effectiveness'' appears throughout police legislation. When an inspection of a police force is carried out, it is declared to be efficient or inefficient. The phrase is used in HMI constabulary reports. The Committee on the Administration of Justice asked about a breach of human rights. A fundamental breach that occurred in, for example, the incarceration of prisoners, would be covered by the phrase ``efficiency and effectiveness''. It has served the police force well.
If a Chief Constable conducted the affairs of the police in the way that the CAJ hints at but does not spell out, such behaviour would be picked up. There is no need to alter legislation that has served us well. The language has been and remains appropriate. The hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire often refers to the Police Authority, but the Police Authority has not seriously challenged the clause. It seems satisfied.
Mr. Moss: So what?
Mr. Worthington: The hon. Gentleman has tried to criticise the Secretary of State's powers under the clause, but the Police Authority has not. The clause reflects legislation that has served us well. I note that no amendments have been tabled to it, and I commend it to the Committee.
Mr. Moss: The words that the Under-Secretary used were, ``It has served Northern Ireland well.'' Clause 21(3)(b) is similar to section 7(2) of the 1970 Act. I have done my research. The Under-Secretary claims that the provision has served us well, but when has it been necessary for the Secretary of State to use the power for which the section provides? Can the Under-Secretary name one occasion on which that happened? If it has never been used, it cannot be said to have served us well. That is logical. Why has the provision served Northern Ireland so well? There must be examples of the use of section 7(2) of the 1970 Act. I am taking my time because I am hoping that the Under-Secretary will get some assistance from his advisors who are all scribbling away.
I return to another point. In England and Wales section 42 of the Police Act 1996 gives the Secretary of State a power. Section 42(1) states:
``The Secretary of State may require a police authority to exercise its power under section 11 to call upon the chief constable to retire in the interests of efficiency or effectiveness.''
10.45 am
Section 11 deals with both the appointment and the removal of chief constables. Subsection (2) states:
``Without prejudice to any regulations under section 50 or under the Police Pensions Act 1976, the police authority, acting with the approval of the Secretary of State, may call upon the chief constable to retire in the interests of efficiency or effectiveness.''
The Police Authority, seeking the approval of the Secretary of State, can call upon the Chief Constable to retire. That is replicated in the Northern Ireland legislation in subsection (3)(a), but no power similar to that in subsection 3(b) is given to a Secretary of State. That is deemed unnecessary in England and Wales. The Minister still has not told us why it is in there. It is no good saying that it is in the 1970 Act because whole swathes of the 1970 Act have been removed and changed in the Bill. The Minister should tell us why, when and how effective the utilisation of that section has been.
Mr. Maginnis: The clause is almost word for word the same as section 7 of the 1970 Act. As the hon. Member has just pointed out, that seems to be the justification for retaining it in the exact same form as it was in that Act. Yet, when one looks at clause 21(3)(b) in practice, one recalls a situation that I have mentioned before in the Committee, where a Chief Constable should at least have been called to account for the way in which he carried out his duties during his tenure of office. I suppose that Ministers will take some satisfaction from the fact that they were not in Government at the time. The Secretary of State, with some embarrassment, failed to have the Chief Constable called to account although I raised the matters on that occasion in parliamentary questions. The answers gave considerable concern to the Police Authority at that time.
Although we have not tabled an amendment in view of that experience, I would like the Minister to tell us where the responsibility of the Police Authority would lie if a Secretary of State was negligent and accepted an inefficent standard of behaviour from the Chief Constable. Nominally, the Police Authority appoints the Chief Constable with the approval of the Secretary of State. It is difficult to know how that will be affected by the Bill.
In days gone by the criteria were well defined and the Secretary of State was partly constrained in the instructions that he or she might give to the Police Authority. In the Bill, however, the powers of the Secretary of State already seem unrestrained. One wonders how that will impact on clause 21 vis-a-vis section 7 of the 1970 Act.
Judging the efficiency and effectiveness of the Chief Constable is important. If the Secretary of State--or a Minister in a different legislature on whom the same responsibility would fall--is inefficient, what recourse is open to the Police Authority which has the responsibility to make the Chief Constable accountable? At the very least we though that it had that responsibility.
The clause is no longer clear because it is set in a context entirely different from a similar section in the 1970 Act. The hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire raised a justifiable point: it is not enough for the Minister to tell us that the Act has served us well for 28 years and that the Government are going to keep it, when other provisions are cast aside as if they did not matter and had no relevance to policing in Northern Ireland today.
Regarding the Bill as a whole, it looks as if the Secretary of State has on one occasion got the Chief Constable by the right ear; on another occasion she has him by the left ear and can pull him both ways at the same time. She controls virtually everything that he does because he does not have the protection of the Police Authority, whose role is being reduced. It is bad enough to have him by both ears, but to have him by the back of the neck as well is not in the best interest of the Chief Constable, the Police Authority or the Secretary of State.
We need further assurances from the Minister. He cannot continue pretending, or trying to persuade us, that the Bill does not give the Secretary of State almost dictatorial powers. Those powers over-ride the interests of the Police Authority and of society at large. It is of grave concern that the future Chief Constables and Ministers--whether Secretaries of State or otherwise--will be able to act without accountability to the organisation that was created 28 years ago to try to satisfy some of the disquiet that existed at that time.
I want to make it clear that the present Chief Constable, who has held his appointment for a comparatively short time, enjoys the confidence of a great number of people within both traditions. During that short time, however, there have been occasions when certain groups, within one tradition or the other, have questioned whether the Chief Constable was delivering what they believed that he would deliver in their specific interests. Where is the safeguard against such criticism? The Chief Constable is at the top of the pile in the RUC. He is now being brought too close to the political authority to save him from the criticism of those who might be misguided, prejudiced or malicious.
It is in the Chief Constable's interests that he should be accountable to the Police Authority. If he were, he could not decide, for example, to be away from Northern Ireland for 123 out of 365 days in one year, without answering to someone for that irresponsibility. That has happened in the past. Perhaps it happened because section 7 of the 1970 Act--although by and large it was adequate for the situation--failed in respect of a Chief Constable who did not show deference to the people of Northern Ireland, whom he was bound to serve.
The Police Authority should have some responsibility over the dismissal of a Chief Constable, in consultation with the Secretary of State, because it is an extremely grave matter. A Chief Constable should not be dismissed merely because he, with the best of intentions and using his professional experience to the best of his ability, committed what, with hindsight, proved to be an error of judgement. I should like to believe that a situation requiring the resignation of the Chief Constable would never occur. I do not even ask that all powers be vested in the Police Authority. But it is iniquitous that the Police Authority, to which the Chief Constable is nominally and, one hopes, substantially and practically, accountable, is not able to decide, if necessary, that he is unfit for the job, due either to a disability or to perverseness in carrying out his responsibilities.
I leave the matter there, in the hope that the Minister will tell the Committee how he envisages the Police Authority exercising its responsibility of making the Chief Constable accountable without having any part in the ultimate sanction of dismissal or retirement.
11 pm
| 
