The Metropolitan Police Authority is in session and Deputy Mayor Kit Malthouse AM DCiC* PSPCC** is in the Chair.  Sir Paul Stephenson, the Commissioner, is reporting on the student protests both yesterday and two weeks ago when what he describes as “unexpected disorder” took place.

According to the Commissioner, the Metropolitan Police “got it wrong” two weeks ago and that they were slow to recognise that “the game has changed” – presumably meaning that the Conservative Coalition is going to attract a higher level of protest than its predecessor (presumably the demonstrations against the Iraq war and those organised by the Countryside Alliance were a piece of cake compared with the National Union of Students).

He also made the interesting comment that “social networking sites are not intelligence” – a comment that may have a wider relevance than he intended.

Although there was no “unexpected disorder” within the meeting, a surreal discussion then developed about the welfare of those who were “contained” (Sir Paul)/”kettled” (Jennette Arnold AM)/”imprisoned” (Jenny Jones AM) in Whitehall and, in particular, when toilet facilities were provided to them, about whether the coldness of the weather was considered and what arrangements were made to communicate with the parents of any schoolchildren who were within the area.  Until I intervened, there was no mention of the personal responsibility of those choosing to go on demonstrations to ensure they are suitably attired or communicate with their parents where appropriate.

*Dog Catcher in Chief

**Putative Surrogate Policing and Crime Commissioner

Lynne Featherstone MP likes to describe herself rather grandly as ”Minister for Equalities” In fact, she is a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (usually abbreviated to PUSS in civil service parlance) in the Home Office.  During her pre-Ministerial life she had a reputation as a campaigner for whom no gesture was too demeaning for her to make it.

Now, as a Minister, she tries to behave all-statesmanlike.

And today, she was called to the House of Commons despatch box to answer an Urgent Question granted by the Speaker because a policy change had been announced to the media before it had been reported to Parliament.

And the announcement?  This was that the Conservative Coalition, of which she is proud to serve as Equalites figleaf/Minister, has decided not to implement legislation passed by Parliament (under the Labour Government) earlier this year which would have required public bodies to take action to address socio-economic disadvantage.

And the justification?  There was no need for such a duty and to include such a duty in Section 1 of the Equality Act 2010 was “an empty gesture”.

Apparently, Lynne Featherstone MP – the Minister – wants to reassure us as she put it today:

“Equality is at the heart of what this coalition Government are all about.”

Of course, that is not what Lynne Featherstone MP – the non-Minister – said last year in the debate on the Second Reading of the Equality Bill.  Then she called for even more powers in the Bill.  Her words were:

“The Government should have made legislative proposals to tackle socio-economic inequality in a Bill of its own”.—[Official Report, 11 May 2009; Vol. 492, c. 579.]

As Fiona McTaggart MP for the Opposition pointed out after Lynne Featherstone’s public u-turn in the House of Commons this morning:

“Dropping the socio-economic duty was not in the coalition agreement. It was a major part of the Equality Act 2010, which Parliament passed only this year. While we know that the Conservatives have never wanted Government to take responsibility for building a more equal society, that is not the view that the hon. Lady herself has previously taken.”

And asked:

“What proposals will the Minister now bring forward to assess the impact of Government policies on the most disadvantaged? Despite her fine words, is it not true that this Government simply do not care about socio-economic inequality? The Institute for Fiscal Studies has proved that the Government are hitting the poorest hardest. If there is no duty, how will people know about the impact of Government decisions on the most disadvantaged?

With this duty in place, public bodies would have had to think about what they should be doing to improve life chances. We all know about Sure Start; indeed, the Minister referred to it. We know its fantastic work, and how its impact is greatest on the most disadvantaged children. Councils would have had a duty to take that into account if they were thinking of closing children’s centres, but she is now saying that they will not. Does she think that is right?  …

The Minister said that we cannot deliver inequality by legislation, but the simple truth is that the Government do not believe that they have any responsibility to deliver a fairer society. Of course, legislation does not work like magic, but it is a key way that Government can change things. Road safety legislation does not stop all accidents, but it does make our roads safer and it does save children’s lives. This duty would have helped to make our society fairer, and it would have given poorer people a fair chance, so why is she scrapping it?”

Answer came there none.

When I was a member of the London Assembly from 2000 to 2004, the membership included three life peers (apart from myself, LibDems Baroness Hamwee and Lord Tope).  Then when I lost my seat, the number fell to two from 2004 to 2008.  However, since 2008 there has been no cross-representation between the House of Lords and the London Assembly.

I understand now (from three separate sources) that next month this will change when Dee Doocey is made a Baroness as part of the massive Upper House packing operation that the Conservative Coalition is about to embark upon.

I gather she will will be one of fifteen or so new LibDem peers who will be appointed along with an additional thirty odd Tory peers to give the Conservative Coalition an effective majority in the Upper House of around seventy and bring the total membership of the House to well over eight hundred.

The “touch of class” (note the irony) she will bring to the London Assembly will be short-lived, as she is standing down from the GLA in 2012.

Luke Akehurst has written an excellent analysis at Labour Uncut of the way in which extreme groupings can hijack demonstrations for their own purposes.  Their activities must not be allowed to detract from the message of the vast majority of those demonstrating.

However, if – as seems likely – we are entering an era of more frequent demonstrations, there are important lessons here for both those organising demonstrations and for the police.

The House of Lords had another bout of “speed-dating” tonight with speakers limited to two minutes each on the following question:

“To ask Her Majesty’s Government what would be the effect of an elected House of Lords on relations between the two Houses of Parliament.”

The opening speaker (who had longer than two minutes) was Lord Bruce Grocott, a highly-respected former Chief Whip, who pointed out that the current primacy of the House of Lords would not continue if/when the House of Lords is elected.  Of the relationship between the Lords and the Commons. he said:

“The basis of the relationship could not be simpler; the primacy of the Commons is secured by the fact that it is elected and we are not. That is the conclusion of the report, which explains the current relationship. My argument is very simple and I shall try to develop it. An elected upper Chamber—whatever you call it—would fundamentally change that relationship for the worse.”

He argues that an elected upper House would no longer defer to the House of Commons, pointing out:

“Frankly, it would be bound to be the case. People who say that there is nothing to worry about do not even begin to imagine what it would be like to stand as a senator for this House—I refer to senators for the sake of argument—and say to one’s electorate, “I very strongly oppose the poll tax”, or, “I very strongly oppose the imposition of an identity card system and will do so as strongly as I can as a senator in the House of Lords but ultimately I will stop opposing it if the Commons insists”. That would be a very peculiar plea to put to your electorate when you are hoping to be elected to this House.

I wish to dismiss the other common argument reasonably quickly: that is, when people say that there is nothing to worry about because other parliaments across the world have no difficulty whatever in having two elected Houses. The answer to that question is so obvious that I am almost embarrassed to repeat it; they started with a blank sheet of paper. We have a House with existing powers, which in most respects are identical to those of the House of Commons. That is the difference between us and other parliaments. If we were starting with a blank sheet of paper, of course we could define what the Lords does and what the Commons does and away we go—there would be no problem. It clearly would be a problem if you had an elected House taking over the powers that we enjoy but which—this is crucial—we choose not to enforce. That is the difference between the present position and the one that would apply if this House were elected.

I am more than half way through my time, so I shall recount quickly what I think are the inevitable, predictable consequences for the relationship between the two Houses of an elected second Chamber. First, there would be a constant battle for legitimacy between the two Houses and constant arguments about which represented the most authoritative voice of the British people. Would noble Lords on the Lib Dem Benches who are so passionately in favour of proportional representation—we are told that we will have proportional representation in the upper House—declare that an upper House elected on the basis of proportional representation is not as legitimate as the other House down the Corridor, which is elected on first past the post? Of course they would not say that. There would be endless debates and arguments about which was the most legitimate Chamber.

The second inevitable consequence would be that this House would demand more powers. I do not know of any House anywhere, whether it is the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly or the European Parliament, where people, once they are elected and in situ, do not demand more, not fewer, powers. I say that to people who argue that the only answer is to have a written constitution. I ask them whether they can really imagine sitting down and writing a constitution, the first few paragraphs of which would have to state, “We are now going to have an elected upper House instead of the appointed upper House, but we think it is important to start by reducing its powers”. That would be quite a difficult argument to get across in any rational debate.”

And then he asked:

“In a situation in which there are two elected Houses and a Motion of no confidence in the Government, what is to stop both the Houses having Motions of no confidence in the Government? What happens if one says, “We have confidence in the Government”, but the other says that it does not? I should like to know the answer to that question.”

He went on:

“Even more seriously—this is not frivolous—we have now decided that it is pretty important for the elected House of Commons to make a judgment before our troops are committed in battle. If one House, democratically elected, said yes it is right to go ahead, and the other House, also democratically elected, said no it is not, I would not like to be the lawyer to work that one out. Those are the kinds of questions, when there are two elected Houses with equally democratic legitimacy, that simply have not been sensibly addressed. The only reason why I wanted to raise this issue today is that I believe it is the absolute duty of the Government to think not only about whether the House of Lords should be elected or not elected, but about the consequences not just for the House of Lords but for the House of Commons, for MPs’ relations with their constituents, and for relations between the two Houses. That needs to be addressed before any fundamental change is made.”

After that, speakers were limited to two minutes each.  Ominously for the Conservative Coalition some trenchant questions were also posed by senior Tories.

Lord Howe of Aberavon made his position very clear, posing questions that he said:

“ought to be answered in light of the prospect of the arrival of elected Members in this House. First, will any fault be corrected thereby? Secondly, will any improvement be achieved thereby? Both those questions have so far secured only absolutely void answers. On the contrary, virtually all the judgments on the performance of this House have been strongly positive.”

And later Earl Ferrers was even blunter:

“My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, for introducing this debate, because it seems elementary not to realise the huge problems that there will be between the two Houses if your Lordships’ House becomes an elected Chamber. It seems obvious.

People—particularly our dear friends the Liberal Democrats—always say, “Reform the House of Lords”. It is as if they feel they are in the sixth form and have been told to write an essay on how you make a democratic Parliament and the answer is “Two elected Chambers”. Of course that may be so, but as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said, we are not starting from there. That is what the dear Liberal Democrats do not ever seem to understand; we are not starting from scratch. We have inherited a constitution, which is the envy of all other countries, and it works. It works. Yet we are now out to try to destroy it. It is a great privilege. It has worked for 600 hundred years and the answer is that you want to build on it, and not destroy it. Whatever Members of another place may say about wanting an elected second Chamber, their successors will hate it because there will be another Chamber saying, “We have been elected too, we have got just as much right as you have to have our views prevail and our votes too”. Are people going to offer themselves for election to a House which has the powers that we have? The answer is no. The power between the Houses is finite and if your Lordships’ House gets any more powers, another place will have to give up some of their powers. Is it likely to do that? No.”

House of Lords reform is going to be messy …..

At about 11.45 last night – after eight and a half hours of debate – the Government successfully fended off a move initiated by the Labour front bench to refer the Public Bodies Bill to a Select Committee. The Government won by 188 votes to 151 – a comfortable majority of 37.
The reasons behind the Labour proposal were the ‘Henry the Eighth’ powers in the Bill, which allow Ministers to abolish, merge or change the functions of public bodies (even those established by Statute) simply by publishing a Statutory Instrument and with virtually no further Parliamentary consideration. The Bill lists hundreds of organisations potentially affected, including a large number of consumer protection and regulatory bodies in virtually every area of public life – notably those that deal with health and environmental matters.
There are two key messages from the vote.
First, the Government won despite a number of LibDems voting with the Opposition or abstaining and despite Labour’s proposal getting a substantial level of support from the Cross-benches. And this is before the Government ranks are further swelled by an extra 45 to 50 new Tory or LibDem Peers expected to be announced at the beginning of next month.
The second message is that, although the proposal to refer the Bill to a Select Committee was clearly viewed by the Government as a delaying tactic, defeating the idea may perversely mean that the Bill will now take longer to pass through Parliament. This is because the Select Committee would have provided a time-limited opportunity to consider the criteria for including public bodies in the different Schedules of the Bill. Instead, what is now likely to happen is that amendments will be tabled in respect of each of the bodies, as this will be the only way of considering their inclusion in the Bill. This could take months.

The Home Secretary’s statement on airline security was repeated in the House of Lords by Baroness Neville-Jones, the Security Minister.

I asked her whether the device found at East Midlands Airport would have been detected by existing scanning arrangements had it been checked in as hold baggage by a passenger in a UK airport (and also whether this would be true in other countries given the differing nature of security regimes around the world).

Her answer made it quite clear that while this incident has raised important issues for cargo flights, it is also apparent that there are important issues for passenger flights as well.

The full exchange is below:

“Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, I declare an interest as the Home Office appointee on the Metropolitan Police Authority, with responsibility for overseeing counterterrorism and security. I, too, am grateful to the Minister for the full account that she has given. With what degree of certainty does she feel that these devices would have been detected had they been in checked-in passenger baggage on a flight embarking in the United Kingdom? Given the variations in standards of airline security in different parts of the world, what degree of certainty does she have regarding incoming flights that such baggage would have been detected at airports elsewhere in the world? What will her answers mean in terms of current levels of aircraft security for passenger airlines in this country?

Baroness Neville-Jones: The noble Lord asks some pertinent and, I have to say, extremely difficult questions. My honest answer to his first question must be that we do not know the answer. This explosive is extremely difficult to detect. Technologies are known for detecting PETN and one consideration that we will have to take advice on is whether we should extend PETN testing to cargo going on board aircraft-most particularly passenger aircraft, but also other aircraft. We have to do this in a way that is consistent with assuring the public that they can travel safely, while not crippling the country’s economy and international commerce. Therefore, an international effort will be needed and we shall talk not only to other operators but to those who may be able to help us technologically. Part of the Transport Secretary’s review will consist of talking to the companies. Many of them are well advanced in increasing-and we will be increasing-the screening processes, including capabilities that are not necessarily at the moment distributed as a matter of course.”

It is, of course, a fact universally acknowledged that no Londoner can fully understand the nuances of Scottish politics.  The converse is usually true that no Scot can fully appreciate London politics.

Tom Harris (just for the record, no relation – although I do get a lot of his Parliamentary emails) has today, however, proved he at least understands the way in which the mind of Mayor Boris Johnson works with this post which I quote in its entirety:

“STATEMENT issued by the office of Boris Johnson, Mayor of London:

Comments I made in an interview this morning to BBC London radio have been entirely taken out of context. When I said that I would rather share a cell with Slobodan Milosovic than be in the same room as David Cameron, I meant, of course that the Prime Minister has my full and unambiguous support.

It was deliberately misleading of journalists to report my comment about George Osborne being “an incompetent oik” entirely out of context, then ignoring my tribute to George as “one of the best Chancellors the country has had since May.”

As for my reported comments about the entirely reasonable, fair and welcome changes to the proles’ rent handouts, it should be patently clear to anyone with a First in Literae Humaniores from Balliol that my comparison of the reforms with “ethnic cleansing on a scale not seen since the collapse of the Yugoslavian Tourist Board” was simply an endorsement of Iain Duncan Smith’s critical faculties.

So, gosh, well, I hope that clears that up, what?”

The Metropolitan Police Authority is in session and the DCiC* and PSPCC**, Deputy Mayor Kit Malthouse AM, is in the Chair.  And the expected row about the future of neighbourhood policing in London has just petered out.

New readers might want to check out Pippa Crerar in the Evening Standard to get the context, but the story is pretty simple: Mayor Boris Johnson and the PSPCC have been very vague for the last two years about whether they were really committed to maintaining the current structure of safer neighbourhood teams created by former Mayor Ken Livingstone; but this week one Borough Commander has written to local councillors telling them that the number of officers in the safer neighbourhood teams in his patch might be reduced and that they would work “more flexibly” rather than remaining dedicated to particular neighbourhoods; and more or less simultaneously and this coincided with a statement from the PSPCC and the real Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, stating that every neighbourhood would continue to have named officers responsible for tackling local crime but adding ominously:

“Currently the teams are dedicated to ward boundaries, which we want to ensure continues to meet your and the public’s local needs. We also want to ensure the structure of the teams, and how they are supervised, makes the best use of skills and resources so that we can meet local demand effectively.”

A cynic (actually, it was me) pointed out that every neighbourhood having named officers is not the same as a neighbourhood team – indeed Sir Paul and his Deputy, Tim Godwin, could arguably be named as the officers responsible for tackling local crime in every ward in London.

The Commissioner assured the meeting that “no decisions have been taken”, despite the letters going out from Borough Commanders implying the opposite.  This prompted Dee Doocey AM to make the accusation “you are trying to con us” (which she then withdrew on being told she was being “unparliamentary” – she is allegedly on a list of possible new LibDem peers).

The Commissioner couldn’t yet give assurances that the total number of officers and PCSOs  engaged in Safer Neighbourhood Teams would remain uncut, but he expressed a personal preference for retaining links to local government ward boundaries.  And he did promise that officers would still be “dedicated” to local areas – without a commitment on how many and what the areas would finally be.   As to fairness between areas (ie every ward receiving the same allocation of Safer Neighbourhood resources), he acknowledged that this had been the basis on which the Safer Neighbourhood Teams had been established but did warn that there was debate on what this might mean in the future.

This debate is not yet over ……

*Dog-Catcher-in-Chief

**Putative Surrogate Policing and Crime Commissioner

The Conservative Coalition has just won a vote by a majority of 275 in the House of Lords on an amendment to the Terrorist Asset-Freezing etc Bill.  Yet, they are still insisting that they need to appoint another 30 Conservative life peers and an extra 15 Liberal Democrats to give them more foot-soldiers …..