Adam Bienkov has via Twitter drawn attention to Mayor Boris Johnson’s considered view on the News of the World phone-hacking scandal.  When asked last September at a meeting of the London Assembly about the continuing concerns over the News of the World’s use of phone-hacking he said that such concerns were  ”codswallop” and that it ”looks like a politically motivated put-up job by the Labour party”. 

He also seemed rather vague about whether he had been briefed as Mayor of London (and Chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority at the relevant time) and displayed his usual vagueness and lack of grasp of detail:

“Asked by Labour assembly member Joanne McCartney about any conversations he had had with police at the time, Johnson replied that “to the best of memory I was satisfied with the police position, which was that no new information had been substantively revealed and therefore nothing more was going to be done. So I don’t think I actually had any conversations.

He later added that he didn’t recall “any specific briefings on this”.”

Interestingly, Wiktionary tells us – and with Mayor Johnson’s classical knowledge this is no doubt something with which he is familiar - that:

“Cod, as is known from medieval texts, refers to the penis, as is cod piece, peascod (ref Shakespeare et al.) and wallop (see above). Combining the two would result in the reasonable conclusion that codswallop may have come from the combination of penis and rubbish, thus providing either the explanation that it is either semen or urine.”

Not a nice way to dismiss the claims of the hacking of the phones of murder victims ….

But then Mayor Boris Johnson’s approach is to disclaim all responsibility on the basis that he wasn’t briefed or wasn’t listening when he was ….

Early yesterday evening the Home Office Minister in the House of Lords, Baroness Browning, had a difficult (if not, torrid) time resisting amendments to the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill from two LibDem coalition “partners”, Baronesses Doocey and Hamwee, the first of whom is the current Chair of the London Assembly and the second a former Chair, that would have strengthened the powers of the London Assembly with respect to the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime.  The amendments would have given the Assembly the power – by a two-thirds majority – to amend the Mayor’s policing strategy - a power identical to that being conferred on the London Assembly by the Localism Bill (also currently being considered by the House of Lords) in respect of all the other Mayoral strategies.  A simple case of one Department of Government not being aware of what another Department is doing?  You might think so, but not according to the Minister:

“Baroness Browning: My Lords, I would like to deal with one or two points that have just been raised before I touch in more detail on the amendments that have been spoken to this evening. We want the Assembly to have a role in informing the development of the plan which is in keeping with the rest of the country and the elected mandate of the PCC. We do not believe that there should be a veto, because no other PCP will have the power of veto outside London. It would take away-this is critical-the mandate on which they were elected. I see the noble Lord looking heavenward but this is at the heart of PCCs. They will be elected on a mandate that will spell out to voters how they see themselves managing crime reduction.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: Will the Minister give way?

Baroness Browning: I am halfway through the sentence; perhaps I may finish it. At the heart of the Bill is an ability to be elected on a manifesto and on a mandate which people will have heard. People will either support them on that or give their support to an alternative candidate with a different way of taking these matters forward. The right to veto would completely negate what had been put to the people who had voted in good faith on the contents of the strategy. I give way to the noble Lord.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, there are two issues here. One is London and what happens there and the other is the impact of a decision in London in relation to police forces in the rest of the country. As far as London is concerned, I do not see the difference between the mayor as the MOPC and the mayor as the Mayor of London. The manifesto will contain proposals that relate to both policing and non-policing issues, and since the Government have decided that it is entirely appropriate for the Assembly in certain circumstances to change those strategies, I cannot see the logic of the argument coming from the Home Office. Is it not supporting the overall government position on this? Secondly, if you agreed to this in London, would that differ from the position in other parts of the country? I see the force of that argument but again I refer the noble Baroness to what Mr Pickles said at the conference last week in Birmingham, when he made it clear that elected mayors outside London will not have any additional powers to those held by local authorities at the moment. Already within local government we have a situation where it is accepted, and the Government support, that there will be differences between London and elsewhere. I know that the Home Office is a very distinguished department of state but just occasionally it would be nice to think that it was actually a part of the Government.

Baroness Browning: My Lords, I assure the House that there is absolutely no question that the Home Office is not part of the Government. I am shocked to the quick that the noble Lord should suggest such a thing. There is a difference between the Mayor of London and the mayor’s election but, unlike mayoral strategies on which the mayor goes to the electorate, within the Bill there is a lot of detail which is already in statute that relates to policing, structure and the mayor’s function in London policing. This is therefore different from other matters which the mayor may go to the electorate on as part of a broader manifesto. I see the noble Lord, Lord Harris, about to rise.

Lord Harris of Haringey: I am grateful to the Minister. I hope that she is not relying on a brief from the Home Office which suggests that somehow the policing and crime plan is intrinsically different from the other mayoral strategies. There is the most extraordinary volume of legislation about what the Mayor of London can do on development issues in London. There is an extraordinary volume of legislation about what the Mayor of London can do with transport. The legislation specifies very complicated arrangements for consultation with the public of London before the mayor can frame the spatial development strategy and the transport strategy. To suggest that there is anything special here regarding policing compared with those other pieces of legislation is, I am afraid, nonsense.

To save me getting up again, if the Government are concerned that this sets a precedent for the rest of the country then why on earth are they having a different system of governance in London than in the rest of the country? Once you have accepted a different system of governance in London, then what you do in terms of how London operates does not set a precedent.

Baroness Browning: My Lords, we have been round this circuit quite a few times. The difference is that the mayor, unlike PCCs, covers a distinct police force area. The election of the mayor has already taken place; we are familiar with the structure. I know that the noble Lord is going to jump up and talk about the City of London police, and I accept the point. He has made the point and I think that I have fully understood it.

The structure in London is different from that in the rest of the country. In this uniformity across the country, however, we have tried to identify where there are differences in London-and there are differences-and draft the Bill accordingly. This may come as a surprise to the noble Lord because I have just said that we already have detail in statute on this matter, which we have, but at all levels, whether it is London or elsewhere, we have tried to introduce checks and balances throughout the Bill at the same time as keeping a light touch. We want to give PCCs and the MOPC the opportunity to be flexible and to make their plans according to their local priorities and demands. There is a structure within the Bill that will affect all of the country, including London-and there are differences that affect London because of the precedent of already having an elected mayor-but we want this to be something that is not top-heavy and not prescriptive from the centre, that allows local accountability for local decision-making that is a local priority and not something set down by Whitehall.

I would also like to put this on the record. Some noble Lords were not here on Friday when it was suggested that there is a difference between me and the Home Office. I have heard what has been said about the Home Office. This is not the first time in my career that I have been a Minister. It has never been my practice as a Minister to separate myself either from the department that I represent or from the Government whom I represent. There is hardly a cigarette paper’s width-if that is not being terribly politically incorrect-between us. I take full responsibility for the Home Office in your Lordships’ House. I hope it is meant kindly, but it does not always sound that way. I suggest to noble Lords that if there is criticism of the Home Office in your Lordships’ House, it rests on my desk. I take full responsibility for that. If people have complaints about the Home Office, I would ask that, as with all other complaints, they put it in writing, and I will respond accordingly.  ….

Lord Harris of Haringey: The Minister may have misunderstood what I was saying on a point that I made earlier on. It is not that the ability of the Assembly to vary local plans runs across the thrust of government policy. I understand that the thrust of government policy is to release local energies to determine what the priorities are. If that is the case and you then say that the London Assembly cannot vary what is being determined locally, does that not cut across the sort of localism that the Government say they want? This is not about the problems of the Assembly interfering with national strategies or requirements; it is about the ability of the Assembly to say, “These are the local priorities”. Where there is a clear two-thirds margin-a pretty high target-that is something that the MOPC would have to take on board.

I cannot understand why the Government are saying that policing is different from spatial development strategy-say, the size of strategic tall buildings, the size of the congestion zone area or any of those other issues. These are not laid down nationally; they are determined locally. Of course the Mayor of London has been elected with a manifesto but the London Assembly, representing all parts of London, may well say, by a two-thirds majority, “We think that you should take this back and review it”. That is what the Government are saying could happen in those other areas-why are they not saying that it can happen with regard to policing?

Baroness Browning: We have a situation in London where, although I said earlier that there is a difference between London and the other areas, there will be an opportunity to scrutinise the plan. I do not want this to sound as if it is an isolated case. We have had these discussions now. We have tried to strengthen in the Bill the fact that there is a need not just to scrutinise and challenge but also to support. Where the plan is being drawn up, it is not just something that happens overnight. I would expect it to be subject to a series of consultations so there would be ample opportunity, if there were reservations, for the plan to be amended to take account of different points of view that had been put forward. It is not just an isolated thing.

Perhaps this is my fault but I have a feeling that in the earlier stages of the Bill, when we were talking about the plan, I did not spell out this aspect in more detail. It is not the case that one day somehow a plan is suddenly produced and presented for consultation and people sitting in committee then make their views known. We want them to have time to look at the plan in some detail; I raised this in an earlier amendment. There will need to be that period of time. The plan will not be put together overnight. There will be plenty of opportunities for views to be brought forward and for real consultation to take place.

Lord Harris of Haringey: I do not want to prolong this, but that is exactly the situation that already exists regarding the transport strategy. There is a requirement, which if I remember correctly seems almost unduly onerous, for any amendment to the transport strategy to require two separate consultation processes. I look across the Chamber at those current Members of the London Assembly. So the transport strategy is not something that happens suddenly; it happens after a great deal of discussion and process. Yet the Government are saying that the transport strategy can be amended by a two-thirds majority of the London Assembly. I put this question again to your Lordships: why is policing different from transport?

Baroness Browning: I realise that the mayor will have said things about transport, I appreciate that, but the mandate that the mayor will have been elected on will have outlined how he sees the reduction of crime in London. It is important that that is not fettered by a veto, which it could be.

Lord Harris of Haringey: You could say exactly the same about congestion in London. The mayor has stood on a manifesto that says he is going to reduce congestion in London by various methods, yet the Government are giving the power to the London Assembly to amend the strategy by a two-thirds majority after two separate consultation exercises before the strategy is finalised and those decisions are taken.

I am not trying to be difficult here. Well, I am trying to be difficult because I think that these are important issues, but I am afraid that the Government are being totally illogical when they say that policing is different from those other strategies.

Baroness Browning: My Lords, I have to remain illogical to the noble Lord. I can think of nothing else
to say to him now that we have not already taken around this circuit, not just in today’s debate but in Committee.

By popular demand (well, to be more exact a number of colleagues apparently enjoyed the procedural wrangle I had yesterday with the Leader of the House, Thomas Galloway Dunlop du Roy de Blicquy Galbraith, 2nd Baron Strathclyde) I reproduce the whole exchange in which I tried (albeit rather cheekily) to bring forward a debate on the timing of the introduction of the new arrangements for policing –  as recorded in Hansard:

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Report (2nd Day)

3.07 pm

Clause 4 : Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime 

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde): My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, has the opportunity to move his manuscript Amendment 15A, I need to give the House some procedural advice as Leader of the House-it is a very rare occurrence but one that I need to do. I have to inform the House that the Clerk of Public Bills has written to advise me that this amendment is inadmissible and that the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, has tabled it against the advice of the clerks. Paragraph 8.56 of the Companion provides that in such rare circumstances it is for me to ask the House to endorse the opinion of the Public Bill Office, and I readily do so.

I suspect that most Members of the House will not have had an opportunity to consider the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Harris. It reads:

“Page 3, line 14, at beginning insert ‘Subject to section 159(2A)’”.

The Public Bill Office advises me and the House that the amendment is about commencement, not the subject of the clause itself-namely, the Mayor of London’s Office for Policing and Crime. The reason the noble Lord, Lord Harris, may have been tempted to attempt this procedural manoeuvre is clear: he is seeking to advance a vote on the commencement of the London provisions of this Bill. That is a matter of political tactics, but tactics, or the policy, are not why I rise to address the House this afternoon. I wish only to deal with a matter of procedure.

4 July 2011 : Column 12

The clerks have advised that this amendment is inadmissible under the Companion and I invite the House not to allow the noble Lord, Lord Harris, to move his manuscript Amendment 15A. The difficulty is of course compounded because the amendment is a manuscript amendment. The Companion also provides that,

“the disadvantages and inconvenience attaching to the moving of manuscript amendments on Report are even greater than at Committee stage”.

I have to agree that this is not how we should go about our business. In short, the PBO has advised the House that this first amendment is inadmissible and I invite the House to agree. However, I reassure the House and the noble Lord that he will have every opportunity to speak to the issue he wishes to raise in the proper place when Clause 159 is debated. I therefore invite the noble Lord, Lord Harris, not to move his amendment. If he chooses to do so, and the Companion does not prevent him doing so, the amendment is in the hands of the House.

Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, if it is in order, I would like to respond to what the Leader of the House has said. It is very difficult sometimes to determine why particular amendments are moved in a particular way and at a particular time. There were a number of reasons for my seeking the indulgence of the House to put forward this manuscript amendment at this time. The first is the question of relevance. There is a specific proposal at the moment that the implementation and creation of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime should proceed in advance of that for the rest of the country and should take place in October 2011, rather than October 2012. Therefore, my manuscript amendment is designed to make clear that preparations, some of which will be costly, should not go forward at this time.

The second reason I felt it necessary to bring forward the amendment in this way was that I had anticipated that there would be an amendment, either from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who moved such an amendment in Committee, or from the Government, about the transitional arrangements for the introduction of the Mayor’s Office, and, indeed, of the offices for policing and crime commissioners. A detailed look over the weekend made it clear that such transitional details were not being put before the House and therefore I thought that it was important that we have this opportunity.

The final reason for putting it before the House is that there are, of course, important security issues associated with this. I am slightly bemused about where we are today because I also tabled an amendment on Friday which does not appear either in the list that we received this morning of amendments supplementary to the Second Marshalled List, nor as a manuscript amendment. It seems to have gone into some void in the Public Bill Office, but it, too, was relevant to this point and might have assisted the House had we had it before us. It was also clear from my manuscript amendment that this related to an amendment later on the agenda in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. That, I know-and, of course, she will speak for herself should we get to the point of debating this

4 July 2011 : Column 13

amendment-is about security of this country during the Olympics period and whether or not the disruption that will be caused in administrative arrangements is sensible at that time.

Those are my reasons for putting forward this amendment and I hope that the House will agree that they are valid reasons, notwithstanding the inconvenience that I am sure it puts the House to. No doubt the noble Lord will wish to respond and I hope that I will then be able to move my amendment.

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I do not think that there is any quarrel about whether or not these issues can be debated. The decision of the clerks is about where the debate should take place. Perhaps I may read out the advice about the grounds of inadmissibility, which is very clear and simple. In the view of the Public Bill Office the manuscript amendment is not admissible on the grounds that it is not relevant to the clause to which it is tabled. That is the first rule under paragraph 8.59 on page 132 of the Companion.

The manuscript amendment would make Clause 4,

“Subject to section 159(2A)”,

as set out in Amendment 310 to Clause 159, which would affect the commencement of Chapters 1 to 6 of Part 1. In the view of the clerks, this amendment is not relevant to Clause 4 as it affects commencement, which is the subject of Clause 159. In addition, Amendment 310 covers Clauses 1 to 79, several of which have already been debated.

My purpose is simply to bring to the attention of the House the strongest possible and clearest advice of the clerks, which is that this is admissible. In parenthesis, I can also tell the noble Lord that a transitional government amendment will be tabled today relating to Schedule 15. It will be debated in its proper place next week. It is up to the House and the noble Lord to decide what he wishes to do with his amendment but the advice from the clerks, and therefore the advice that I give as Leader of the House, is completely clear.

3.15 pm

Lord Harris of Haringey: I am grateful to the noble Lord the Leader of the House for that further clarification. I am grateful also to hear that an amendment on transition is being tabled today. I say, in parenthesis, as was the noble Lord’s point, that this demonstrates the problems we have had with this Bill; that is, the late tabling of government amendments and the problems that we have in terms of determining exactly the intention of the Government in terms of various clauses, which is one of the problems that we all face. No doubt we will hear again an apology from the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, about the problems that the Home Office have faced and we will accept it with the usual good grace.

However, the noble Lord has said that this amendment, in the view of the clerks, is irrelevant to where it is placed. It is placed after the line, which states:

“There is to be a body with the name ‘The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime’ for the metropolitan police district”.

The amendment would insert,

“Subject to section 159(2A)”.

4 July 2011 : Column 14

The amendment is tabled there because currently detailed work is going on about the early implementation and the introduction of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime in the London area. This is in advance of the Bill receiving Royal Assent, with a view to trying to get the implementation from October or shortly thereafter. That is why it is relevant to the place it is in and why I moved it in respect of this line in Chapter 2. It is not irrelevant to that point, which is why I moved it. The clerks may not see the relevance. Perhaps because of the hurried telephone calls that I had while inspecting security arrangements at Heathrow airport this morning, we did not have an opportunity to discuss it in detail. The amendment is about ensuring that we do not press ahead in advance of legislative authority.

May I move the amendment?

Noble Lords: No.

Lord Strathclyde: Before the noble Lord continues, there is no point in having this debate on whether the amendment is admissible. The advice from the clerks is clear. Now the House will need to take a view as to whether the noble Lord should continue.

The Lord Speaker (Baroness Hayman): Perhaps I may be of assistance to the House. At the moment, no other Motion is before the House and the noble Lord’s amendment has been called. Normal procedure would be for him to move his amendment.

Lord Richard: Perhaps the Leader of the House could help me. From the muttering around the House, it would seem that there is a feeling that perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Harris, should not move his amendment in view of the clear indications given by the clerks. However, I am not clear about what the procedure should be now. Should there be a Motion before the House as to whether the amendment should be moved, on which, if necessary, the House can divide? How does it work? I never came across this particular type of issue when I was Leader of the Opposition or Leader of the House, or since. I should be grateful if the noble Lord could enlighten me.

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and indeed to the Lord Speaker.

It is true that there is a lacuna in the procedure and when I discovered this about half an hour ago I suggested that the Procedure Committee should look at it. In the normal course of events, there is an underlying assumption in the Companion that the mover of the manuscript amendment would feel so moved as to not move the amendment. However, as I said earlier, under the terms of self-regulation the amendment is ultimately in the hands of the House. There is no Motion before the House. There is the possibility of a closure Motion or indeed the Motion that the noble Lord be no longer heard. Both are quite heavy-handed. I dare say that if the noble Lord insisted on moving his amendment the House would take a pretty dim view of it, and if he tried to convince the House of the merits of his case I suspect he would not succeed.

4 July 2011 : Column 15

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, can the Leader of the House advise me? I wish to vote in support of my noble friend’s amendment but I am not clear, on the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, the Leader of the House, whether any subsequent Division would be about the procedure or the content of the amendment. If it is about the procedure, surely the Lord Speaker has indicated that the Motion before the House is the amendment, and therefore because I support the amendment I want to support it in a Division. However, I take seriously the advice that has been given, so I am sure the Leader of the House can advise me, even though he might not approve of my voting intentions.

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, the proper advice I would give the noble Baroness, who I know is a stickler for such things, is to advise her noble friend not to move the amendment this afternoon, given the very clear advice of the clerks, and to speak to his amendment when it comes up in the proper place later on Report.

Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, I hope I have been of service to the House in identifying a lacuna in the Standing Orders. I hope therefore that this will be an opportunity for us to look in detail at some of these difficult procedures. All I was trying to do was to avoid unnecessary duplicate expenditure in advance of legislative authority and to enable the House to debate the security of the nation. However, the Leader of the House has three times at least reiterated the firm advice of the clerks on this point, and I would be foolish to persist beyond that. I assume, however, if I wished to bring forward this self-same amendment at Third Reading there would now be no objection to me so doing.

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I would have no objection so long as the amendment at Third Reading were written according to the rules.

Lord Harris of Haringey: I will take that advice.

Amendment 15A not moved.

Two news stories at the end of last week are salutory reminders as to why Ministers will be increasingly jumpy about Olympics Security next year as the Opening Ceremony approaches.

On Thursday Alan Travis in The Guardian reported under the headline ”The Rise in the Number of Freed Terrorists Raises Security Fears” that:

“Thirty-six recently released terrorists are being “managed in the community” with a further 34 expected to leave prison over the next four years, according to Home Office figures.

A record 123 prisoners are now serving sentences for terrorism-related offences in jails in Britain. But nearly 10 years after 9/11 the number being freed is starting to rise and Whitehall security chiefs are increasingly concerned about the lack of preparations to deal with them.”

Then a few hours later The Evening Standard ran two related stories – the first under the headline “Terror Suspect ‘Plans Mumbai Atrocity Here’” and the second under the headline “Olympics Terror Alert”.  The main point of these was:

“We already knew that a terror suspect known as CD – banned from London and believed to have been plotting a Mumbai-style atrocity in Britain – could return to the capital due to the Government watering down its anti-terror laws.

Now, The Standard has revealed that there could be several more suspected terrorists, including some understood to be from East London, who could be allowed back before the Olympics next year  – if the Government does not amend its plans to replace control orders with terrorism prevention and investigation measures.

Currently, these reforms would remove the power to relocate terror suspects. This condition has been used in nine out of 12 current cases.

The Home Office is refusing to say how many could return to London.

But the Met’s Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Osborne has suggested it could be several, possibly at least five. Other sources also believe it could be five or six.”

Nobody has ever suggested that Control Orders were ideal, but their replacement by TPIMs (Terrorist Prevention and Investigation Measures) is clearly causing nervousness.  After all the whole point of Control Orders was to prevent the subjects committing terrorist acts, while TPIMs are supposed to give them enough freedom so that they can be arrested for attempting to commit a terrorist act.  A risk worth running?  No wonder Home Office Ministers will be getting jumpy ….

The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill is now about a quarter of the way through its Report Stage in the House of Lords.  Further Report days will take place on Monday 4th July, Monday 11th and Wednesday 13th.  At present, the Bill is expected to be considered at Third Reading on Tuesday 19th July.  With the House of Commons going on Summer Recess that day and the House of Lords on the 20th, it will be impossible for the Bill to receive its Royal Assent until after Parliament returns on September 5th.

The Bill is so poorly drafted in places that I have argued that it is in everyone’s interests for the Government to delay the Third Reading debate until September to allow the Home Office time to prepare tidying up amendments so that the Bill can at least do what it says on the tin.

So far only one amendment has been passed by the House of Lords.  This had the effect of removing the first few lines of the Bill saying that there would be a Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for each police force area outside London and putting forward the concept of there being Police and Crime Commissions instead – these would be the PCC and the Police and Crime Panel (PCP) for each area working together with the PCP chosing the PCC.  However, the amendment agreed did not include all the consequential changes that should have followed from such an alteration and the rest of the Bill refers to PCCs and PCPs as separate entities and, for example, goes into substantial detail on the process of direct election for PCCs.

This amendment (and any others passed in the next couple of weeks) will have to be considered by the House of Commons before the Bill can have Royal Assent.  The Government have made it clear repeatedly that they will reverse the Lords amendment in the Commons and restore the concept of directly-elected Police and Crime Commissioners to the Bill.  This will mean that the Bill will have to return to the House of Lords again, when – in theory at least – the Lords could change it again (but usually the Lords agrees eventually to the expressed wish of the elected House).

Last week the Lords failed (despite my making what former Tory Cabinet Minister, Lord Newton of Braintree, said was “one of the most persuasive” speeches he had ever heard) by 15 votes to support my amendment that would have provided some system of governance round PCCs to avoid them acting entirely on their own – potentially in a capricious manner.

Debate will now focus on what can be done to strengthen the role of PCPs to act as “the checks and balances” on elected PCCs as promised in the Coalition Agreement.

And the Government has at last put forward a number of (small) amendments to the Bill in response to the views expressed in the House of Lords.  The most significant of these is that the power of veto that PCPs can exercise over the appointment of a new Chief Constable and over the size of the police precept would now be exercised when there is a two-thirds vote (a pretty high threshhold) in favour of a veto (rather than the totally unattainably high threshhold of three-quarters that was originally in the Bill).  PCPs will now also have the power to “invite “, but not compel, Chief Constables to attend their meetings – this is not actually a very big concession as there was nothing in the Bill before that forbade such invitations.  PCPs are also being given the power to hold confirmation hearings into (but not to veto) the appointment of the the PCC’s Deputy (if one is appointed) and of the PCC’s Chief Executive and Chief Finance Officer.  In London, the appointment of the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (the PCC-equivalent in London appointed by the Mayor) may be vetoed by the London Assembly by a two-thirds majority unless the person appointed  is a member of the London Assembly (in which case there will be no veto).

Ministers have also agreed to meet me and a number of colleagues to discuss the extraordinarily complex structures that the Bill creates to replace the current arrangements whereby Police Authorities employ police staff, hold the budget and enter into contracts for the local police service. The logical thing to do would be for these functions to be held by the PCCs in any new arrangements, but instead the Home Office is proposing that both the PCC and the Chief Constable in an area should become something called a “corporation sole”.  The by-product of this is that both the PCC will separately have to have a statutory chief finance officer and separate auditable accounts – for the same money, the police fund for the area.  This is a totally unnecessary and costly duplication. 

I have described the concept of the corporation sole as being “a mediaeval construct”, as it was originally created to deal with priests in the Middle Ages who could not be trusted to keep their personal finances separate from those of the Mother Church.  It is not widely used in modern public administration and, in the case of its most recent use in creating the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, the Children’s Commissioner has recently petitioned to have a different corporate structure that would be more transparent and publicly accountable.  It is not clear why the Home Office is wedded to using this mediaeval anachronism for the running of twenty-first century police forces, but I suppose Chief Constables (and PCCs) ought to be grateful that the Home Office hasn’t gone the whole hog and demand that they be celibate as well.

On Monday the Report Stage continues.  First to be debated is a group of amendments that I have tabled that would require that London’s PCC, the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, should be directly elected on the same day as the elections for the Mayor of London.  If the Government believes that directly electing the person who holds the police to account is the right thing to do, it is illogical that in London the person with that responsibility – and for the largest police force in the country – should not also be directly elected.  There would be no significant extra cost as the elections are taking place anyway, but then there is a striking lack of logic in many aspects of the Bill.

In my live blogging from the Metropolitan Police Authority yesterday I didn’t get round to reporting on the important debate on the future of safer neighbourhood teams.

Fortunately, Dave Hill has covered it well in his Guardian blog.  I’ll quote in full because he is nice about my contribution:

Safer neighbourhoods, smelly camels and the Met

I’ve heard it muttered that the top brass at the Met are almost glad of the excuse provided by budget cuts to pare back safer neighbourhood teams (SNTs). They think community policing is sissy stuff, the murmurs say: they see addressing crime in battlefield deployment terms, and it’s butch specialist units that turn them on.

Perhaps Sir Paul Stephenson has heard stuff like this too, because at yesterday’s meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority he was at vigorous pains to explain how much he values SNTs. “Why wouldn’t we be supportive of it when we’ve seen it bring so many benefits?,” he said. And later: “We did invent this thing. We want it.” He stressed too that SNTs have played “a major role” in the “significant increase” in public confidence in the Met in recent years.

Sir Paul also demonstrated an acute awareness of the political passions stirred by SNTs and his desire to distance himself from those by the length of several barge poles. The standard SNT composition has always been one sergeant, two constables and three PCSOs for each of the capital’s wards. Now, 150 sergeants are to go with another 150 likely to follow. “It is my very clear professional opinion that that is do-able,” Sir Paul said, laying great stress on the “professional.” He went on: “If anyone tells me that any sergeant cannot appropriately supervise two teams, then frankly in my professional opinion that would be nonsense.”

Well, none of the non-Tory politicians on the MPA exactly told him his plans were nonsense – he’s not the Mayor, after all – but they raised multiple questions and concerns. Sergeants do more than supervise, they said – they also patrol and provide a local focal point for the public in a user-friendly system whose strict, ward-level organisation makes it easy to understand.

There was also a pronounced fear that a recommendation to make the utilization of SNTs more flexible would erode a vital sense of local ownership and connection. The commissioner wants borough commanders to be able to move team members across ward boundaries if a particular trouble spot can be better dealt with by having extra uniforms in the area.

Assistant commissioner Ian McPherson, who’d conducted the SNT review under discussion, said that such arrangements would be temporary. But how temporary? Could some wards be left for months on end with just a couple of officers when they’d been used to having six? McPherson said that ward community panels, which set SNTs priorities, recognise that having greater flexibility is “plain common sense.” He pointed out that criminals move around. “We need to be as flexible as they are.”

The Tory AMs, of course, stayed quiet during all this: the reductions in sergeant numbers result from the budget drawn up by the Tory Mayor Boris Johnson, and that might take a bit of explaining. Their political opponents, by contrast, will have no problem pointing the figure of blame over what will be, however you look at it, a reduction in our old friend “police numbers”.

It was left to non-politicians to strike less pessimistic notes. Graham Speed welcomed, “a reasonable outcome in very difficult circumstances.” Self-described “recovering politician” Toby Harris, who was Ken Livingstone’s MPA chair when SNTs were introduced in 2004, summarised the issues succinctly:

The reason we’re making heavy weather of this is that this is being presented as a budget where actually the public won’t notice the change, and I’m not sure that that’s really the case. Obviously, a supervisory ratio of one to two, of sergeants to PCs is a nonsense – if that was the ratio throughout the Metropolitan Police, we’d be saying that was ridiculous. In practice in most wards the sergeants do a little bit more than just supervising and they are seen as part of the dedicated resource to a particular ward. So the fact that a sergeant will be shared will appear to a local community as though they’ve lost somebody. And that’s the problem.

Harris added that the worry with flexibility was that SNTs would change their character from, “A dedicated resource for a particular area, the focus being on problem-solving and reassurance,” to “part of a response team to particular incidents.” He produced a compelling metaphor: you start with the nose of a camel poking into the tent and “before you know it you’ve got the whole smelly animal inside.”

Expect camels to be invoked more frequently than is usual on the mayoral campaign trail from now on.

The Metropolitan Police Authority is in session and the Commissioner has, in answer to a question from me, told the Authority that there are currently 14,029 people on bail who are potentially affected by the extraordinary (my word not his) ruling by a High Court Judge to overturn 25 years of previous interpretations of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.

Of the 14,029, 175 are on bail for murder, attempted murder or conspiracy to murder.

He has raised it with the Home Secretary. Action from her is awaited.

The Metropolitan Police Authority is in session and the Commissioner has told the Authority that 90% of the police staff who would normally be working in the Met’s emergency call centres, known as METCALL, have not turned up for work today as a result of the industrial action. Police officers have been drafted in to the call centres to deal with calls – although given the hi-tech nature of METCALL, the Commissioner is clearly worried that if they have his personal level of technological eptitude this is not an ideal situation.

No doubt Mayor Boris Johnson will use this as more ammunition in his campaign to outflank Prime Minister David Cameron from the ultra-right by calling for greater limitations on the right to strike

It is the Annual Meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority and Deputy Mayor Kit Malthouse AM, putative Deputy Mopsy*, is in the Chair.

And the Deputy Mopsy has already had a head-in-hands moment after only five minutes.

It started off with Clive Lawton challenging the figures for his meeting attendance in the last year. He was recorded as being at only three of the five meetings of the sub-committee he chairs. He pointed out that he had been at four and that on the occasion of the fifth he had turned up at the correct time only to discover that the other members had got there early and had the meeting without him. Victoria Borwick muttered that perhaps the other members were trying to tell him something and I pointed out it was unlawful for a public body to meet and take decisions before the time published for the meeting (surely an issue for a POLICE authority).

The Deputy Mopsy then proposed that his report be taken as read, only to be told that we would if we had seen it.
“Never mind. Any questions?”
“What? On a report we haven’t got?”
“All right, I’ll read it out…… Oh, I don’t seem to have a copy either.”
At this point the Deputy Mopsy put his head in his hands …….

*Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime

I was delighted to be joined by Keith Vaz MP, Chair of the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, this morning when we presented the first copies of the book ”But It’s Not Fair” produced by the Freedom Charity to help educate teenagers about the danger of forced marriages and what they can do protect friends who may be facing such a situation to a group of London schoolchildren.  The aim is to distribute the book to all secondary schools in the country to raise awareness of the problem.  At the same time a twenty-four hour helpline is being launched to provide advice to those at risk.