- Statement
- 3:44 pm
- The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on Thursday 13 November.
- “With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a Statement on police reform.
- Let me begin by expressing my sadness at the passing of Baroness Newlove, the Victims’ Commissioner. She was a champion for victims and made a huge difference, holding government and agencies to account. I extend my sympathies to her family and friends, and I know that she will be a huge loss to the other place.
- Last year, the then Home Secretary, my right honourable friend the Member for Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley, Yvette Cooper, informed the House of her intention to bring forward a White Paper on police reform. The White Paper will outline a programme of wide-ranging reforms that will drive quality, consistency and efficiency in policing to ensure that it is set up to deliver for the public. Ahead of publication, we are today announcing the first of those reforms.
- In order for any institution or organisation to perform to the highest standards, it must be underpinned by strong, effective governance. That is all the more critical when the service in question is integral to the safe functioning of our society, as policing undoubtedly is. Police and crime commissioners have been in place since November 2012. The model was created to increase accountability and build a greater connection between policing and local communities by having a single public official, directly elected by the public, responsible for holding their chief constable to account, setting the local police budget and agreeing strategic priorities for their force through their local police and crime plan.
- However, while the role of PCCs has evolved over time to include responsibility for commissioning services for victims, driving local partnerships and—in some areas—responsibility for fire governance, the model has failed to live up to expectations. It has not delivered what it was set up to achieve. Public understanding of, and engagement with, our police and crime commissioners remains low despite efforts to raise their profile; less than a quarter of voters turned out to vote for them in the 2024 elections, and two in five people are unaware that PCCs even exist. Home Office research conducted during the PCC review in 2020 found that 68% of the public in mayoral areas claimed that they could name their mayor, compared with only 16% of people in PCC areas claiming that they could name their PCC.
- On an individual level, PCCs up and down the country have sought to provide strong oversight and drive crime prevention activity locally. I place on record my thanks to the individuals and staff in all the offices of police and crime commissioners and at the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners who have done, and will continue to do, their best to improve policing for their local communities. However, the reality is that the PCC model has weakened local police accountability and has had perverse impacts on the recruitment of chief constables. It has failed to inspire confidence in local people, in stark contrast to the mayoral model, which clearly has ultimately been more successful. The Theresa May model has not worked.
- The Government announced in our English devolution White Paper that we will transfer policing functions to elected mayors in England by default wherever geographies allow. Five mayors now hold policing functions, in Greater Manchester, Greater London and across Yorkshire. In those areas, we have seen the benefits of the mayoral model, including greater collaboration, visible leadership and local innovation. We are working closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to create as many strategic authority mayors with policing functions as possible in this Parliament. However, due to the nature of how public services are organised across different areas, the process of establishing mayors across England is a complex one.
- I can therefore announce today that we will abolish police and crime commissioners at the end of their current term in 2028 and transfer functions to mayors wherever possible. In areas where plans do not yet allow for a transfer of policing to a mayor this Parliament, we will establish new policing and crime boards to bring council leaders together to oversee the police force in their area until such time as mayors are in place in England. Those boards will replicate the benefits of a mayoralty before the formal transfer can be realised, with in-built, local collaboration, public accountability and a greater ability to join up budgets and local services. They will comprise local authority upper-tier leaders, co-opted members with appropriate skills and experience, and—if they are in the force area —mayors.
- Preventing crime is everyone’s business, and giving local leaders these responsibilities will help create thriving town centres, help businesses to succeed and help people to walk without fear in their communities. We are absolutely clear that these boards will not be a return to the bureaucratic and invisible committee-based oversight of policing that existed before the establishment of PCCs. We will ensure that council leaders are empowered to exercise police governance functions. Boards will be supported by a policing and crime lead, akin to a deputy mayor for policing and crime, to carry out day-to-day activities on their behalf. This will mean that every area will have a visible, nominated lead who will be dedicated to the oversight of policing in their area.
- Over the coming months, we will work with local government and policing to design new structures that will provide effective oversight of policing. As part of these reforms, we will also work with those in local government and policing to drive down the support costs of policing governance. We will no longer run separate policing elections, and we will also abolish police and crime panels, the current structure that performs scrutiny functions for PCCs. We estimate that at least £100 million will be saved this Parliament by moving to these new arrangements. Once delivered, these changes are expected to achieve savings to the Home Office of around £20 million a year, enough to fund around 320 extra police constables. Further detail will be set out in the forthcoming White Paper, and we will bring forward the necessary legislation as part of our broader police reform proposals as soon as parliamentary time allows.
- There are no plans to create mayors in Wales. We wish to harmonise arrangements across England and Wales as far as possible, and we will therefore work with the Welsh Government to ensure new arrangements to replace PCCs provide strong and effective police governance for Wales, recognising the unique nature of Welsh arrangements. I also clarify that these reforms will not affect governance arrangements for the City of London police, which is governed by the City corporation.
- Before I conclude, I stress that the decision we are announcing today is based on the shortcomings of the PCC model, not the PCCs themselves. PCCs have done and continue to do important work, and I will engage constructively with all of them until the end of their terms. I specifically thank the chairs of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners past and present for their endeavours: Nick Alston, the late Sir Tony Lloyd, Mark Burns-Williamson, Katy Bourne, Paddy Tipping, Marc Jones, Donna Jones and the current chair Emily Spurrell. We recognise that this is a significant change, especially for the policing and local government sectors, but it is necessary. As a Government, we have a responsibility to do what is right for our communities. If there are steps we can take to improve outcomes for law-abiding citizens, we must act, because in the end, whatever police reform measures we pursue, our primary motivation is, and will always be, to keep the public safe. I commend this Statement to the House”.
- My Lords, I remain confused as to the true purpose of this Statement. The Government announced a police reform White Paper last year, but this has not yet materialised. We now see the Government announcing the abolition of police and crime commissioners. Why have the Government made this particular announcement now, ahead of the publication of the full details of their plans for police reform? More importantly, why is the Home Office fiddling about with PCCs rather than taking real action to reduce crime?Turning to the content of the Statement, there were two main arguments deployed to support the abolition of police and crime commissioners. The first is that the PCC model has led to the politicisation of the police. But the proposals in the Statement are for oversight of police forces to be moved to the directly elected strategic mayors or local councils. Directly elected mayors are party political, as are councillors. The Government’s solution to the problem of the politicisation of the police is to move control from one elected politician to another. That argument is completely nonsensical. There is no world in which this policy leads to a decreased politicisation of the police.The other argument the Government have put forward is on accountability. The Minister said in her Statement to the other place that“the PCC model has weakened local police accountability”,but there is no evidence for that assertion, and nor did the Home Secretary explain how the Government’s new model would rectify that. We know that where there will not be an elected mayor, the functions of oversight will be undertaken by policing and crime boards. How will transferring the functions of PCCs to boards of councillors and bureaucrats increase accountability?Further to that, the Minister said that“we have seen the benefits of the mayoral model, including greater collaboration, visible leadership and local innovation”.
- My Lords, police and crime commissioners were an innovative idea, but experience has shown they have not delivered as intended. Instead, they have proved to be a costly and flawed experiment, so we welcome their abolition. However, I hope the Minister will be able to provide the House with rather more clarity on what will replace them. We do not believe that transferring PCC powers to mayors is the answer, as this would concentrate even more power in single individuals, with too little scrutiny or accountability.The proposal for a police and crime lead, described as“akin to a deputy mayor for policing and crime”,risks being a rebadged PCC. Unless the legislation is crystal clear, this role could again become a focal point for political leverage over chief constables. It must be made abundantly clear that chief constables retain full operational independence, and that these new leads and boards will not have hire-and-fire powers. If not, we risk repeating the mistakes of the PCC model, drawing policing further into politics rather than strengthening impartial policing by consent.The Government say that these boards will not be a return to the invisible committees of the past, but this assurance needs substance. How will they work, and how will their work be accessible and visible to the public? The former Metropolitan Police Authority may offer some useful lessons. Having served on that body for seven years, I can attest that no one could describe it as invisible. Its meetings were in public and widely reported, and its scrutiny of senior police officers was robust. Will the Home Office carefully consider what worked in that model before finalising these new arrangements?I was particularly disappointed to learn from the Minister’s Statement in the House of Commons that the £100 million that could be saved in this Parliament through the abolition of PCC elections will go to the Treasury rather than to front-line policing. An over- stretched police service will find that a very difficult pill to swallow. The Home Office says that reforms to police governance will save at least £20 million a year —enough to fund 320 extra police constables. Can the Minister give a clear undertaking that this money will definitely be spent on recruiting those 320 extra police officers? Saying that something can happen is very different from saying that it will happen.
- I am grateful for this opportunity to outline the Government’s plans for police and crime commissioners. In doing so, I hope I can answer the questions raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and the noble Lord, Lord, Davies of Gower.First, we anticipate doing this for efficiency reasons. As the noble Baroness mentioned, there is a potential £100 million saving. Some £87 million of that £100 million will be through the cancellation of elections. They are currently funded centrally, which is why that resource will go to the Treasury. This will save around £20.3 million over the course of the rest of this Parliament, which will be put into front-line policing and fund around 320 additional officers. They will be part of the 13,000 officers we intend to put on the ground over the course of this Parliament, either as specials, PCSOs or warranted officers, of which 3,000 are already in place.In answer to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Davies, there is currently a patchwork of responsibilities for policing. Five existing mayors—in London, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, and York and North Yorkshire—have policing powers. The existing mayors in Merseyside, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, the West Midlands and the West Country do not have policing powers. There are new mayors coming on stream in Norfolk and Suffolk, Essex, Sussex, Cumbria, Hampshire, and potentially in Cheshire and Lancashire, who do not currently have policing powers. There are also other areas, such as Humberside and Lincolnshire, where the responsibilities of police and crime commissioners overlap with those of their directly elected mayors. That is a big patchwork. As far as possible, we are trying to get the mayoral model to have accountability for policing, as is the case for the five such mayors to date. Usually—but it is up to the mayor—a deputy mayor is appointed to be responsible, as the lead person, for those statements. I think that is helpful.
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