Hansard

At last Thursday’s First Minister’s question time, Alex Salmond asked me why we had not returned to the subject of police reform the week after we had first asked him about it in January. Sadly—and I know that members on all sides are as unhappy about this as we are—the Liberal Democrats get only one day of debating time a year. That day is today and we would not want to disappoint the First Minister again.

I want to start by taking the Cabinet Secretary for Justice’s mind back to the first day of stage 2 of the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Bill. He might recall rejecting one of my amendments; actually, he rejected them all, but when he rejected this one in particular he said:

“It would let ministers off the hook ... as ministers could not be held to account”.—[Official Report, Justice Committee, 29 May 2012; c 1350.]

Given what has since unfolded, we will be only too happy to hold him to account for his decisions.

Members on all sides know the Liberal Democrats’ position on the single police force: we were not in favour of the principle, the detail or the reality. However, we are where we are and I have no intention of standing here and trying to argue that we can put the genie back in the bottle. Now we join with all sides in wanting to ensure that the new police force works.

During the bill’s passage, members from all sides of this chamber raised genuine concerns and all parties lodged positive and constructive amendments. We know that the Government has its majority and that we cannot make it listen to reasoned opposition, but the fact that it chose to wilfully ignore such opposition reflects poorly on it. Such an attitude ill befits a Parliament that is meant to be reflective of the Scottish people.

As we have all seen, since the appointment of the members of the Scottish Police Authority and the new chief constable at the tail-end of last year, an on-going dispute has been played out in the media that the Government has been curiously hesitant to step into. Back in November, the First Minister told Willie Rennie that there were “creative tensions” between Vic Emery and Stephen House and, in December, Kenny MacAskill told the chamber that discussions between Mr House and Mr Emery had been “fruitful and progressive”. Imagine our surprise to find out that the Government had brought in the Lord Advocate to back up its view on how the legislation should be read; that, in January, one of the cabinet secretary’s senior civil servants wrote to Vic Emery to tell him that the Government was

“of the view that the proposed arrangement is unbalanced, confusing and would place the Police Service of Scotland in a unique and invidious position”

and that Vic Emery responded by saying that

“the Board’s reservoir of patience with the protracted nature of resolving this kind of issue is already running low.”

My colleagues on the Justice Committee will know the feeling. I think that we will all agree that our dealings so far with the SPA have been frustrating.

I admit that the Government is in an interesting dilemma. By stepping in, it will have to admit that there are shortcomings in the legislation; however, it will at least be able to make the changes needed to ensure that the SPA has a clear and defined role. Alternatively, if it keeps on defending its law, it will have to watch as the SPA’s self-determined remit threatens the effectiveness of the single police force before it even starts policing. Perhaps we should be relieved that the Government has stepped in to at least try to get the SPA back on track, even if it looks like being too little, too late.

At the heart of the problem is the democratic vacuum that has been created within our police service. In three weeks’ time, the Government will turn its back on a system in which locally elected members appoint police chiefs, scrutinise police actions and manage police budgets. Instead, all those things will be done by the SPA, which is an unelected board appointed on the say-so of the Scottish ministers. Even if members think that that is acceptable—and l, for one, do not—surely we can all agree that the SPA’s responsibilities should be so fully defined in law that there can be no confusion over how its relationship with the police service works.

The Government has handed the 13 people on that authority a £1 billion budget and oversight of Scotland’s entire police service. We must ask: “Who watches the watchmen?” As it is, the Parliament has been circumvented. We had no role in appointing the SPA; we are confined in how we can scrutinise it and the new police force; and we were ignored in strengthening the law. So much for democracy within the new police service. All the power is in the hands of the cabinet secretary, and it is up to him to find a long-term solution.

The three aspects that we highlighted in our motion are staffing, human resources and budgeting, but we could have listed more. In each and every one of them, the problem is the same. The SPA has interpreted the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012 in a way that will give it direct, hands-on control over fundamental aspects of our police service. What started as a disagreement over human resources has snowballed out of control. It was clear to all—or to nearly everyone, apart from the SPA—that the planned approach on that was simply not fit for purpose. It was not in keeping with the intention of the act, even if, thanks to the Government’s legislative complacency, it was within the legal interpretation. Had the Government stepped in early to clarify matters, that might have been the end of the disagreements but, instead, it stood idly by and the Parliament, bereft of input, was forced to do likewise.

We now know that the Government did not agree with the SPA’s interpretation. We also know that, when it advertised the chief constable’s position, it stated that he would have

“direction and control over 17,000 officers and 6,500 police staff”.

So when the authority was allowed to get its own way—mostly—on human resources, it decided to flex its muscles and to test where else it could expand its remit. Even where agreement has been reached, it seems clear that Mr Emery has not really changed his views. He has compromised so that things can progress, and I do not doubt that the SPA will return to the matter.

All that has led us to the situation in which an experienced authority member feels that it could rightly be their role to question decisions that the police make on how they carry out active criminal investigations. Whatever the Government’s vision of the future of Scotland’s policing was, surely it was not that. We must be very concerned about what other aspects of policing the SPA might try to take an active role in in the future.

In the Justice Committee, members from all parties agree that it is imperative for the Parliament to take a more proactive role in scrutinising the new police service and the SPA. Indeed, later this afternoon, the Parliament will be asked to approve the establishment of a sub-committee on policing. I understand that that will be the first time that we have ever set up a sub-committee in the Parliament. That demonstrates the importance that the Justice Committee places on the matter. The six members of that sub-committee will be tasked with providing the same democratic oversight that was previously carried out by dozens of police board members from around Scotland, if they possibly can. The sub-committee will also be tasked with monitoring the SPA. However, it is in the Government’s hands alone to curb the SPA when it overreaches itself.

We should be under no illusions. The changes that were voted through in the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012 represent the biggest shake-up of policing in Scotland for a generation and mistakes will inevitably have been made. That is the case in almost any piece of legislation that runs to 130 pages, but it will be all the more so when Opposition concerns are so directly ignored. The act’s shortcomings are there for all to see. They have been played out in newspapers, on television, in committee meetings and, unfortunately, behind quickly closed doors.

The Scottish Police Authority has an important job to do, and the police service of Scotland has many vital roles to play in keeping our communities safe, but right now, the Government has the most important responsibility. It must ensure that the police set-up that it is creating is fit for purpose and that Scotland’s new police service is not constrained in being the police service that the people of Scotland deserve.

I do not believe that the Government intended ambiguous legislation and I would be happy to work constructively with it to make the legislation better. I therefore ask it to hold up its hands and say that it will look at the legislation again.

I am deeply disappointed that the Government’s amendment indicates that it thinks that everything is just hunky-dory. That is just burying its head in the sand. It needs to tighten up the legislation and get the show back on track.

I urge the Government to review urgently the scope of the Scottish Police Authority to ensure that it does exactly what was intended, and to ensure that Scotland’s new police force is able to get on with its important work.

I move,

That the Parliament notes with concern the ongoing uncertainties surrounding the Police Service of Scotland ahead of its taking over all police functions on 1 April 2013; believes that, by taking control of policing out of the hands of locally elected members and transferring it to a board appointed by the Scottish Ministers, the Scottish Government has created a democratic deficit in Scotland’s police service; further believes that the Scottish Government’s complacent attitude toward its reform programme has allowed the Scottish Police Authority to effectively redefine the scope of its own remit; considers that decisions taken by the Scottish Police Authority on staffing, human resources and budgeting could put at risk the future operational effectiveness of policing in Scotland, and calls on the Scottish Government to review as a matter of urgency whether the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012 should be amended to provide clarity as to the rightful functions and responsibilities of the Scottish Police Authority and to report back to the Parliament before the end of June 2013.