Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)

My Lords, I think I understand why government Amendment 12 has been tabled, but I am worried that it is imprecise, and I am not sure that it is absolutely necessary. The unique thing a police officer will bring to these teams is powers—power of arrest, power of entry and powers to seize evidence—but if the teams do not exercise those powers, it is not clear why they need the police at all. More importantly, the person needs experience. The amendment talks about a member of the police staff—that is, somebody who is not a police officer—who has “experience”. I do not understand the imprecision and wonder whether the Government might try to find some way of making it more precise. Experience could mean one week or six years. There is an accreditation process for trained officers—perhaps the police might offer some form of accreditation measure before they put someone in this role. I would like to see somebody with experience of going into people’s homes, dealing with situations where childcare is needed, sometimes arresting the parents, sometimes moving the child to another location and sometimes involving other agencies to make sure that the child is looked after in the future. The reality is that, on the whole, police staff will not have that experience. The only argument I can see for the amendment is that you might have a police officer who is retired—so, has previous police experience—and has become a member of the police staff. If that were the case, I am not sure it is necessary. There is now a scheme of fire and rehire—most chief constables seem to be working on it. The basis is that someone retires from their constable post, takes their lump sum, abates their pension and carries on being paid as a constable. So, if the requirement is to have someone in the role who has police experience, I would see that as a reasonable reason for doing this. My biggest concern—I say this against the police, who of course I love—is that the 43 forces might come to different conclusions about what “experience” means. Probably more worryingly, they might conclude that they want the cheapest option, which would by far be to put police staff into this area and not have to pay police officers. The Minister knows that I have concerns about whether the police should be members of these teams, but given that they are, it is probably best that they are police officers and not people whose experience we have an imprecise definition of, because police officers offer some judgment about the life situations that they deal with—and that other social services deal with—which might amplify their judgment in the cases that these teams will have to consider.