Welcome to the fourth in a series of posts going through the full coalition agreement section by section. You can read the full coalition document here.
A brief section on consumer protection offers a handful of positive policies – such as strong consumer protection, more pressure on credit card companies to keep their customers fully informed and clearer food labelling – which could have featured in any party’s manifesto. There is also the well meaning but fantastically vague promise to “take forward measures to enhance customer service in the private and public sectors”. Make of that what you will…
The crime and policing section is one where the Conservative influence on the coalition agreement is clearest. Whilst many parts of the document read as if they were mostly taken from a Liberal Democrat policy paper, this section has a distinctively Conservative flavour. How difficult the policies will be for Liberal Democrats to support will depend a lot on the details.
Take the pledge to “amend the health and safety laws that stand in the way of common sense policing”. That is Conservative rhetoric, but if the resulting proposals are sensible reforms they may well also get Liberal Democrat support. Time will tell. Another source of tension may be the proposal to “give people greater legal protection to prevent crime and apprehend criminals”.
Moving on from possible strains within the coalition to possible external hostility to it, the promise to “have a full review of the terms and conditions for police officer employment” may result in significant conflict with the police.
Alcohol features repeatedly with promises to ban sales at below-cost prices, bigger penalties for under-age alcohol sales, reviewing alcohol taxation and pricing “to ensure it tackles binge drinking without unfairly penalising responsible drinkers”, an option for councils to charge more for late-night licenses (to pay for more policing) and more powers for councils and the police to remove or block licenses under the Licensing Act.
There are also some measures with a more liberal hue: better recording of hate crimes, no permanent bans on substances until advice received from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and a review of the US/UK Extradition Act.
Filling out the section is a smorgasbord of worthy intentions such as better crime statistics information for the public and more local meetings between the police and public.
Overall this is one of the most Conservative sections of the agreement, though that is tempered by the Conservative ministerial team at the Home Office having strong influences from the liberal and modernising sections of the Conservative Party. Even the Home Secretary, Theresa May, whilst not likely to be confused for a liberal, was the person who talked about her party’s need to move on from being seen as the “nasty party”.
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9 Comments
Depends on the nature of the review, really. If it’s both sides sitting down with a list of current issues and sorting them all out, that’s likely to go pretty well. If it’s an excuse for beating the police with a stick and ignoring all the minor issues then it’s going to be ugly. A lot of similar interactions with Labour were unpopular largely because of their habit of ignoring all the easily-solved issues and administering grandiose but ineffective changes that sound good in press releases.
This sort of thing is going to tell us a lot about how this government will proceed.
The bit I really don’t like is the directly elected commissioners to oversee local police forces. I know if was in the Tory manifesto and it is the sort of idea we have flirted with from time to time, so it is probably going to become law, but it seems to me to be a recipe for getting populist law and order hard-liners in charge of policing. Crime and punishment are areas where simple-minded solutions to complex problems are likely to thrive, and I think the intelligent wing of the Conservative Party will come to regret this measure.
tonyhill: “The bit I really don’t like is the directly elected commissioners to oversee local police forces”
Me too, it’s a diabolical idea. Every extremist and single-issue crackpot in the country will be trying to get elected so they can influence police policy for the worse, and if turnouts are low (verylikely) then some of them will be successful. Every police force I know of already practices regular public consultation, which is a much better way of determining local priorities.
Can we assume the rape defendant anonymity proposal has been quietly shelved for now, following its bizarre elevation from the policy backwaters?
(fwiw I think there’s a very good case for extending anonymity to defendants in all serious crimes, but singling out rape when there’s no good reason to isn’t the way to start).
Depends what “oversee” means and how much actual authority they will have. I’m hoping it won’t be very much. Setting priorities and doing casework on investigating specific issues could be good. Writing policy and ordering specific actions would be disastrous.
@Andrew Suffield
“Setting priorities and doing casework on investigating specific issues could be good. Writing policy and ordering specific actions would be disastrous.”
Surely setting priorities can pretty much have the same effect as writing policy? What would be the difference between setting the priority for something and making it a policy that the same thing was a priority. Surely someone saying it is a priority means that it is a policy.
Semantics on wording I know, but the destination for either set of wording can be the same.
Well, I’d expect the actual rules to be more carefully crafted. I’m thinking of something along the lines of: able to prioritise vandalism on the high street and noise pollution, but not able to order specific measures such as the installation of CCTV cameras. General police and government policies on appropriate responses would still apply, they’d just be specifying what issues police officers should spend their time working on.
We had a very good party policy paper on consumer policy last autumn, and I think the new policies in that area may owe a bit more to it than you may give it credit for.
@Andrew Suffield
I know we’re discussing this blind at the moment, but:
“General police and government policies on appropriate responses would still apply, they’d just be specifying what issues police officers should spend their time working on.”
I’m not 100% clear on what you mean by “appropriate Responses”, but as I assume you’re not actually talking about law creation/sentencing, would you mean the various “initiatives” we see (pushes on guns, knives etc)? If so, I would say that should be done at a local level.
I’m not overly bothered if they get permission to decide on where CCTV cameras go – as long as strong guidelines are issued and RIPA etc is sorted.