Lords prepare to defeat police bill

David Blunkett's police reforms were heading for defeat in the House of Lords today in spite of a late Government bid to soothe opposition orchestrated by Britain's most senior chief constables.

As the Evening Standard revealed last month, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens and Sir David Phillips, the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, have played key behind-the-scenes roles in organising a Westminster ambush.

The reform package includes laws to create new civilian beat bobbies with powers of arrest and a set of measures which would give a Home Secretary much greater rights to intervene in daytoday policing decisions.

But while police chiefs back the principle of modernising forces to step up the fight against crime and disorder, they have become alarmed by Mr Blunkett's strident language.

In particular, they were upset by an ultimatum made in an Evening Standard interview where Mr Blunkett told Scotland Yard to sort out street crime or face takeover.

Giving the Met six months to "clamp down on the visible signs of violence and street robbery", Mr Blunkett said: "We will give you the freedom to do the job, but if you don't do it, I'll have to intervene. Because in the end the people of London, as with the rest of the country, will turn to me as Home Secretary and say what did you do about it?"

Police chiefs, who believed he would only intervene as a measure of last resort, were so alarmed they resolved to block key elements of the Police Reform Bill.

Liberal Democrat and Tory peers are expected to unite tonight to defeat clauses of the Bill which would give the Home Secretary power to set performance targets and to require every police force "to adopt particular operational procedures".

Home Office sources confirmed today the Government would set out amendments promising legal safeguards before a politician was allowed to step in to a failing police division.

A Home Office source said: "We believe that the changes should be enough to satisfy the Lords, but it is for the House to take a final view."

Speaking today, Sir David Phillips welcomed the amendments which he said "go a good way towards limiting the potential for any arbitrary powers of intervention". He added: "There are still some issues around powers to suspend or remove chief constables which will need the careful scrutiny of Parliament."

But Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Simon Hughes said he expected the Government to be defeated on the key section of the Bill which he said was " dangerous in the way it centralises power with the Home Secretary".

Tory shadow home secretary Oliver Letwin also warned that a move towards centralised control risked undermining the independence of the police and would mean some future Home Secretary could "start using the police for political purposes".