Steve McCabe – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2015-12-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether Police and Crime Commissioners have powers to instruct the police to impose fines on motorists found to be travelling at 71 mph in 70 mph zones.

Mike Penning

How the police enforce road traffic law, including in respect of speeding offences, is a matter for their professional judgement and operational discretion.

Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) do not have powers to instruct the police in operational policing matters. The operational independence of the police is a fundamental principle of British policing. The Policing Protocol Order 2011, which sets out how the relationship between PCCs and Chief Constables should work, is explicit when it states that “At all times the Chief Constable, their constables and staff, remain operationally independent in the service of the communities that they serve.”

Regardless of the PCC in office, the police have the discretion to use their judgment when deciding who to investigate or arrest, and must by law be wholly without influence of the PCC in respect of operational policing.