Police and Justice Bill

I was pursuing another profession at the time of the miners’ strike and I am not qualified to speak about that. However, I am sure that there was collaboration. I am sure also that the hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. There has always been collaboration between forces. The issue has been made even more pertinent following the arrival of the Serious Organised Crime Agency, as my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) said. SOCA is carrying out level 2 strategic work on terrorism, so there is no need to go through this massively expensive and unpopular process of amalgamation. Local policing should be as near as possible to local people. As a final crushing comment, Paul West said:"““This is not some superficial numbers game. The analysis of 4,000, if written by a GCSE statistics student, would have been returned.””" That is the opinion of the professional. I repeat that that is the view of the chief constable of the No. 1 police force in the country. His view on statistics were supported by Tony Lawrance, who is professor of statistics at the university of Warwick. He published a statistically based opinion which completely undermined the HMIC review, which is the only basis for the figure of 4,000. I suggest that professors of statistics are not commonly known for colourful or exciting language, but I shall give a flavour of one of Tony Lawrance’s comments. He said:"““This is an almost perfect example of how not to present a graph— no scales on either axis, no data plotted to justify the lines drawn. It is almost impossible to obtain any critical understanding from it, except that it is intended to prove that score for protective capability increases with force size…I can see little hard evidence in pages 30 and 31 to justify the figure of 4,000.””" Touching on collaboration, that professor of statistics went on to say:"““Effectiveness of smaller forces depends on arrangements they have to deal with policing matters which outstretch their resources, by collaboration with adjacent forces. If these are good then they are effective. This would apply to the larger forces and the most serious matters needing massive response.””" That is exactly as was cited.