Police and Justice Bill

I support amendment No. 2, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert). I join my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) and the hon. Member for Stockton, North (Frank Cook) in their impassioned plea for greater democratic accountability through a referendum on the Home Office’s extraordinary policy of merging police forces. I had thought, perhaps naively, that, given last Friday’s change of regime in the light of last Thursday’s disastrous local election results for the Government, new Ministers might have had the nous to review whether it was sensible to proceed with a set of mergers that has united the vast majority in local communities against the Government’s proposal. As the Minister said in his introductory comments, however, the new regime at the Home Office is not prepared to think again, and it seems determined to continue the mistakes of the old regime. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire has said, we have a police service and police system that carries out its duties with the consent of the population. One criticism made over a period is that there is not enough communication and visibility between local communities and the local police force, which relates to the introduction in the ’60s and ’70s of motorised policemen rather than bobbies on the beat. Community after community and politician after politician have called for more bobbies on the beat, and in the past decade or so there has been a realisation that the needs and desires of the local community must be met. In my county of Essex, for example, the chief constable took over relatively recently, and we have seen a deliberate and successful policy to ensure that there are more policemen on the beat not only to reassure the local population, but to deter opportunistic crime. That approach has strengthened links between the local police force and the community, and the problem with mergers that create large police areas is that that local affinity will be broken. Essex is one of the largest counties in the country geographically as well as one of the largest in terms of population, at just less than 2 million. To many people, Essex should, could and, I believe, must have a stand-alone police force, but we were told by the previous Home Secretary—this is being continued by the new Home Secretary—that Essex must be merged against its wishes and those of all national politicians in the county. Those politicians do not include the hon. Members for Harlow (Bill Rammell) and for Basildon (Angela E. Smith), who, to be fair to them, are bound by collective responsibility as members of the Government and have not therefore voiced an opinion. However, the other Labour MP in the county, the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay), is totally against the proposal, as are Liberal Democrat MPs and all the Conservative MPs. The Prime Minister told us at Question Time that the Government would listen to the wishes of local people. The campaigns by hon. Members, local authorities, the police authority and the chief constable in Essex have made it plain that Essex wants to remain a stand-alone force and not be merged.