Police and Justice Bill

I wanted to intervene on the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) to support the case that he was making, but he has not returned to his seat in the past 15 or 20 minutes or so. He expressed the view of all Essex Members of Parliament, the district councils, the borough councils and the unitary authorities. We now have an opportunity for the Government to get off the hook on which they have put themselves in being forced into a position whereby they must defend a line that everybody acknowledges is unpopular. I invite the Minister to explain why Essex, with a population that is larger than several sovereign nation states in the European Union, is deemed incapable of having its own police force, whereas Kent, on the other side of the River Thames, is apparently competent to do so. The people of Essex are perfectly entitled to ask why that is okay for Kent but not for Essex. If there were to be mergers in the six counties of the east of England, the logical amalgamation would have been of Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk. We are getting the worst of all worlds.