Police and Justice Bill

That intervention from the Minister was very helpful. We are all trying to get the same result. It is just that, as the Bill is drafted, it will not necessarily get us there. It may not need very much improvement. That is something that we can discuss during the rather long summer Recess—at least I hope that it will be a nice, long summer Recess; we all do, especially after this barrage of Home Office Bills. The Minister also responded on the method of consultation and who would be consulted. As ever, the Government want flexibility. I understand the difficulty of naming in the Bill statutory consultees—not least for the practical reason that the Minister gives that if they change their name or go out of business, how do we amend the Bill other than by new legislation? I am grateful to him for saying that the Government will consider further the point made by Ken Jones of ACPO about naming the association as a statutory consultee in a limited case within the Bill. It will be interesting to see whether discussion with ACPO bears fruit. Disappointingly, the Minister repeated the Government’s response about the 15 per cent contribution idea. They seem to think that if one gives 15 per cent of the budget, one only ever has 15 per cent control over what is going on. That, however, was not the indication; the indication was to try to adopt the Government’s preferred use of having stakeholders here, there and everywhere. I can see that I will get nowhere with this, and I shall chew on it for another day. It may never return. There are issues here. We will need to think about good governance to ensure that the tripartite relationship is strengthened and not unbalanced or weakened. At this stage, however, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 1 agreed to. Schedule 1 [National Policing Improvement Agency]: [Amendments Nos. 3 to 11 not moved.]