Police and Justice Bill

Most of the debate at Second Reading, both in this House and in another place, focused on the reorganisation of police authorities. This new clause seeks to ensure that the Secretary of State will not exercise his power arbitrarily or inappropriately. The Police Act 1996, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, referred, states very clearly at Section 32(3):"““The Secretary of State shall not exercise his power under this section to make alterations unless either—""(a) he has received a request to make the alterations from the police authority for each of the areas . . . affected by them, or""(b) it appears to him to be expedient to make the alterations in the interests of efficiency or effectiveness””." The amendment would ensure that amalgamations were driven primarily by the police authorities themselves. At Second Reading, my noble friend Lord Dholakia said:"““Policing is possible only with the consent of communities””.—[Official Report, 5/6/06; col. 1055.]" That is worth repeating again today in Committee. Artificially structured policing areas with vast geographic boundaries entirely remove the concept of communities. I disagree wholeheartedly with the Government’s view that making basic command units, or BCUs, more important and embedding neighbourhood policing—which, incidentally, I support—will be all that is needed to bring policing closer to the people. Having a remote chief constable whom hardly anyone will ever see, and senior officers who will be for ever driving cars around a region as big as mine unable to make contact with BCU commanders on any meaningful eye-to-eye level very often, will only harbour the resentment already felt by many that this idea is absolutely preposterous. It may be appropriate for some mergers to take place—I do not dispute that—but there are other ways of forging partnerships and ensuring best practice than going hell for leather, if that is not an unparliamentary term, down the merger route. I beg the Government to look again at cross-border alliances. Geographically they can make much more sense. There is not a magic number for a strategic force size. We have seen how big forces can fail. There is much excellence in smaller forces, which can outperform their big brothers in many areas. Will the Government look at the possibility of allowing flexibility for forces to come together naturally, as federations, so that they can overcome the gap in protective services? I have to say, however, that mutual aid was always there in the past to address those very problems, as were the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the National Crime Squad. A real debate on policing, rather than the tinkering of successive Acts to bring us up to date, needs to take place and all the players need to be involved. Using one inadequate report to kick-start a huge and costly reorganisation is not the best way of getting the changes that the Government require. This new clause would encourage the Secretary of State to stop, think and ruminate on how best that could be achieved. I was very privileged at lunchtime today to sit with a number of the most senior police officers from the United States of America, who have very carefully looked at what the Government are proposing here. They were absolutely adamant that we are going in the wrong direction. Please listen to what people are saying and make sure that we look again at this proposal.