Police and Justice Bill

Follow that. I have been trying to avoid saying something like ““Wayne Rooney”” all day, but never mind. My major problem with this remains my concern about the Government moving so much into secondary legislation and away from primary legislation. I thought that Amendment No. 40, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, was particularly adept at ensuring that there was another way of clearly setting out what the Government rightly want to set out—that is, the functions of the police authority—but doing so in primary legislation, without having to go down the secondary route. Her amendment has the advantage of enabling other functions to be added later through secondary legislation. Here we have a clear statement of what I believe the functions of a good police authority should be. I hear what the Minister says about some possibility of movement on some other issues and the Government’s readiness to talk between now and Report. We will be doing a lot of talking, but we are going to need a lot of action, too. At this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendments Nos. 40 to 46 not moved.]