Police and Justice Bill

The aim behind these various amendments, as noble Lords have pointed out, is predominantly to raise concerns from the Association of Police Authorities regarding how the role of local authority scrutiny committees with responsibility to look at the crime and disorder reduction partnerships will interface with other responsible authorities, such as the police and the BCUs. The comments on this from the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, are very pertinent. The amendments also address the age-old argument about placing detail in the Bill rather than in secondary legislation, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, has already referred, as has the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, in another context in this amendment. That is an argument we have made throughout Part 1. I do not want to reiterate all the points so carefully articulated by your Lordships, but I would like to speak in support of Amendment No. 103, to which my noble friend Lady Anelay has added her name. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond: I do not see why the Government cannot express in the Bill that members of other representative authorities should be included in the local authority scrutiny committees, especially as the Home Office has argued that this is to be the case in practice. Including such representatives can only aid a joined-up approach to tackling local problems and help share information and understanding. I will be most interested in the Minister’s view of how this mechanism will work with the current lines of accountability. I understand the principle behind the Government’s proposal. It is a call for action. Scrutiny committees have the potential to be a very valuable forum. One can argue that on the one hand the Government are merging bodies involved in crime and disorder to try and reduce the pressure on them, yet on the other they are setting up new committees involved in the exact same area, albeit in a different way. There are clearly some outstanding concerns that need to be addressed before we can be confident that the workings of different organisational relationships have been thoroughly thought through.