Police and Justice Bill

My Lords, I suppose I am deeply grateful to the Minister for highlighting this possible area of inconsistency in government thinking. I urge the Government to consider carefully the responses they have given me on both this amendment and one an hour or so ago. It seems to me that you cannot apply completely different sets of logic to the two cases. If the Government are saying that the person appointing the chairman of a police authority must also appoint the deputies because they might act as chair in the chair’s absence, the same logic must surely apply for the appointments of chief officers of police. The Minister says, with a look of regret and sorrow, that he begs to differ on the fundamental point of principle: that this is an operational matter, an issue of direction and control, rather than one of strategy. We surely recognise the central leadership role of chief officers of police. How they exercise it is very much about the strategic direction of the force. Parliament explicitly gave police authorities the right to appoint not only the chief officer of police but also the deputy chief officer of police in the 1996 Act because that strategic role is so fundamental. I am not quite sure what attracts the Minister to the 1994 Act rather than the 1996 Act, let alone whether it is related to the sad disagreement on the point of principle he has referred to. However, I urge my noble friends to consider how they make coherent their logical arguments in the various answers I have received this afternoon and, while they do so, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendment No. 34 not moved.]