Police and Justice Bill

My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for bringing forward these amendments to address the City’s concerns. I am also grateful for the Minister’s indication that the City will be consulted about the drafting of regulations and guidance. Doubtless that will give the opportunity to iron out what might also cause difficulties in practical operation of the provisions as they affect the City. At the level of generality, the Minister, as he sought, has made me a happier man. I am sure he will not mind my asking about one point. The amendments do not quite follow the form of those I tabled on Report. I make no complaint about that, but there is a practical aspect on which I would be grateful for clarification. Paragraph 11(1) of Schedule 8 will enable the functions of the crime and disorder committee to be performed by the Common Council itself. That will no doubt happen where the crime and disorder matter under consideration is of particular importance. In those circumstances, Clause 19(1)(b) of the Bill will give the Common Council the power to make reports and recommendations ““to the local authority””. By Clause 19(11) that means, in the case of the City, the Common Council. In other words, it provides a power for the Common Council to report to itself. I understand the need to include a reference tothe making of reports and recommendations by the Common Council in the Bill, because it links into the requirement on the City’s other crime and disorder partners to respond to such reports and recommendations when copies are issued to them under Clause 19(8). However, I am struggling with the notion that, in the circumstances I have described, the Common Council should be a subject of statutory power to inform itself about its own deliberations. It would seem more apt if the requirement were on the City’s other crime and disorder partners to respond to reports or recommendations made by the Common Council, and not made to the Common Council. I realise that Parliament reports to itself on the Report stage of a Bill, and that paradigm makes the amendment a form of compliment to the Common Council. The analogy is less than perfect, however, because a Parliamentary Report stage is fluid and subject to further consideration and amendment, whereas a report of the Common Council’s conclusions on a crime and disorder matter will be a final document. Reporting it back again will produce an additional step, which in practical terms will be otiose. I realise this observation may seem churlish, after the Government’s response to my amendments on Report in resolving at a technical level the crux I posed, but I simply make it because the method used has this mild Alice in Wonderland aspect. If I can offer an olive branch in expiation of any churlishness on my part, I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that the intended mechanism is indeed that Common Council should make reports and recommendations to itself in order to trigger a response requirement from its crime and disorder partners. Subject to that point of clarification, I again thank the Minister for the positive response to my amendments.