Police and Justice Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, for his kind comments. He has put his finger on something that I suppose could be described as a difficulty. I was intrigued by his description of the measure as an Alice in Wonderland approach. One has to look at this matter in a practical light. The aim of the amendments is to enable the Common Council to delegate issues to its existing committee structure which will then issue reports and recommendations. It would be possible for the Common Council, in its capacity as a crime and disorder committee, to issue such reports and recommendations itself, but we do not foresee this creating any difficulties in practice. Indeed, the noble Lord anticipated how that might work and drew a parallel with parliamentary procedure. The House of Lords resolves itself into a Committee and that Committee reports back to the House of Lords in its guise as the Chamber which considers statutory matters. While it might seem somewhat odd to work in that way, there is a parallel on which we can draw. In practice, I guess that the Common Council will want to devolve these matters to a committee and ensure that it receives that committee’s reports to enable it to consider and finalise its own strategy. That arrangement works well in other local authorities. I hope that I have assured the noble Lord that the provision is workable and that the Common Council welcomes the amendment and is more than capable of dealing with it. On Question, amendment agreed to.