Police and Justice Bill

I certainly agree with the thrust of what the hon. Gentleman says, although if I were pedantic I might dispute the notion of it being perverse. Some hon. Members have suggested today that all the effort put into the discussions over mergers were a complete distraction, a complete waste of time and got in the way of seriously trying to address the problems raised by O’Connor, among others. I am with the hon. Gentleman, however. If we leave perversity to one side, most forces seriously engaged with those discussions during the merger process and since its demise. I have also said to many forces that, perhaps because of a shorthand—the speed of it all—much of the merger debate was carried out on the premise that such collaborations and discussions had not happened beforehand. There had not been enough, but there certainly had been some, so there was no total vacuum in respect of discussions, collaborations or actions.