Greater London Authority Bill

I have every sympathy with wanting to amend the current governance arrangements for the Metropolitan Police. Everyone would agree that we would not start from here if we had a blank sheet of paper. As I understand it, the commissioner is accountable to the Home Office, the MPA, the Mayor and the Assembly. On the other hand, he has national roles as well as those for London. I am confused about how those national roles would be dealt with under the amendment. The existing structure, while certainly imperfect, seems to have allowed for an increase in community policing in London, which I think most Londoners support. Therefore, although imperfect, it may be delivering some of what we would like it to deliver. What is most odd about the current structure is that there are 12 Assembly Members on the MPA. The roles of proposing, scrutinising and then implementing the budget do not sit well together; I would like to see a much clearer separation between the scrutiny role of the Assembly and the MPA. A solution, although it is probably also imperfect, is to look at the MPA more as an executive management board for the police rather than another tier offering semi-scrutiny, semi-budgetary responsibility and semi-accountability.