I am not trying to hold up progress through the Bill. I am sure the project that the Minister went to see in Nottingham is excellent, but if it is being interpreted, on the basis of a conversation that he had with somebody there, who was no doubt in
deep awe of the Minister, as a statement of police support for this change, it is going a little far. It may be that it is more than that, but the point still remains. The clause we have at the moment simply states,
“a police officer of at least the rank of inspector”.
It does not say, “a police officer of at least the rank of inspector who has, for example, an intimate knowledge of the communities concerned and the likely impact of this action”. If it said something like that, and I appreciate that that is not legislative drafting, that would reassure on that particular point, but it does not. It could simply be an inspector. I think it quite likely that some police forces, given that they are about to receive a large new volume of technical legislation, will decide to have an inspector somewhere—or maybe even a superintendent; it does not really matter which—whose sole purpose will be to ensure that all the boxes have been ticked in terms of following the legislation. That is not the same as someone with an intimate knowledge of what the community consequences are likely to be in that locality.