My Lords, I do not think this is quite my swansong, but I assure noble Lords—perhaps to their relief—that my noble friend Lady Williams of Trafford will be taking up the baton on this Bill after this evening. I am sure she is looking forward to it.
I am grateful to all noble Lords who have participated in the debate and thank them for their contributions. It has been a wide-ranging debate, enhanced by the level of expertise and experience which noble Lords have in various areas touched on. It has been evident from the debate that there is a good measure of support on all sides of the House for many of the Bill’s provisions. Among those provisions which have been widely welcomed are the strengthening of the inspection framework for fire and rescue authorities, the reforms to the police complaints and discipline systems, the limitations on the use of pre-charge bail, the changes to police powers under the Mental Health Act, and the measures to protect children and vulnerable adults.
Other provisions in the Bill have had what might be described as a mixed response. I include in this category the provisions enabling police and crime commissioners to take on the responsibilities of fire and rescue authorities and those enabling chief officers to designate volunteers with a bespoke set of police powers. I will respond to some of the observations made by noble Lords and, if I do not cover every point raised, I apologise in advance. It is not because I do not consider them material, but in view of the time available I will be able to address only some of them.
I go straight to a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, who began by disclosing his knowledge of puddings and then went on to develop the point that the Bill is simply enormous—more than 300 pages, larger than the Bill that gave rise to the independence of India and Pakistan. Then, to my astonishment, he executed the most neat backward flip I have seen in this Chamber, and went on to add that there were many wasted opportunities for putting further material into the Bill. We got one after the other. This is only an estimate, but I rather think that we would have a Bill
slightly longer than the Chilcot report if we had incorporated everything that he noble wanted us to include. Perhaps there is no harm—he complimented the industry of the Home Office and he was right to do so—but we have to try to keep the Bill within certain bounds.
I will address points mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and others. On Part 1, he asked whether PCCs should proceed to take over fire authorities. PCCs have been a success. One noble Lord is a PCC and another, the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, endeavoured to become one, so they have embraced the idea.