My Lords, I declare my interest as a police and crime commissioner, for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland. I will say a few words about this very interesting amendment, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, neither to praise it nor to condemn it, but just to tell the Committee something that it is probably aware of anyway. I suspect I speak for other police and crime commissioners as well when I say that as we speak here, we are considering which way to go, given the possibilities that the Bill opens up for us in terms of complaints. It is very interesting that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, suggests that we should not have that option but should be compelled, as it were, to take all complaints at a low level and consider them. I am not so sure he is right—I do not know. I think there may in the end be a tendency among a number of police and crime commissioners, once the Bill is an Act and this legislation is law, to not take full responsibility for all complaints. I am not quite sure what the Government would like in this case: it may be that they really do not have a preference, and it would be interesting to hear from the Minister whether they do or not.
I have to tell the noble Lord that the chief constable in my patch has done absolutely nothing up until now to try and persuade me not to take the full gamut, but it may be different elsewhere. It is an interesting debate and I look forward very much to hearing what the Minister has to say. I suspect, if the Bill remains as it does up until it becomes an Act, then police and crime commissioners around the country will be doing different things.
4 pm