UK Parliament / Open data

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Because this is localism. If local areas want to take on those responsibilities, the Government have been listening to local authorities and combined authorities and listening to the fact that they want to take these on. The fact that there are only a few of these combined police and crime responsibilities and fire and rescue responsibilities—at the moment, there are not very many—means that it is quite difficult to tell, but we need to keep an eye on it, obviously, and I will come back to that in a minute under Amendment 122A.

The Secretary of State has power under this clause, as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, to apply legislation relating to police and crime commissioners in relation to combined county authority mayors where the single-employer model—that is, the ability to make the chief constable the single operational head of both the police force and the fire and rescue service—has been engaged. Clause 38(4) provides a power to amend, revoke or repeal legislation consequential on that power. This is important because of exactly what the noble Lord opposite said: this is the power that could be used if any area has implemented the single-employer model but the chief constable is failing to manage the F&RS effectively. The Secretary of State may wish to revoke the implementation of the single-employer model and use this provision to do so. I think this is the power we have put in to ensure that exactly what the noble Lord opposite says need not happen.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

828 c1329 

Session

2022-23

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords chamber
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