Police and Justice Bill

I am most grateful to the noble Lord. I hope that he and his officials will understand more clearly what I am getting at, because it did not seem to make much sense earlier on. As the noble Lord said, the Audit Commission plays a very valuable role in the inspection of police authorities on the financial side. It has no other remit in police authority inspection. I hope that when the officials eventually look at this more closely, they will agree that the Audit Commission should not be inspecting police authorities. The commission does an excellent job on the financial side, and we are very happy for it to continue doing that. But the inspection of the work of police authorities is not for the Audit Commission; it is charged with seeing continuous improvement. As I said last week, that has not taken place anywhere, in any of the Audit Commission’s work. There must be continuous improvement. Taking away from police authorities the tools that ensure continuous improvement means that we are not going anywhere. I ask the noble Lord and his officials to look at what I have said. Best value is far too important to leave out of the Bill. I will gracefully retire from this amendment but I will definitely come back to it on Report.