Police and Justice Bill

My Lords, I am enormously grateful to my noble friend for his thoughtful response and I am pleased to hear that I have reminded him of his lost youth—that was entirely coincidental. I am also grateful for the support that my amendment has received from various corners of this House. My noble friend said that the process of making regulations provided an opportunity for further reflection. I take that as an acceptance of my point that considerable further reflection is required. Although I understand the Government’s desire to move forward by putting this framework into legislation so that the regulations can follow, it might be better to reflect earlier rather than later on precisely how this might work. I am absolutely committed to the idea of crime and disorder reduction partnerships, with local government, the police service and all the other relevant agencies combining on these matters. But we know that the White Paper on local government will take a fundamental look at how partnership working operates in all matters of interest to the future of particular localities. I am also committed, as I think my noble friend is, to the important role of individual elected councillors as community advocates. But, again, the White Paper will, we understand, extend and look at that in all sorts of other areas. I am attracted to the idea of the community call for action and interested in how that might operate but, given how it will interact with overview and scrutiny committees, we would benefit from knowing precisely what the overall package will be. I digress for a second by saying that we understand that there are also to be major changes in the network of patients’ forums, to create what I think will be called local involvement networks, which will work to local authority overview and scrutiny committees. There will be changes as a consequence of that. These changes will graft all sorts of material on to the work of overview and scrutiny committees, so we are trying to legislate on something that is moving rapidly. My noble friend said that he planned that reflection should take place between the enactment of the Bill and the introduction of regulations, but I hope that that can be brought forward. I hope that the Government will consider over the next few days whether it would perhaps be better to revise these clauses dramatically, or even withdraw them, given the forthcoming White Paper. In the next few days, the Government may internally be clearer about their direction that they are following for local government. If that view diverges from what is being presented to us today, it is important that we are not faced with having these clauses on the statute book. However, given my noble friend’s offer to reflect further on these matters, albeit at the wrong stage—I hope that he will take my encouragement to reflect further now as opposed to after the Bill has been enacted—I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.