Home Affairs and Justice

My right hon. Friend's Committee produced a good and important report. If he looks at the speed with which we have funded and developed the ability of police forces throughout the country to have handheld devices, he will see that I share his ambition to roll out this important system quickly. He also makes an important point about compatibility. I will talk later about ensuring better collaboration among police forces. The National Policing Improvement Agency is currently leading work to ensure greater compatibility not just between handheld devices, but among all the information systems across police forces, which I certainly agree with my right hon. Friend is important. Just as police forces must look to their neighbourhoods, so they must also look to each other to collaborate where needed to tackle crime at all levels and to ensure the best use of resources. We will legislate to strengthen the provisions for collaboration, whether in the back office or on the front line of operations. We will also give the police, other law enforcement agencies and prosecutors additional powers to improve the recovery of criminal assets, because criminals should not be able to squirrel away their ill-gotten gains. I make no apology for doing all that I can to ensure that they get the message loud and clear that they should not profit from their criminal activities.