Home Affairs and Justice

I find the growing consensus on both sides of the House on the need for some directly elected police authorities to be very welcome. However, I am worried about the Conservative party proposal for a sheriff, particularly in areas such as the west midlands, London, Merseyside and Greater Manchester with complex and diverse communities and substantial ethnic minorities. Is the hon. and learned Gentleman confident that his proposal can be sensitive enough to the needs of those communities, or will we see a repeat of the sort of policing that we had, and thought we had left behind at the beginning of the 1980s, which the last Conservative Government had to get out of?