Home Affairs and Justice

I am glad that we have some agreement that the system in London, which appears to be quite a good system, should continue. However, I am slightly mystified why, if the Conservatives think that the system for London is relatively good—it involves the election of the GLA by proportional representation, followed by the selection of the MPA—they ignore those lessons for the rest of the country. In complex urban areas, with substantial ethnic minorities, such as Greater Manchester, Merseyside and the west midlands, the Conservatives' proposal—and to a lesser but almost equal extent, the Government's proposal—would ensure that the people elected as commissioners and members of the police authorities would be white, middle-class, middle-aged men in suits. They would not represent the genuine differences, especially ethnic ones, in police force areas. That worries me, because it would set up exactly the sort of problems that led to the riots in Brixton and cities such as Bristol in the early 1980s. If a potentially confrontational system led to the populist election of a single commissioner or a single person in each crime and disorder reduction partnership, it is likely that the police authority would be insensitive to the rights and freedoms of minorities in that area. If that happened, policing by consent would be substantially undermined, and that is a serious danger. When I have talked to senior police officers about this matter, they have been very concerned by the potential introduction of populist and confrontational politics into the system—as proposed by both the Government and the official Opposition.