Policing and Crime Bill

Amendment 10 explores how the panel’s activities will be scrutinised and what mechanisms there will be to assess its performance. When a similar amendment was tabled by my honourable friend in Committee in another place, he received some welcome assurances that current legislation would allow HMIC to report on the work of the panel; that the panel itself would also report on its functioning; and that all such reports would be public. While that is welcome, the Minister’s concern that putting a duty to report would be overly bureaucratic is therefore all the more surprising. The current appointments process is clearly in need of a thorough overhaul, as we have already said. I would be extremely worried if HMIC were to decide that the panel’s work was not of sufficient importance to report on in future, so I cannot see that a bureaucratic burden is being imposed. I would welcome further clarification from the Minister about what the intended reporting requirements that will cover the panel will be, and whether HMIC will be in a position to do it. I beg to move.