Policing and Crime Bill

My Lords, I support the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. We are talking about a situation where the users are paying for the specific work of policing at airports, which is not normal. To some extent, the police authority has the airport over a barrel. It will decide and say how much it is going to cost. I had this experience 20 years ago when I was working on the Channel Tunnel. All the frontier control authorities made bids to have the maximum facilities and maximum number of people there—of course, it was all very necessary in their books—and Eurotunnel had to provide a police station at Folkestone for 80 officers. It was complete with everything that they could possibly want, including darkened windows so that nobody could look in. It was for everything apart from law and order, which was still going to be done by Kent Police. The cost to the company was enormous. One day, I asked the head of the police what they would have done if they had had to fund it themselves. The answer was that they would have had two policemen visiting part-time from Ashford. I was shocked by that. They were being greedy. I know that they needed money and wanted to have all the lovely equipment but, in terms of a judgment about what is required, the difference between two part-timers and 80 takes some beating. I fear that we have the same situation today. Of course, the police will say that everything is necessary and that they have to have the most wonderful equipment. As the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said, the British Transport Police could do an extremely good job. With the Metropolitan Police’s record on using firearms in the Underground, it is probably better that there are no firearms around. More seriously, as the operator has to pay, it is entirely reasonable that he should be able to get more than one quote, including one from the British Transport Police, because at somewhere like Birmingham International Airport the BTP will be on the railway but will not be allowed to take one step into the airport. That is crazy; it will come up in a later amendment. I hope that my noble friend will have something positive to say about this and, most important, will explain how the airport operator can be protected from the monopolistic and sometimes grabbing attitudes of the police, who know that they have the operator over a barrel.