Policing and Crime Bill

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer. At the outset I declare an interest as a former police authority chair and, at present, as a vice-president of the Association of Police Authorities. I referred in Committee to an article written by Henry Porter in the Guardian online on Tuesday, 10 February. With your Lordships’ permission, I should like to return not to what I said then but to the article, as it is very pertinent to the amendment. It stated: ""Too often it seems ACPO is the driving force behind policy … Now the police have set up the confidential intelligence unit to monitor the political life of this nation. The only reason we know of this is because the Mail on Sunday followed up an internal police job advertisement for the head of the confidential intelligence unit, who would work closely with government departments, university authorities and private sector companies ‘to remove the threat of criminality and public disorder that arises from domestic extremism’. The story tells us that the CIU"—" the Criminal Intelligence Unit— ""will also prevent details of its operations being made public … Of course there are extremist groups hoping to make use of troubles ahead but it is surely a matter of the gravest urgency that parliament involves itself in defining the limits of the CIU's activity and bringing ACPO into the 21st century by forcing it to become more accountable and open. We cannot have the police making decisions about what constitutes legitimate politics in this country"." Quite, my Lords.