Policing and Crime Bill

Unsurprisingly, my Lords, I support Amendment 19. When this Government came in and started talking about crime and disorder committees, those of us then on police authorities spent a great deal of time working out how best these could be set up and scrutinised. We always felt that it was important to have a member of a police authority on that committee. It is important that the committees understand the work of the police and are able to have someone with a little expertise to explain some of the difficulties and constraints within the policing arena. Good councils, as the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, reminded us, will do the job well with crime and disorder committees, but it is important that bad ones—those that are not engaged at the moment—do so as well. Anything that the Minister can do to ensure that police authority members are included on local authority crime and disorder committees will be very much welcomed. It is extremely necessary.