Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill (Programme) (No. 2)

First, if the system in London was working so well, why would the Government want to change it? Secondly, the change that the Government are making is to a completely different system from that which operates at the moment. The Metropolitan Police Authority is being abolished. The person who, through primary legislation, is going to be put in charge of policing in London through the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime will be an unelected individual appointed by the Mayor of London. They will not be a directly elected individual as per the rest of the country, but an appointee of the Mayor following the abolition of the Metropolitan Police Authority. The hon. Gentleman asked why, if the system works so well, we should not expand it to the rest of the country. If the system in London is working so well, why are the Government changing it? Why not just leave it as it is? We are not changing the system in London to that in the rest of the country—we are completely changing the system in London to another system. The inquiry would also need to look at the arrangements between a police and crime commissioner and the local democratic framework. One of the great successes of the current policing arrangements has been the introduction of the neighbourhood policing model, with the development of community safety partnerships in Wales and crime and disorder reduction partnerships in other parts of the country. Those arrangements have brought together all the various partners at a local level in order to try to tackle crime and improve confidence. The police and crime commissioner is not a responsible authority under the terms of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. What, then, is the relationship of the police and crime commissioner with the police and crime panel? Again, we do not understand that, and the Bill is unclear about it. I have referred to the complete lack of power that a police and crime panel has, leaving an omnipotent individual in charge of policing. Police and crime panels will have one person from each local authority—if there are not 10 authorities, we can make up the number with another couple—and a couple of independent members. If there are more than 10 local authorities, we can have a few more so that we stick to the basis of one person per authority. There is no reference to how many people might be in that local authority area or to its size—the reference is just to one person per authority, so it could be a tiny district council and a massive local authority area. My hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) mentioned Northumbria, which is a huge area covered by one council and a very small, highly populated area covered by another.