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

May I come to that in a moment? I will address the status of the document shortly. As I mentioned earlier, the Home Office has set up a transition board to discuss how the present system will migrate to the new one. One of the issues that we are discussing is the protocol; that work has begun. ACPO has nominated Chief Constable Adrian Lee of Northamptonshire police to be its representative. He will sit on a working party, alongside Home Office officials and representatives from other organisations including the Association of Police Authorities and the Association of Police Authority Chief Executives, to discuss the issue. Work is therefore ongoing. I have to say to the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) that it was never going to be possible to produce a draft document in time for Report, and he knows that I never indicated that it would be. However, I have said that we will attempt to produce one in time for it to be considered in the other place. I hope that he will appreciate that that is being done with the best of intentions and at the fastest possible pace, given the complexity of the issue. It is worth reflecting on the fact that a similar protocol that was proposed in Northern Ireland by the Patten commission in 2004 was discussed over several years and has still not been put in place. That is partly because Patten recommended that the concept involved should be one of operational responsibility, and not independence. I note that the hon. Gentleman has chosen to use the words ““operational responsibility”” in his new clause. We are not using them ourselves, however; we are using ““operational independence””. The work is ongoing, and it is our intention to try to produce something for the Lords. I am sorry that we have not had an opportunity to look at a draft here, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman will understand that the work is under way. I want to turn to the status of the document. New clause 5 seeks to set out the memorandum of understanding in secondary legislation. The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) asked what the consequences would be of not following the protocol. We envisage that this will be an extra-statutory document, and that it will be issued in the form of guidance. I am certainly willing to consider what the legal status of the document should be, and whether it should have some kind of statutory imprimatur, but we really need to see what it looks like first. We need to understand how granular it will be, and whether that would effectively define operational independence in a way that, so far, everyone has made it clear we should not so define it. I reassure the hon. Member for Gedling, however, that this matter should be considered, and I have no doubt that the other place will have a view on it.