Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

I would like to hope that that would be the case, but I suspect that the only means of cutting down on form-filling rests with the Home Office. I shall put down some more amendments to remove some more of the form-filling, if I may. I remember in my time at the Home Office that every time we asked the police to fill in a new form it was in response to our need to answer a parliamentary Question. When a colleague wanted to know the number of helmets lost in Herefordshire we would ask the police to supply that information, and inevitably the Home Office would then invent the form for every police force to fill in the number of helmets lost. So the responsibility for cutting down on the form-filling rests on us as parliamentarians not wanting to know the minutiae of policing in local areas, but leaving that to the local people. I have pushed noble Lords’ kindness and generosity too far and will conclude my remarks. I visited Commissioner Bratton in 1996, when I was passing back through New York, and I was impressed by what he was doing. I thought, yes, that is almost as good as what they are doing in the Met already and in most of our county forces. This thing about the broken window syndrome—yes, it was wonderful. Commissioner Bratton overnight got his hands on 7,000 extra police officers, who were not very well trained because they were from the New York Transit Police and Housing Police. But overnight he put 7,000 extra bobbies on the streets, and New Yorkers saw a difference. That was one of his main successes. The problem we have here is that the term commissioner for an elected commissioner is the same as the term commissioner in New York, but the job is totally different. Commissioner Bratton was a hands-on police officer; he had direction and control and operational policing charge, just like Met commissioners and just like the commissioner in the City of London. The commissioners envisaged in this Bill are political appointees with no direction and control over the police force—that will be the chief constable. Perhaps not today but at Second Reading there was some confusion among some of us that we were electing commissioners who would have hands-on responsibility. They will not. There is something in what the noble Lord, Lord Condon, has said about having more resources for the commissioner so that he or she can connect with the local people. I disagree with my noble friend Lord Cormack that it would be impossible for an elected commissioner to know the views of the people in Thames Valley. If the chief constable can do it, surely a politician can as well. I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Condon, who, interestingly, is not in disagreement with the principle of the Bill. I would be very worried if someone of his experience and responsibilities in the past was opposed to the principle, but he is not. He is worried that the elected commissioner may not have enough back up to carry out his role of assessing what the people in, say, Thames Valley, North Yorkshire or other large-spread police areas want. I hope the Government will address that issue and reassure him. On the basis of what the noble Lords, Lord Condon and Lord Dear, have said, I, too, urge that the amendment not be pushed to a vote. If it is, with all due respect to the noble Baroness, I hope that she will be defeated.