Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

My Lords, I shall be brief to the extent of telegraphy, even if it costs me welcoming my noble friend, which of course I do. I did not speak at Second Reading. As this is, therefore, my first speech during the passage of the Bill, I hope your Lordships' House will excuse my momentary pomposity if I say that I must declare an interest, which I shall declare only once. When the Police Act 1964 passed into law, my late noble kinsman was the Home Secretary who took it through. Given the heat that seems to surround the present reform, it might be said that that Act has stood the test of time well over those 47 years, but it does not mean that my late noble kinsman would necessarily have regarded its reform as inappropriate. His first nine years in politics were in the fledgling Conservative Research Department, whose historian, my noble friend Lord Lexden, now sits in your Lordships’ House and who would, I suspect, say that my late noble kinsman was an indefatigable producer of detailed policy documents at the drop of a hat. I am profoundly fond of my noble friend Lady Harris. We have shared many British-Irish occasions, as well as police ones. However, my remarks are composed on the flyleaf of the Bill, and flyleaves are often passed through like small station halts by an express train. To remind your Lordships' House, the flyleaf, after the title and the word ““Contents”” reads, Part 1, Police Reform, Chapter 1, Police Areas Outside London. Clause 1 is entitled ““Police and crime commissioners””. Those words recur on page 1, before recording Clause 1(1), which my noble friend’s amendment would strike from the Bill. It would be difficult for Clause 1(1) to have more of the quality of a foundation stone or a greater centrality in the Bill so my noble friend has chosen a target worthy of her mettle, but it is no surprise that the speeches that the amendment has occasioned have had largely the smack of Second Reading speeches, which are normally frowned on in Committee. As, conventionally, we do not vote at Second Reading, I hope that my noble friend will remember the spirit of that convention when we come to her final speech on the amendment.