Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 23, 28, 149 and 237. This group of amendments proposes the shadow operation of the new arrangement. It is as well that for the purposes of this argument I do not need to spell out which arrangement that might be. However, it seems that there will be some sort of new arrangement—whether it be a single commissioner or a commission, as my noble friend has proposed. I tabled these amendments thinking of recent experience at local government level. When new authorities were formed—most recently some new unitary authorities —it was the normal arrangement that there should be a transitional period involving shadow working of the new authorities. The most recent involvement related to the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 that provided for implementation arrangements by way of orders dealing with transition. I accept that local government is more complicated—or I did, at any rate, until about 7 pm—but it seems sensible to allow for a transition from the current police authorities to the new structure on an authority-by-authority basis. This is not an argument for staging the transfer at different times.