Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

My Lords, if I was not interrupted in the middle of the sentence, I would have tried to get to the end. As I said to the House about an hour ago, Amendment 31, which was in the group of amendments with Amendment 1 agreed by the House earlier, provides for a model of a police commission consisting of a commissioner and a panel. Amendment 31 is not my amendment, but I am reading what it says. Whatever model there is a transition to, it is perfectly proper and indeed required that there should be robust arrangements to ensure that the new model comes into being in a way that works. The point that I was making was that Schedule 15 provides for transition arrangements, but I suspect that although many of the implications of the transition will have been anticipated, it is unlikely that every single one will have been anticipated. That is not intended to be pejorative about the Government or the Home Office, as I would say it of any organisation dealing with a change of this kind. I take it from what the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, is saying that he agrees that some sort of transition period is not a bad idea. That is all that I am suggesting that the House should consider. I have now said it twice, so I beg the House’s indulgence on that. The brief point is that we know the point and that, whatever the end game, it is not going to be that straightforward, so let us put in arrangements that we have learnt are needed from local authority experience, and use that experience to make that transition more smoothly than I believe the Bill provides for.