Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his undertaking to come back on that, but it is not simply a question of the audit. It is a question, too, of the powers that exist for the chief financial officer or a monitoring officer in circumstances in which a decision has been taken of which they are questioning the legality, either in financial or other terms, where they report what that process is. As far as I can tell, the Bill is silent on that matter, and in the Government’s preferred model that becomes a particularly difficult issue because you are talking about a single individual and, effectively, those officers are questioning the probity of the person who employs them. If it is a single person who employs them, there is no safety belt. Those very important issues must be clarified in any event, whatever happens to the rest of the Bill; if this is going forward, that must be clear. In a local authority context it is clear and there is a process, but it is not clear in this context. I am grateful for the fact that the noble Lord has indicated that he is still in listening mode and for his assurance that he will come back to me on some of these points. For the time being, therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 24 withdrawn. Amendment 25 Moved by