Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

My Lords, this is clearly a perfectly legitimate amendment and this is clearly the time when the issues that this amendment raises ought to be discussed. They ought to be discussed as part of this Bill. Having listened to the complaint that this is not a matter that should be discussed late in the evening, I am not sure whether that means—if the Minister is not going to accept the amendment—that if it appeared at Report stage at five o’clock in the afternoon it would be universally welcomed and supported. I was not quite clear on the significance of the comment about the time of day. Clearly, the purpose of the amendment is to bring the arrangements for the City of London in line with the proposals for the rest of England and Wales—and one looks forward to the explanation that we will receive from the Minister as to why, one assumes, the Government are not entirely enthusiastic about going down this road. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, made the interesting and relevant point that, if the argument is that you need a separate police force for the City of London because it is a financial centre, it should be taken into account that we now have around Canary Wharf another financial centre. Presumably, it is under the Metropolitan Police, unless I am to be told otherwise. If the Metropolitan Police is considered to have the expertise to handle the issues that might arise there, why is it not considered that it could encompass, by taking over or by merger, the City of London Police as well? The Metropolitan Police force has considerable expertise which is recognised internationally and which is used on a national basis in England and Wales, not simply confined to its area. Yet the inference through having a separate force for the City of London is that somehow the Metropolitan Police, despite the expertise that it has, would just not be able to cope. The other possibility is that the Government think, with their Localism Bill, that the City of London Police force is localism personified. You have a small area with its own police. Are they therefore going to extend that principle elsewhere? The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, said that it was an efficient police force and he may well be right. I am certainly not going to stand here and say that is not efficient but, equally, the efficient police forces and police authorities which we have at the moment are not being exempted from the legislation before us on the grounds that they are efficient. I am not sure what relevance the argument has that the City of London Police may be an efficient force, because that argument has not been applied to police forces in other parts of the country. I simply conclude that one looks forward with interest to hearing what the response is going to be. Finally, will the Minister say whether the Government seriously considered doing away with a separate police force in the City of London, through merger or takeover—or whatever word they want to use—into or by the Metropolitan Police? Or, as I think the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, was this considered to be so awkward and difficult that it was never even considered at all?