Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

My Lords, I do not speak in favour of this amendment. We are probably dancing on the head of a pin. It seems we all agree that a protocol or a memorandum of understanding is vital. It is the form that it will take that is a matter of debate for us today and, perhaps, in further stages of this procedure. It seems that one can hardly discuss the detail of this while it is still in draft. We are promised the draft before the full stage is passed in your Lordships’ House, but I find that a difficulty in itself. My main concern is that by putting it into the Bill or having it standing part and parcel alongside the Bill with statutory force, it would become too prescriptive. This Bill is already in grave danger of being too prescriptive on a number of issues. One has to leave things such as this to the good nature, good judgment and experience of those who will be handling those issues, and while I support the protocol we should not necessarily go so far as to give it statutory authority. I would say in passing that although ACPO has quite wisely kept well away from making political statements about this Bill—its fingers were burned two or three years ago by getting too closely involved in politics, and it is wise to keep out of this at the moment—I would be surprised if chief constables and chief officers of police would want to see a protocol bound into such an Act. I would think that they would want to operate against a background of advice that can be amended in the light of experience. That is my view, not theirs; I am not in a position to speak for them but that is how I would expect them to react. On a small point of detail in Amendment 4B, I noticed that the Central Motorway Police Group is included in a group of police authorities. I ask those who tabled the amendment, if they take it to a vote, to check whether the Central Motorway Police Group now has the same statutory basis as a police force. When it was set up it was subject to a collaboration agreement. To the best of my understanding it is still subject to such an agreement, which is very different from the statutory basis that other forces enjoy. It is a small point of which I ask noble Lords to take note. I do not support the amendment.