Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

I hate to disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, on this because I know that her motives are well-meaning. That paragraph in Schedule 6 has the heading: ““Duty to produce balanced panel””—the Bill very clearly already includes the duty to produce a balanced panel. The noble Baroness describes a situation, and it saddens me to say this, in which there may be councils around the country with no elected Conservatives at all, although that can apply to other parties in other parts of the country. However, what I can only describe as the generosity of increasing the number of people that can be co-opted on to the panel means that I would expect a responsible panel to make absolutely sure that it would look to the additional co-optees to redress that political balance. If that is what the panel puts to the Secretary of State, I can see no reason why it cannot do that. If the motivation is to create a politically balanced panel, Conservatives can be co-opted to the panel to get political balance. I see no reason why what I am doing does not address the point that she is making.