Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

I am very grateful to the noble Lord. I am sure that he is aware that Third Reading is next week—Tuesday or Wednesday, I believe. It was not my intention to have met with the Minister of State in the Department for Transport by then. However, I can assure him that I am planning to meet with her before the House returns in September. I think that she and I need to have an across-the-table discussion about the sort of thing that the noble Lord has mentioned. I am in favour of action plans and timelines. I quite like the concept of project management in this area. However, I do not want to talk it up too much, given that the noble Lord has told us that this has been on the table since 2001. All I can say is that both my right honourable friend in the Department for Transport and I are minded to move this along as fast as we can. We will of course engage the British Transport Police itself in this negotiation. I am quite sure that it will relay to the noble Lord whether it feels we are making progress or not. However, as we make progress I will endeavour, on a very informal basis, to ensure that noble Lords who have expressed an interest in this are kept informed of the progress being made. I am quite sure that if we do not make that progress, the noble Lord will call me back to this Dispatch Box pretty rapidly.