Police reform and social responsibility Bill

I share the right hon. Gentleman's concern to ensure that we get the protocol right. We have made very good progress with it, and I will deal directly with those remarks, if I may, later in my speech. I also thank him for his kind words. I was making the point that Opposition Members do not share the view that police authorities can remain in their current form. Even the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), hardly a champion—in so far as I am aware—of reform in any sphere, was forced to concede when shadow Home Secretary that police authorities were ““not optimal””. Twice before, the Labour party tried to reform police authorities and to introduce democratic accountability into policing, but it backed off in the face of vested interests. We intend to see this reform through. In Committee, the shadow policing Minister proposed directly elected chairs of police authorities. He felt so strongly that this was the right idea that he pushed it to the vote. So, there we have it: the Shadow Home Secretary says that"““elected chiefs would make things worse.””" The shadow police Minister says that"““only direct election...will deliver the strong connection to the public which is critical.””" Which is it? The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) claims that extremists might be elected, but why would that not happen under her own Front Benchers' plans for directly elected chairs? We know what the shadow Minister thinks about the arguments that extremists might be elected. He has said in past that those arguments are ““ridiculous””—and they are. The British National party polled just 2% of the national vote in the general election. It has never won direct election in any constituency larger than a local authority ward; and, in fact, it has never come better than third. It is simply inconceivable that the BNP could win a majority of votes in an area as large as a police force area; inconceivable that a BNP candidate would be one of two going forward to a count on second preferences; and inconceivable that they would take sufficient second preferences from other parties to win. So, saying that extremists will win such elections, as the shadow Home Secretary has today, is silly and irresponsible scaremongering, and she should stop it now. The right hon. Lady has also criticised the cost of the elections, but the shadow Minister's proposal would actually cost more, and the truth is that Opposition Members know that they cannot defend the status quo. They have three times supported democratic reform, but they just do not want to admit it—just as they do not want to admit that they would cut police spending by more than £1 billion.