Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

I have to say to the noble Lord that I observed with horror what happened to small businesses in the riots. I would not in any way dismiss the needs of small businesses. They are individuals; they are husband-and-wife teams running small shops and other small businesses up and down the country. One of the other messages that I received quite clearly at the all-party group last week was that these businesses and business organisations are already making plans to talk to people who want to stand as candidates to be police and crime commissioners, because those businesses want them to have a much clearer understanding of what their needs are in terms of law and order. It is not just about their businesses—whether they have had a shop theft or something such as that—but about the whole community in which they operate. They care about what happens on the pavements outside their businesses. They care about the wider community. These are people. These are voters. They need a voice and this legislation will give them that voice. These reforms are essential to address that democratic deficit in policing, to end the era of central government’s bureaucratic control, to reduce crime and antisocial behaviour and to drive value for money. Chief constables will be liberated to be crime fighters rather than government managers—free to run their own workforces for the first time ever.