It leaves me in a position of having profound doubts about amendment 56. I really appreciated the Minister’s interventions setting out what the Government want to do. The police reorganisation under the previous Labour Government was top down and people did not like it. It is not that we are neutral—my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch was wrong to say that the Government have always said they would be neutral. The Government have a position and a vision, but I think it is much smarter to offer reassurances and tell people that, whatever we think, we are not going to push it on them, because we have seen that that does not work. People have to consent to it. There will be difficult council leaders who we will think are being a pain because of their own individual interests, but we should bind our hands and restrain ourselves from just pushing them aside. We need to listen and say to everybody, “Unless you can bang heads together yourselves and get a consensus, we’re not going to come piling in, because we’ve seen where that ends up.”
It might be a Labour Government’s instinct to think that they know better than the people, but it should be a Conservative Government’s instinct to recognise that they do not know better and that even if, in their opinion, the people are wrong—and history might show that they were wrong—it is the people who get to decide, and if they feel strongly about something that should be respected.