My Lords, I declare my registered interests in policing. I find myself supporting the spirit of Amendment 1 and Amendment 3, the first in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and the latter in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks. If the Government resist all these amendments and the spirit behind them, they will miss an important opportunity to improve transparency, accountability, confidence and governance in the new NCA.
At Second Reading and in Committee, I raised the spectre of a disjointed, patchwork of policing through the new arrangements. My fear was of a parochial, local network of policing run by the newly elected police and crime commissioners, and an all-powerful National Crime Agency with no supervisory or governance board, with very little in between and no lines connecting them. The Government will miss a vital opportunity here if they hide behind the notion that the NCA deals with important, national issues which only a relationship between the Home Secretary of the day and the director-general can embrace and satisfy. Whatever emerges through a supervisory or advisory board, or some consultative mechanism, we need to have confidence that it will embrace at least one or more of the new police and crime commissioners, representatives of chief constables and perhaps those elsewhere in policing, and the many other stakeholders who are legitimately concerned about how this new policing architecture will work.
I understand that perhaps Amendment 1 is a step too far because there are matters of national importance that maybe only the Secretary of State in the Home Office can have the chairmanship responsibility for. Yet I hope that the Minister will be able to move some
way towards reassuring us that the new arrangements, however they emerge, will improve confidence, transparency and accountability in this important new agency, which I wish the very best. I hope it will succeed.