Mr. George Stevenson
Police Reform Bill [Lords]
Mr James Paice (South East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)
I endorse the Minister's welcome to you, Mr. Stevenson. I, too, have served on Committees under your chairmanship and I am pleased to have the opportunity to do so again. I extend in absentia a welcome to Miss Widdecombe, who will also Chair some of our sittings.
The Minister was right to say that the Bill has received a large measure of support—perhaps more so from Opposition Members than from Labour Members. It is the absence of certain provisions from the Bill that the Government are unhappy about. They want to put those back, whereas we are more content with the Bill in its current form. We shall obviously table minor amendments as well as amendments to the more major provisions to which the Minister has referred, and I share his view that there is time under the programme motion to do that.
The Minister said that there have been 16 days since the Bill was discussed on Second Reading, but there is a dearth of Government amendments. I accept that he has concentrated on amendments to part 1, which we shall discuss today and at our first sitting after the recess, but I look forward to the Government tabling those amendments that he prefaced in his speech on Second Reading. Obviously, we shall need adequate time to discuss not only those amendments that were referred to in another place, but those that deal with sex offenders and the other issues that have been promised, and which will be new to the debate. I hope that the hon. Gentleman can give us plenty of time to study them and perhaps table amendments to those amendments.
Although, we shall examine all the Bill's provisions in Committee, we shall deal with the contentious issues to which the Minister referred on a wider scale when the Bill is discussed on Report. I accept that it is outside your purview, Mr. Stevenson, and that of members of the Committee, but I wish to put it on the record that we hope that some issues can be returned to at that time.
I appreciate the way in which the Ministers in the other place responded to the amendments tabled by the Opposition. That welcoming approach means that, setting aside the big issues, the Bill is considerably better. There were amendments to a whole raft of different clauses that were not in the original draft. The Government listened, and conceded the amendments.
I hope that we will continue to take the same consensual approach, and I am encouraged in that by the Secretary of State's speech to the Police Federation of England and Wales conference last week, when he apologised and said, ''I have made mistakes.'' So say all of us. Therefore, I hope that the Home Office approaches this stage of the Bill with a degree of
chagrin and, perhaps, a willingness to listen to the pertinent arguments of Opposition Members. With those remarks, I am content to support the programme motion, and I look forward to the Committee stage.