Clause 35 - Police powers for police authority employees
Police Reform Bill [Lords]
9:45 am
Mr James Paice (South East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)
Obviously, I am all in favour of commanders working together. I remind the hon. Gentleman that he supported Government proposals to override that, and for the Secretary of State to make those sorts of decisions, so he cannot have it both ways.
If we are to have CSOs, we all want them to work, but I am concerned that if we start off with the amount of confusion that I have described, there is a risk that they will quickly fall into public disrepute and be ridiculed, and then the whole thing will begin to collapse around our ears. None of us wants that to happen, which is why we should remove this discretion from chief officers.