Clause 35 - Police powers for police authority employees
Police Reform Bill [Lords]
9:45 am
Mr James Paice (South East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)
The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly valid point. However, we are talking about something totally new. These officers are not neighbourhood or community wardens, but people with a considerable level of police power, which has so far applied only to traffic wardens. If we have CSOs, I hope that the public will readily take to them, recognise and appreciate them and give them credibility.
We all know that a bad reputation is easily gained and quickly lost. By having variations in powers, I worry that the public will quickly start to discredit the principle of CSOs because of the sort of situation that I described, and it will take years to undo the damage caused by that initial impression.