Clause 31 - Police services agreement
Railways and Transport Safety Bill
9:15 am
Mrs Anne McIntosh (Vale of York, Conservative)
I rise just for clarification. The annual report of the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions refers to a number of service agreements. Will the Minister tell us whether the clause sets out a new police services agreement or whether provisions are being made for the existing police services agreement to be enshrined in the Bill? Does the police services agreement, as set out in the clause, provide a means of setting a target and will such a target be set against the benchmark of a specific sum of public money? The customer is presumably the railway industry, and I understand that it is most likely that the train operating company will specify the sums provided for. I wonder what the relationship will be. It will be apparent why that is relevant when we consider clause 32.
I have already made the point that the industry is being asked to fund the provisions. What will be the relationship between the police and the train operating companies? Should there be some disagreement about which objective plans and targets they would prefer, would they appeal to the Secretary of State? The Department must have some responsibility for the matter. The clause is not perhaps as clear as on that point as it might be. It would be helpful to know what expense was envisaged in respect of the police services agreement and whether that was substantially increased under the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act, 2001.