Clause 22 - Operational responsibility of
Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill
5:30 pm
Ms Caroline Flint (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (reducing organised and international crime, anti drugs co-ordination and international and European issues), Home Office; Don Valley, Labour)
What shall be a duty is specified in preceding provisions. As for the operational independence of the director general, I have no disagreement with the hon. Gentleman's detailed point, but I think that clause 22 does set out that independence on the face of the Bill. The SOCA board will collectively determine the strategies to be pursued by the agency in discharging its functions and it will hold the director general and his executive team to account. However, it will be for the director general to decide which particular operations to mount and how they are to be conducted. The clause as it stands makes that point and needs no further embellishment. I invite the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment.