Schedule 2 - Amendments to the Police Act 1996
Police and Justice Bill
10:45 am
Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel and South Downs, Conservative)
My hon. Friend is entirely right. The deficit will have to be picked up by local council tax payers. In some areas, the situation will be worse because of unequal precepts. When my own police authority merges with Surrey, which has a higher police precept, there will be a problem in West Sussex unless some mechanism is introduced to equalise the precepts.
That is a separate issue, however. The real question is whether, overall, the costs of proceeding with police amalgamations will be justified by the benefits. As amendment No. 133 makes clear, I do not mean just the financial costs but the overall costs and benefits of amalgamating police forces. In my view, they have not been properly assessed.
Amendment No. 82 would introduce a requirement that local referendums should be held when amalgamations are put through by the Home Secretary without the consent of police authorities. Let us remind ourselves that at the moment, only two police authorities, Cumbria and Lancashire, have agreed to amalgamation. All the other police force mergers are being contested. It remains to be seen whether the ones announced yesterday will be contested, but I suspect that many will be. My amendment proposes that where amalgamations are contested, local referendums should be held. I am certainly open to the argument that local referendums should be held whether or not police authorities have agreed to the amalgamations.