Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel & South Downs, Conservative)

I beg to move amendment No. 134, in clause 4, page 2, line 41, at end insert—

‘(2A)In making an order under subsection (1), the Secretary of State shall have regard to the desirability of maintaining the discretion of Chief Officers to designate the powers of Community Support Officers to the extent that Chief Officers judge to be appropriate’.

We shall now consider proposals in the Bill that will standardise to some extent the powers of community support officers. The guillotine will fall at 5 o’clock, so we shall have a relatively short discussion on such matters, although it will be important. I am sure that we agree about the role of community support officers, especially in the delivery of neighbourhood policing.   The purpose of the amendment is to write in the Bill a requirement on the Secretary of State. It would establish the principle that, when determining the standard set of powers for all community support officers and the powers that are to be reserved for the discretion of the chief constable, the Home Secretary should not be prevented from standardising powers, but should always have regard to the general desirability that the matters should be left when possible to the discretion of the chief constable.

The powers are not listed in the Bill. They have been proposed. We only know the particular standardisation of powers as a result of reading the ministerial consultation document. It will be a matter for further discussion how exactly the division is to fall between regularised or standard powers throughout   all forces and those that chief constables should decide. My first observation about the list that has been produced is that the cut-off point seems relatively arbitrary. Either there is a strong case to be made that chief constables should have the ability to determine the powers of community support officers or a respectable and debateable case for saying that the powers should be standardised throughout all police forces and that there is too much of an opportunity for confusion if different community support officers have different amounts of powers.