Schedule 6 - Amendments to the Crime and Disorder Act 1998
Police and Justice Bill
1:15 pm
Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)
The order-making power simply allows us to change the responsible authorities without having to use primary legislation. At this stage, there are no further intentions to amend the responsible bodies, but new organisations might well be established that could play a role in crime and disorder reduction partnerships, and it would be difficult to have to use primary legislation every time we want to make a variation in respect of the type of bodies that should be engaged.
Recently, there have been discussions, which I think are ongoing, about whether the Greater London authority should be a responsible authority for crime and disorder. I certainly have no plans to bring in additional bodies, but it is important that there should be an order-making power so that we can be flexible and adapt to changing circumstances without needing always to return to primary legislation when there is an opportunity for a new body to play an important role in the wider partnership. I do not want us to lose the opportunity to draw in those partners. Primary care trusts and fire authorities are now partners, but they were not covered by the original legislation, and we had to return to legislation each time to get them involved. The order-making power will give us the flexibility to add bodies without going through the lengthy and, dare I say it, bureaucratic process.