Schedule 6 - Amendments to the Crime and Disorder Act 1998
Police and Justice Bill
1:30 pm
Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel and South Downs, Conservative)
I am grateful for the opportunity to raise a broader issue that concerns crime and disorder reduction partnerships and what is being proposed for them. The “Review of the Partnership Provisions of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998—Report of Findings” published by the Home Office prior to Second Reading stated that the merger of crime and disorder reduction partnerships was under consideration. That would be enabled not under this Bill but under the Police Reform Act 2002. However, it goes directly to the substance of the Bill, which is to reshape in part how crime and disorder reduction partnerships operate.
The report conceded:
“CDRPs have a vital role within this family of partnerships at local level”.
We would all agree. Having seen local crime and disorder reduction partnerships in operation, we appreciate the value of that localism. However, paragraph 2.9 recommended taking
“the opportunity, wherever possible, to reduce the total number of partnerships.”
Paragraph 2.12 stated that the Government were
“not at this stage thinking of compelling mergers.”
That sounds ominous, as if it may be the case in the future. The paragraph continued that the Government were considering the possibility against the background of potential change in local authority boundaries as a result of their review.
My simple point is that, if the Minister relies on crime and reduction partnerships as the way to deliver policing locally—against our accusation that larger police authorities are taking policing further away from local people—that will be substantially undermined if the CDRPs are to be much larger than they are now. In my county of Sussex, it is proposed that the local authority-based CDRPs will grow and become county-based CDRPs. Inevitably, that will take local management further away from people. I will need the Minister to tell us more about her thinking in that regard before I can agree to the proposal, which makes new provision in relation to the CDRPs.