Policing and Crime Bill
10:30 am
David Ruffley (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Bury St Edmunds, Conservative)
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Nicholas, and to debate with the Minister. We have previously debated measures in Standing Committee and in Statutory Instrument Committee, and we have always had a fruitful and businesslike way of dispatching business. I hope that that continues, but I have some comments to make.
The Bill is important, and Her Majesty’s Opposition are supportive of some of its principles. However, there are also some thorny questions about how the clauses will operate in practice, so it is incumbent on us to test carefully and scrutinise in detail the way in which many of those well-meant clauses would operate. In my judgment police reform is not thoroughly covered in part 1, and there are some omissions. I understand, and the Minister will no doubt remind us, that the announcements in the Green Paper have been carried through, particularly in relation to targets and the policing pledge. Changes in primary legislation are not needed to effect those—we understand that.
The same might also be said of reforms to Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary. However, it is disappointing not to see in the legislative programme—and certainly not in the Bill—important changes to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 which would, if brought in quickly, ensure that more police time would be spent on the street. I shall not detain the Committee, but an important consultation was launched by the Minister’s predecessor in March 2007—it went to two consultations—on reforming the Act.