Mr. Coaker: Good afternoon, Sir Nicholas, and members of Committee. In answer to that question I wish to make the point, as Mr. Ruffley did, that we have constructive engagement. I say that at the beginning of every meeting, but it is important to put it on the record. Given that this is an evidence session rather than a regular Committee sitting in which it sometimes becomes a bit more them versus us, I will try to engage in the constructive way that he suggests.

The first thing to say is that the mergers debate was about closing a gap that everybody accepted existed. If that was not the correct route and the Government withdrew from proposing the mergers because of the resistance, the problem of what to do about protective services and serious and organised crime was not necessarily resolved. That fundamentally goes to the heart of the question, because if you are not going to sort this by mergers, how will you? How will you deal with serious and organised crime, cross-border issues and all those types of things?

The approach over the past few years, and our approach, has always been that we need to encourage collaboration. I am sure that if members of the Committee thought about it they could point to really good examples in their own areas of when their police forces have collaborated with other police forces to tackle problems. Certainly our view, in line with what Sir Norman said, is that the best way forward is to bring about that collaboration by voluntary means—by agreement. Alongside that, work is going on to look at what decisions are best made to help inform the choice that local police forces will make. For example Denis O’Connor, the acting chief inspector, has under a letter from me been asked to consider at what level decisions are best taken, so that we get the subsidiarity debate out into the open and looked at. So work is going on, in the first instance to inform the debate about whether a decision should be taken at the local, regional or national level. We are not looking at a master plan, but we are looking at the best way to ensure collaboration.

In the Bill we have given some certainty to the legislative framework because police authorities and police forces tell us that it is not clear. That is the reason for many of the clauses. We have tried to be clear in the Bill that mandation is not a first resort. It is something that we need to consider when it is clearly in the public interest and when there just seems to be obstruction to something that everyone agrees would be of benefit to not only those police forces but the local areas. It is a last resort, based on an informed choice at a local level, rather than being some sort of great master plan that is sent down.

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