Police Force Mergers

Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Home Department – in the House of Commons at 2:30 pm on 15 May 2006.

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Photo of John Reid John Reid Home Secretary, The Secretary of State for the Home Department 2:30, 15 May 2006

Without claiming any particular credit, I can tell my hon. Friend that in the limited time that I have been in post, I have already become aware of that submission. As I said earlier, it is not possible to provide the statistics that Bob Russell requested—perhaps fortunately—but I am aware that a lot of differing views have been expressed on this issue. Many of those views disagree with our proposals and most of them disagree with each other, so the wisdom of Solomon, elevated to an even greater extent, may be required. The HMIC report examined the current system and said that it was not fit for purpose; it is not serving the public as it should by giving the maximum protection. That said, I want to examine exactly how we reach our end goals.