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Police and Justice Bill

My hon. Friend is entirely right. Of course, the irony is that the federal option was proposed by the Prime Minister and the strategy unit, but the previous Home Secretary rejected it out of hand. In my own area, forces such as Sussex, Surrey and Kent have lost the option of going down the federal route. I am of course pleased that Kent is being allowed to remain as a stand-alone force, but I regret the fact that the impetus for such federal arrangements has been lost. Such arrangements could have met many of the cost-saving and reinvestment criteria for level 2 policing that amalgamation purportedly addresses, and without impacting on local accountability. Serious issues have arisen from the speed with which these proposals have been developed; indeed, they have been a significant distraction from what the Home Office should have been doing in the past few months. Setting aside the obvious issue of whether sufficient ministerial and official attention was paid to the deportation of foreign offenders, the Home Office, as one chief constable remarked, has been moving the deckchairs around in driving through this disruptive and costly amalgamation, when it could have been focusing on other, more important aspects of police reform—not least driving up police productivity and work force reform. The Prime Minister said in January that it"““is not a question of forcing””" —amalgamations—"““through””.—[Official Report, 25 January 2006; Vol. 441, c. 1426.]" But only one amalgamation—Cumbria and Lancashire—has been agreed by both the police authorities concerned. All the others have been contested by at least one of the authorities involved. Now, as the Minister said, there is to be a consultation period, and the question is: what does that consultation really mean? In a letter to The Times of 12 April, 35 council leaders from across the parties and across the country condemned the Home Secretary’s merger proposals, arguing the following:"““As policing is by consent it is crucial that the wishes of the people are heard and respected. Yet the Home Secretary is not listening. He continues to press ahead with his ill-thought out and ill-judged plans, riding roughshod over the vast majority of the people and their elected representatives.””" The truth is that the public have been shut out of discussion about the future of their own police forces. They must be consulted properly.