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Police and Justice Bill

The Minister knows that he has published performance assessments. People are entitled to compare different forces’ performance. He is right about Staffordshire—the force did not object to the merger. Indeed, the former chief constable of Staffordshire was the Minister’s chief adviser on amalgamations. However, that does not reflect the view of the people of Staffordshire, for whom my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) spoke. They greatly opposed the merger, as every opinion poll showed and the Minister knows. Local people opposed amalgamations. Not a single police force area showed a majority of the public—the people who experience the policing—in favour of the mergers.