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Policing and Crime Bill

The hon. Lady makes a very good point. There are many things missing from this Bill that we would have welcomed, and, indeed, which we have called for for some time: measures to cut red tape, slash targets and consolidate excess audit; measures to address the sweltering burden of bureaucracy that police officers strain under day in, day out; proposals to revise the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 so that police do not spend hours filling out forms so that they can stake out the house of a known burglar; a strengthening of the powers of stop and search to deal with spikes in gun, knife or drug crime in hot spots; returning charging discretion to the police for summary offences to free up 1 million police hours; reversing the health and safety rules so that the risk to the public is made the top priority; and changing the rules so that police and prosecutors support members of the public who intervene in good faith to uphold the law. However, the most salient omission consists of the proposals for directly elected crime and policing representatives set out in the Green Paper published last July. It is something of a climbdown to go from a Green Paper to a first clause that cannot be more than 10 lines long; that is a dramatic climbdown by this Government. The Home Secretary had promised this proposed legislation"““to strengthen the democratic link with the public””." She even went so far as to hail ““a new deal”” of"““greater freedom for the police, matched by greater power for the public.””—[Official Report, 17 July 2008; Vol. 479, c. 435.]" That was a nice slogan that got good press, but then it was dropped. Nothing better sums up this Government's obsession with spin over substance—with headlines over delivery—than their failure to keep their promises to cut police paperwork and give back control over policing to local communities.