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Policing and Crime Bill

My hon. Friend, who is a distinguished member of the Select Committee, is absolutely right. This is also about engagement; it is not just about compulsion. I hope that such engagement will be part of the process that the Government introduce in this Bill. The second issue that I wish to discuss is the accountability of our police forces. Our Government, right at the last moment, withdrew their proposals for elected members of police committees, and I understood perfectly well why they did so. There was a risk of extremist minority groups taking over police committees on the basis of single-issue activities, and that would have destabilised the way in which the committees operate. The Government were right not to proceed with those proposals, but it is important that members of the public are made more aware of what police committees do. I can name a number of members of my local police committees, but sadly the only ones who I can recall are those who are elected representatives themselves—councillors nominated from the various political groups. It is important that members of local police committees go out to the local communities, hold meetings and engage with the public, so that people understand exactly what they do. I say that because although those bodies control budgets of several million pounds, people still do not know precisely what they do.