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Policing and Crime Bill

I thank the Minister for what he has had to say, but I fundamentally disagree with him. I believe that the presence of competition is almost as important as competition taking place. The fact that someone knows that the price he is paying for something might be subject to challenge by someone else often causes the price or the efficiency to improve immeasurably. I am sorry, but I do not take from him the points about local knowledge. I am sure that the BT police, or any other police force for that matter, gain such local knowledge as is important. That is part of their job. The BT police want to know who is stealing cable in an area or who is obstructing the track. That is based on local knowledge and they are as capable of getting local knowledge as the warranted force who often regard the railways as a nuisance anyway. I will study carefully what he has said, but I am not very sympathetic. Perhaps I might put it that he is maintaining the point of view of the people who are not in the House, but are perhaps sitting over there to my right, rather than the rational view of a rational government.