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Antisocial Behaviour

That is interesting, because the hon. Lady suggests that the power should come from the people—that it should come from the ground up, rather than from the top down. Therefore, she is making a case against her other point about the need to direct from the centre. There is a need to create greater discretion across policing as quickly as possible, and our approach is based on two clear and simple principles: scrapping needless paperwork by giving more discretion to the police, and giving officers the power to innovate and stay on the beat. We do not need a whole host of targets, reviews, reports, key performance indicators, investigations and toolkits to meet the simple goal of reducing crime and antisocial behaviour. We need officers to be on the streets, not behind their desks. That is why we would cut the targets, the bureaucracy and the central control to allow police officers to get on with the job. That is also why we would abolish statutory charging for all summary offences and some offences triable "either way", as we want to cut the pre-charge police paperwork that currently has to be given to the Crown Prosecution Service and wish to help restore morale among custody sergeants.