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Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his response. I had not realised that this matter would be quite so complicated or contentious, because I said in moving the amendment that I thought that it was relatively straightforward. The amendment goes to the heart of something very important: the nature of scrutiny. The Minister said that scrutiny was of the commissioner by the panel, but that raises the question where the panel gets its information from, because panel members need to be involved at all levels. When the number of bodies involved in running or managing something is increased, the level of consultation, scrutiny and representation has to be improved, otherwise things will go wrong. Scrutiny cannot just be about what happened; it has to be scrutiny of what might happen and what people feel should happen. The only way of delivering that kind of scrutiny is through a more formalised mechanism for consultation. Therefore, to have members of panels who are members of a partnership body is central to enabling the scrutiny function to take place. However, we have had an interesting debate. My noble friend the Minister has given a commitment that there will be further discussion prior to Report. I remind him that I raised a point about witnesses, which will no doubt be discussed as well. Given that we have had a detailed discussion of the issue and that those further discussions will take place, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 81 withdrawn. Clause 9, as amended, agreed. Clause 10 : Co-operative working Clause 10 : Co-operative working Amendments 82 and 83 not moved. Amendment 83ZZA Tabled by