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Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

I thank the Minister very much for her very lengthy response. I also thank everyone who took part in the debate. The intention of the amendments was very much to start off a debate on these issues. I thought that the many points to which the Minister has just referred needed to be explored in debate. There has been an extremely full and good debate on a whole range of issues. Perhaps I may mention one or two of them. The first issue is the composition of the panels. I feel the same way about the composition of the police and crime panels as I do about the composition of the House of Lords—I believe that composition should follow function. The composition of the panels should, in a sense, follow the functions of the panels, and I accept that I am trying to change those functions. I am trying to get the panels to have a more collaborative role. I do not want them just to be scrutinising the commissioner because I think that that would be a total waste of the panel members’ expertise. I am therefore trying to change the role. I am also suggesting that if the role should be more one of collaboration and getting involved in local policing, the composition will need to follow that. It will need to be somewhat more cohesive and to be balanced in the sorts of ways that I have mentioned. If the commission’s only function is to scrutinise the commissioner, which was the original model, then there is a greater case to be made that everybody should be included in this scrutiny exercise. But if that is all that the panels are going to do, it will be a complete waste of local talent.