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Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Before the Minister replies, I have a brief query that I would like to ask. Between discussing this in Committee and on Report, the Minister has laid an amendment about deputies, so I think we have covered this. I am therefore assuming that it is possible that the noble Baroness might be saying—and it was certainly what I understood when it was first mentioned—that a deputy might assume this role of acting commissioner. When I looked at this in some depth, it seemed to me that this deputy post was not one that would be exempted from Section 2 of the Local Government and Housing Act. In other words, it was going to be a post where the incumbent would have to be politically restricted. If that was in fact the case and it was a politically restricted post, it would seem to me to be completely wrong for that person who is politically restricted to be able to act up. Am I correct in my understanding of that? When that deputy post was created, I had rather assumed that one of the reasons for it was that the deputy could act up, but having looked at it, I do not see how that could work. I would be most grateful if the noble Baroness would perhaps say something about that as well in her reply.