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Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

My Lords, I wonder if I might put a different gloss on the matters that we are debating in this group of amendments. We know that there is a strong likelihood that there will be a national crime agency some time in the next calendar year. We already have a discussion document about that. It refers to tasking, which I am confidently assured means direction from the centre. That means that there is bound to be tension between local and national issues, which is a good thing. It is democracy in action. It is inevitable that the inspectorate will become involved, at the behest of local or national figures. That is what it is there for and that is my experience, having served in it for more than five years, albeit some time ago. I am concerned that the Bill is in grave danger of becoming overprescriptive. We are covering detail, which is good as far as it goes. However, to put it in the Bill rather than take it as a matter of good sense or encompass it in regulation stretches too far the issue of what should be in the Bill. I shall refer to Amendment 235A. Having followed an all-encompassing definition of national crime, we are then invited to put in something about children, vulnerable adults, members of minority groups and so on. I do not at all underestimate the threat to those groups; terrible things are done to and with them. However, if we are to pick out those groups, why do we not put in something about drugs, counterterrorism, and the theft of high-value motor vehicles and plant, all of which happen on a European—if not a more international—scale? Why do we not put in something about cybercrime or identity theft? I shall sit down soon because I want to brief, but my point is that we should not drop into the trap of being overprescriptive. Valid though all the comments from speakers so far have been, it is asking the Bill to accept too much.