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Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

My Lords, Clause 80 sets out in some detail the principles of the strategic policing requirement. It is there in the Bill. There is a question of how much detail we want to write into the Bill, but Clause 80 sets out the fundamentals of that requirement. Clause 96 adds to that the backstop power for the Secretary of State to intervene if, in her opinion, local police forces are not paying sufficient attention to the strategic policing requirement. I add that ““have regard to”” is not, as has been suggested, a weak statement. It is a commonly used phrase for a strong and appropriate duty, which places an obligation on the chief officer and the PCC to comply with the strategic policing requirement. In policing terms, the duty to have regard has previously applied, for example, to codes of practice that have been used to implement a national intelligence model across all 43 police forces in England and Wales, to codify the use of police firearms and to ensure compliance with the IPCC statutory guidance on handling police complaints, which suggests that this is a widely used and strong duty.