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Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

My Lords, I do not agree with the amendment, for the following reasons. Noble Lords will be well aware of my concerns about the Bill, so I say this with a certain force. This legislation seems no different from other legislation that is contentious. It will be on the statute book in some form or other and able to be reviewed, renewed or repealed by a later Government—indeed, by the same Government, who may have second thoughts about it. I hope that it will be reviewed, but as part of a programme of post-legislative scrutiny, which it is high time Parliament had in place. Even without that post-legislative scrutiny, we have from time to time been reminded by the Leader of the House that there is an arrangement—it seems to me to be fairly loose, but I am assured that it exists—for substantial new legislation to be reviewed by government, which I do not think is the same as Parliament, after it has been in force for three years. Of course, if we had more time, I might tease the noble Lord about why he feels that it is necessary to provide for someone else to do something in four years.