Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Fullbrook Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lancaster (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

5. What recent steps she has taken to make police forces more accountable to local residents.

[Lorraine Fullbrook (South Ribble) (Con)]

8. What recent steps she has taken to make police forces more accountable to local people.

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)]

The introduction of elected police and crime commissioners to hold their chief constable and force to account through a strong public mandate will restore the connection between the police and the people, ensuring that the police are held to account democratically, not bureaucratically by Whitehall.

[Nick Herbert]

Decisions on whether to continue with the basic command unit structure within forces are a matter for chief constables to decide, and not one on which the Government have taken a view. I appreciate my hon. Friend’s concerns about resources and am happy to discuss them with him and to find out from the chief constable when I next see her, which will be this week, what she plans to do to allay them.

[Lorraine Fullbrook]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that a partnership between the police force and the local community is the best way to tackle crime?

[Hon. Members]

Thanks for that!