Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Ed Balls and Hazel Blears

Monday 13th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls]

I do not know whether the Library report quotes the Conservative chair of the police authority in Kent, who, as I understand it, totally disagrees with the hon. Gentleman and says that the proposal is flawed and will not work. It will not be properly representative.

Bizarrely, the coalition came along and proposed the abolition of police authorities, but then realised that it was a flawed policy. It then decided to reinvent police authorities and give them a new name so that they would be called panels rather than authorities. The problem of representation needs to be solved, because it is serious.

[Hazel Blears]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that visibility and accountability have to be balanced with the integration of services, particularly with local authorities and other partners? Partnership working in policing has been shown to work over the past few years, and a single elected commissioner could well tear the system apart and lead to much less effective policing on the ground.

[Ed Balls]

I agree, and effective accountability really ought to happen in the main in the basic command unit. We need to ensure that the police are accountable to their community, but that they can demand support from the local authority, the health service and the other agencies that are vital to tackling the causes of drug crime and wider youth crime. All that will be ripped up under the Government’s proposals, and we will end up instead with one elected person for a massive area, who will be able to visit each ward perhaps once every other year. That is not local accountability at all.