Policing in the 21st Century

Hazel Blears Excerpts

Monday 26th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I am happy to give that assurance to my hon. Friend. SOCA has built up expertise in intelligence gathering, but we need to do more. We need to put more focus in this country on fighting serious organised crime, which is what the command within the NCA will be able to do.

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary will know that effective policing in this country is absolutely dependent on good intelligence at every level. How will she ensure that the relationships between local authorities and the police, which are essential not only for neighbourhood policing, but for that golden thread of intelligence that goes all the way through to tackling terrorism, are maintained under her proposals?

[Mrs May]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her question and for raising the point about the golden thread that runs through policing. It is absolutely essential that we retain that golden thread from local neighbourhood policing all the way through to the work done at national level to fight serious organised crime, terrorism and so on. However, one of the points of introducing directly elected police and crime commissioners is to ensure that someone in each force has a direct responsibility to the people, which will ensure that they represent the needs of the people in local policing.