Lord Bach
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Wednesday 30th November 2016
(7 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 72-I(Rev)(a) Amendments for Report, supplementary to the revised marshalled list (PDF, 62KB) - (30 Nov 2016)
Lord Bach (Lab)
My Lords, the Government, particularly the Ministers, deserve real congratulation on making this amendment. I think all Members of the House, wherever they sit, will be really pleased that this has happened. It will certainly, in a small way, make my life as a police and crime commissioner easier. Having “Independent” in the name of the new body will make it easier to explain how the complaints system works. I congratulate the Government and I am very happy to support the amendment.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I, too, thank the Government and the Minister for listening. A number of Members, including noble Lords who had been senior police officers, made the point about how important this is to enable police officers to do their job. I am very pleased that the Government have listened.
Lord Bach
My Lords, I declare my interest as the police and crime commissioner for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland and say in passing what a pleasure it was to host the Minister in Leicestershire the other day. I know that this matter was briefly raised with her, but neither I nor the chief constable talked about it for long. It was a great pleasure to have her there, and her visit went down very well.
There is a need to reform the present system of pre-charge bail. We all know of cases—of course, none in Leicestershire that I know of—where individuals, to put it mildly, have been carelessly treated by the present system. I personally know of one recent case where the delay has been truly shocking. However, the more the principle is right, the more vital it is that the practical way of putting it into effect is correct too. It is important that the change should work, without causing serious difficulties—the kind of difficulties that both the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, and the noble Lord, Lord Blair, mentioned—and unnecessary disruption for the police.