Public Order Policing

Tom Brake Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his opening remarks. In relation to what the report on royal protection will go into, he referred to a couple of matters on which there has been press speculation, such as the communications equipment. That is exactly the sort of issue that the report will consider. It will look in detail at exactly what happened, and will come out on Friday, although the amount of information that can be made public will be limited.

On the second point, I say to the right hon. Gentleman that I am here making a statement, and that we already have the equivalent of a police and crime commissioner in London—the Mayor.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Does the Home Secretary agree that there should be no knee-jerk reaction to this cowardly attack? We do not want to change the relationship between British citizens and the royal family, nor should we change policing tactics radically by introducing water cannon or rubber bullets.

[Mrs May]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and have said so on a couple of occasions, both in my statement and in response to the shadow Home Secretary.