L

Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 18 November 2025

Debate

Police Reform

Contribution

I can take my noble friend back to 2010-11, when the Labour Party, then in opposition, opposed police and crime commissioners in principle but fought the elections because when there is an elected position, you have to try to fight to fill it. We have looked at the issues of governance and at the issues that my noble friend mentioned. We think it is important that we have independence of policing, but we still believe that there has to be some oversight of that policing, of the budget and of the chief constable to make them accountable. That is why the directly elected mayor will have the responsibility, among many others, to appoint a deputy mayor, potentially, to run policing. In areas that do not have directly elected mayors, we will look to have an indirectly elected policing board comprising senior people from the council, but it is absolutely important that the integrity of that independence is maintained.

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