The APA’S note to Peers ahead of their Committee stage consideration of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill this afternoon, 11.05.11, cautioned against adopting a new system that could lead to the public seeing the police as identified with a single party, according to the allegiance of their elected Police Commissioner. 

APA Deputy Chair, Mrs Ann Barnes said:

“British policing remains admired across the world and both the impartiality of policing, and the public perception of impartiality is the jewel in our crown.

We are concerned that an elected Police Commissioner, almost inevitably with a party label, and identified as the figurehead for policing, could lead to the public perceiving their local force as somehow ‘Labour’, ‘Conservative’, ‘LibDem’ or  partial according to the party of their Commissioner.

From being the envy of many countries, England and Wales could be transformed into a patchwork of differently ‘aligned’ police forces with inevitably serious consequences for the trust and confidence of the public. 

Why dump a system that’s delivered both falling crime and rising public confidence and put at risk a proud 180-year old tradition of keeping politics at arms’ length from policing?   

We welcome the new Home Office Minister, Baroness Browning, making her debut in today’s debate, and hope that her appointment might provide the Coalition with an opportunity to look afresh at the many sensible changes to the Police Reform Bill suggested within the 234 amendments submitted by a wide range of Peers.”