Nicholas Brown
Main Page: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)Department Debates - View all Nicholas Brown's debates with the Home Office
(9 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
2. What assessment she has made of the effect of city deals and other forms of devolution on the future of police commissioners.
Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
16. Whether her Department plans to devolve police oversight functions to city mayors outside London.
The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Mike Penning)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I shall answer questions 2 and 16 together.
Police and crime commissioners have brought direct accountability and localism to policing in this country, and, as we have seen in London, incorporating the role of the PCC in mayoral devolution has worked really well, especially under this excellent London Mayor.
Mike Penning
No; the police and crime commissioners are doing an excellent job. They bring accountability. The only bid to incorporate the PCC role at the moment is the bid from Manchester, and I look forward to seeing it working on the ground.
Mr Nicholas Brown
How will these arrangements work in the north-east of England, which has one economic zone—incorporating Durham, Northumberland and Tyne and Wear—but two police authorities and two police and crime commissioners? Does the Home Office propose to merge the police authorities and their commissioners or to transfer their functions to a new individual?
Mike Penning
It is entirely up to the local community to decide what it wants. If we look at other parts of the country, we can see that West Mercia and Warwickshire are working closely together. If the police authorities in the right hon. Gentleman’s area wanted to merge, they would need to put their business plan to us. It is not only the big cities that could come together; such proposals could involve rural areas as well.