§ Mr. Eldon Griffithsasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he has received the further recommendations of Lord Edmund-Davies' review body on the structure of the police staff associations; if he will publish this further report; and if he will make a statement of his intentions in regard to these recommendations and the composition and responsibilities of the proposed new police negotiating body.
§ Mr. WhitelawThe report is being published today. The committee concludes that no radical changes are needed394W in the existing arrangements governing the activities of the police staff associations, but it makes a number of detailed recommendations for improvement, which are designed to enable the staff associations to represent their members more effectively. In particular, it recommends the establishment of improved informal procedures for consultation between the staff associations, chief constables and police authorities, so that local problems may more easily be resolved. I am grateful to the committee for undertaking this thorough and wide-ranging inquiry, which will, I am sure, be of great value to the police service, and I and my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Northern Ireland will now give detailed consideration to its recommendations, in consultation with all the bodies concerned.
In answer to the last part of the question, I am now in a position to set up the new negotiating body on the basis proposed by the Edmund-Davies committee. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced yesterday that the noble Lord Lord Plowden had accepted appointment as its first chairman.