MPs suggest Metropolitan Police end counter-terror role

Commons Home Affairs Committee calls for role to be given to the new National Crime Agency

The Commons Home Affairs Committee has suggested the Home Office give the Metropolitan Police's counter-terrorism role to the new National Crime Agency after the 2012 Olympics.

In a new report, the committee examines the Government's proposals for policing reform and calls for it to revise its timetables for introducing the changes.

Key points made include that it is unacceptable that, more than a year after the Government announced it was phasing out the National Policing Improvement Agency, it still has not announced any definite decisions about the future of the vast majority of the functions currently performed by the Agency. The committee recommends that it delay the phasing out of the Agency until the end of 2012.

Also, that the Government must urgently appoint a head of the new National Crime Agency, and the proposed new Professional Body must be inclusive from the outset and not just involve officers of ACPO ranks. Individual police officers and staff need to believe that this is their body.

The committee states the Home Office should be more active in encouraging and supporting forces to collaborate with one another, the Home Office must make revolutionising police IT a top priority, and that Tom Winsor's review of pay and conditions is having an inevitable impact on morale in the police service, but believes it is possible to do more to mitigate this.

Chair of the committee, Rt Hon Keith Vaz MP said: "The police perform a difficult and dangerous task on behalf of the public and the continuing uncertainty about the future of many of the bodies involved in policing has the potential to be very damaging."

Further information:
Home Affairs Committee