Scrap Police Commissioners, Liberal Democrats Urge

Police & Crime Commissioners would be scrapped under Liberal Democrat manifesto proposals.

The party has revealed plans to replace controversial commissioners which will be debated at conference in Glasgow next month.

It comes amid calls for South Yorkshire Police Commissioner, Shaun Wright, to resign following the Rotherham child abuse scandal. Nick Clegg said (on LBC's Call Clegg radio interview) "You cannot have people who are supposed to be serving the public, and are accountable to the public, ignoring those basic principles of responsibility and accountability."

He went on to say " That is why I've come to the view that the PCC experiment...and it was an experiment ... that the Conservatives, quite understandably, wanted to try out. But I just don't think it's working."

"I remember saying, well it might work if you get genuinely independent people from normal walks of life actually coming forward. In fact what's happened - and Shaun Wright is just one example of this - is that the vast majority of PCCs, are basically retread politicians from the political parties. So I think we should scrap PCCs once their present term is over, and come up with a better way."

Julian Huppert, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesperson, said: "At the moment there is little evidence police commissioners are performing the task adequately."

The Party's pre-manifesto was published earlier this month. It guarantees that the police pursue the public's priorities on tackling crime by creating Police Boards made up of councillors from across a force area. These will replace commissioners with no need for fresh elections.

A new West Midlands police commissioner was recently elected by just less than a 10% polling day turn out.

Julian added: "We need a police watchdog which is more accountable to the public, not less."