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Howard's Way.... a weekly column from the Rt. Hon. Michael Howard QC. MP. 

14 February 2008

Regular readers will know that I don’t often say ‘I told you so.’ But two recent reports have made the temptation irresistible.

First was the Flanagan report on police red tape. That recommended the scrapping of a form which police must fill in every time they stop someone in the street. The form takes up to seven minutes to complete and the report says it should be scrapped when people are stopped by the police but retained if an individual is searched.

That is exactly what I called for when I was Leader of the Opposition and it should not have needed a report to demonstrate how obviously sensible that change would be.

It is one of a number of changes which would save between four and six million hours of police time. How many million hours could have been saved in the last four years if the change had been made when I originally called for it?

Within a day of the publication of the Flanagan report the Prime Minister accepted the recommendations of the Chilcot report which concluded that it should be possible to find a way to use intercept evidence in court.

Again this is something I called for when I was Leader of the Opposition and I gave evidence to the Chilcot Committee. Admittedly this is a complicated area and I agree with the Prime Minister that more work needs to be done.

But how much better off we would be if this work had started all those years ago?

There is of course much truth in the old adage, ‘better late than never’ and one should always welcome repentance. But I cannot pretend that I do not feel a great sense of frustration that it has taken so long for the Government to act on my suggestions. They would help to make our country a safer place and that is something we all want to see.