John Wadham - director of Liberty:

Police powers to auxiliaries, other staff
We are concerned at any moves to give police powers to civilian staff. These powers have to come with adequate training and accountability: that simply means these powers should remain with the police - if more people are needed to implement them that should mean more police officers, not poorly-trained and less accountable substitutes.

Independent Police Complaints Commission
The Government must introduce a new independent police complaints commission - and it must be genuinely independent and adequately resourced.

It will have to prove itself a fair, open and effective independent investigator in practice if it is to help restore essential public confidence in the police.

The new Commission must be visibly independent -with only a minority police involvement to help its effectiveness. And it must be given sufficient resources so that it can ensure a full independent investigation of the most serious complaints made against the police.