Well, honestly. Of all the parts of the justice system that needed attention . . . the House of Lords? Not the vagueness of the crime statistics? Or that one needs to pay a solicitor as well as a barrister to go through a simple trial? Or the interminable rules governing the way the police deal with those under arrest? Or the inability to charge with dangerous driving a speeding hit-and-run driver who kills a child?

How much sexier to “abolish” the law lords and create a supreme court. So modern, so American, so . . . so like the law lords, actually. The 12 existing law lords are to be the 12 justices of the supreme court. They are to sit, still, in the House of Lords. And their replacements are to be chosen, not by a Cabinet minister — the Lord Chancellor — but by a Cabinet minister, the Constitutional Affairs Secretary. And this is progress? Pop a cherry on a stale cake and call it a gateau.

Not a lot of people come across the law lords. The bread-and-butter law which affects the life of the ordinary man or woman is rarely the stuff of judgments from on high. Unless they are overturning government policy, how often does a House of Lords decision make it on to the pages of the tabloids?

Far more relevant to the ordinary person are the less sexy changes announced this week by the Director of the Crown Prosecution Service, Ken Macdonald. From the autumn, prosecutors will take over responsibility from the police for charging suspects and organising the collection of evidence. Evidence rules are so complicated (or the police so stupid, depending on whom you ask) that many cases fall because police officers fail to collect the appropriate evidence, in the correct way. Conviction rates rose by 15 per cent and the number of guilty pleas increased by 30 per cent when, in a pilot scheme, the CPS took charge of the investigation and prosecution from the start. It will also have freed up hours of police time dealing with paperwork.

What to do with all that time? The way the police operate has to change. The new Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca: how macho) announced this week will barely make any difference to the way local police forces work. The combination of several existing national enforcement units such as fraud and Customs investigators, the National Crime Squad and National Criminal Intelligence Service, good idea though it is, is a logistical challenge rather than a fundamental reform of the way the police operate. Local forces don’t really “do” international organised crime.

If Soca were to be a British FBI, as it has been dubbed, then it would take responsibility for murders and other serious crime. The way these are investigated in this country is itself an offence to reason. The system operates according to the law of Buggins’s turn. Whichever senior officer is on call on the night that someone is murdered is put in charge of the case. No matter that he is following procedures last learnt a decade ago at police refresher school or wherever.

If someone has been murdered, the damage is at least already done. It matters less whether the police take weeks or months to catch the murderer — assuming he doesn’t re-offend in the meantime. But the danger is far greater when there is a kidnap or child abduction; when time may be of the essence in tracking down the offenders.

A national police squad could bring together all the elements necessary — many of them civilian, such as psychiatrists, forensic science experts and trained telephone operators to deal with the information flooding in from the public — to swing into action with the local force. Local police chiefs of course loathe the idea and will fight to the death (someone else’s) to prevent it.

And not only because they want to keep the “glamorous” crimes for themselves. They also need a raison d’être. For it isn’t quite clear what the police do with their time any more. They don’t patrol most streets, because they rightly believe that walking the beat only makes a difference in rougher areas. So the new community support officers are patrolling the streets for them. They may not cut crime but they make people feel safer.

Traffic policing is to be handed to new traffic authorities and to parking attendants. Catching burglars or car thieves is the responsibility of “computerised” police who analyse data and create intelligence models both to prevent and detect high-volume crime — far more effective than street patrols, but needing fewer officers. And, of course, you do not see them.

What you and I would think of as the traditional police officer is left to deal with public order — and shoplifting. The overwhelming majority of city-centre arrests are for drink or drug-related offences: fights at night, shoplifting (to feed drug habits) by day. Here is fertile territory for lawmakers to plough.

Labour is said to be considering making licensees contribute to extra policing costs if their customers are responsible for anti-social behaviour locally. They should go farther and charge all pub and nightclub owners the cost of policing city centres at night. Then they should charge shop owners the cost of policing their stores in the daytime, just as football clubs pay for the extra cost of policing matches.

The extra resources could fund more police officers to police the streets and respond to crime reports again. That done, legalise all recreational drugs, tax them and make them available free to addicts. Overall crime would be slashed in a shot; 58 per cent of those arrested for theft or robbery test positive for heroin or cocaine. They are stealing to fund their habit.

It may not be as sexy as FBI or Soca forces, or as “modern” as a supreme court, but the man on the street might actually notice the difference. He is unlikely to be much affected by a cosmetic exercise to replace 12 men in wigs with — the same 12 men in wigs.

Contribute to the Debate at comment@thetimes.co.uk