After the report was published, Patrick Mayhew described the current state of British Law, absent reform, as harming both police and suspects. In a statement in the House of Commons in 1981, Mayhew said: "Both the police and the suspect are hampered by this state of affairs—the police because they may be obliged to operate in areas of doubtful or ambiguous legal authority and the suspect because his rights at any particular moment may be so unclear that he lacks any proper or practical legal protection."