Police Reform Bill [Lords]

Public Bill Committee, 20 June 2002.

Standing Committee A

Clause 35 - Police powers for police authority employees

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

I beg to move amendment No. 95, in page 34, line 30, leave out 'provisions specifying the'.

Good morning, Mr. Stevenson. Welcome back to the Chair. The amendment is short, but fundamental. As drafted, the Bill will allow chief officers to confer on community support officers or civilian employees the powers that are listed under schedule 4. It is interesting that they will not have that discretion in respect of accredited community safety schemes under schedule 5, which is an all-or-nothing schedule.

Now is not the time to debate the powers themselves. That will be dealt with under a later group of amendments. We have fewer reservations about investigating officers, detention officers and escort officers, but I want to discuss whether CSOs should all have the same powers or whether a chief officer should have the power to vary them within his own force. I am the first to recognise that arguments can be made on both sides. The importance of local decision making has been raised several times. I cannot get away from that, but the downside of variations is worse than the advantages. Therefore, we should remove the discretion of chief officers to decide which powers to confer on CSOs. Under schedule 4—assuming that the Government have their way on other issues—up to 13 different powers will be available for community support officers, six for investigating officers, 11 for detention officers and escort officers are covered by two main broad headings.

Members of the Committee have expressed concern about the need to avoid confusion. However, the clause will cause considerable confusion because each chief officer can confer on CSOs different powers from the menu of 13 that may be different from the powers that the chief officer of the neighbouring force may adopt. I understand that, even within the force, the chief officer could designate different CSOs with different permutations of those 13 police powers. The Minister will say whether I am right or wrong. The main demand for CSOs powers will come from the Metropolitan police, but we must also bear in mind the probability that there will be variations from borough to borough and within the 43 forces throughout the country.

It is the consumer—the public, whom such people will serve—about whom I am most concerned. People do not necessarily know in which force's area they are working, living, shopping or spending their leisure

time, for example. Therefore they will not know what powers a CSO with whom they come in contact may have. I understand that a police constable is a police constable is a police constable, whichever part of Britain he happens to be in, and has the powers of a constable. The same applies to a police officer of any rank: he will have the powers of a constable. If we have CSOs with a variety of powers, the member of the public involved will not know what powers they have.

I give an example from my constituency—which does not include the possibility of variations within a force. Part of my constituency is on the southern outskirts of Newmarket, which most people think is in Suffolk, as, indeed, most of it is. The county boundary, although precise, is indistinct for the casual person. Some of my constituency and, therefore, part of Cambridgeshire, is in Newmarket. Therefore, a person in one street might be in the Cambridgeshire force, and have one set of powers, and someone in the next street or even in an extension of the same street, where it runs into Suffolk, might have a different set of powers. To me, that is a recipe for confusion. From confusion comes discredit and ridicule of the situation as daft and difficult to understand, and the whole thing falls into disrepute.

In the debate on the matter in the other place, many points were made extremely well. In moving the appropriate amendment, my noble Friend Lord Dixon-Smith said:

''The way in which the Bill is drafted means that a community support officer who has a limited basket of powers, because that is the way that the chief constable has designated him, may work with another community support officer who has a different basket of powers because he may have come from a slightly different area or . . . be held to have a different level of competence. The opportunity for public confusion as to what these people are and how they are functioning is huge.''—[Official Report, House of Lords, 7 March 2002; Vol. 632, c. 418.]

Another noble Lord said something especially apposite:

''Although I cannot prejudge what will happen, I can well foresee different chief constables making different use of the 'menu'. If they make different use of the powers so that their community support officers have different powers, the public might well wonder why that has happened.''—[Official Report, House of Lords, 7 March 2002; Vol. 632, c. 452.]

That was the noble Lord Rooker—the Minister responsible at the time.

The Association of Police Authorities states clearly that

''CSOs must be standardised with the rest of the service to ensure that they are instantly recognisable to the public and their role is properly understood.''

The Police Federation—which opposes CSOs having powers, although that is not the matter under discussion—states:

''Each will be given one, some or all of the powers from the basket of powers provided in the Bill. This is a recipe for confusion and disorder: how will a member of the public know whether a particular CSO has the power to demand their name and address or to detain them''—

which is another issue—

''pending the arrival of a constable?''

Others have made similar remarks, and I shall not detain the Committee. However, if the spectre that

that conjures up were not so serious, it could be farcical. A CSO could have powers to use, for example, force, or to confiscate alcohol, require a name and address or seize a vehicle, yet another CSO in the same force, in the same street, perhaps a few feet away, will not have those powers. How will the public know? All will have the CSO designated uniform, whatever it may be, but the public will not know who has what powers.

Moreover, even if all CSOs in a force have the same powers, because of the geography of this country, officers of adjoining forces will police in close proximity to one another. They will police adjoining streets and, indeed, in some towns, different sides of the same street, as county, borough or authority boundaries sometimes run down the centre of a road. We might have the absurd situation that a lout on one side of the street, carrying a can of alcohol, behaving badly and cursing and swearing, can be detained by the CSO, but if he crosses to the other side or goes into the next street, he cannot be detained or have his alcohol confiscated. That would bring the whole concept into disrepute.

This is not a debate about CSOs' powers; we will discuss that later. As CSOs are to be introduced, we want them to be successful. The last thing that we want is for them to fall into disrepute, and for the public to treat them with ridicule.

Colin Challen (Labour, Morley and Rothwell)

I have been listening to the hon. Gentleman's argument carefully, and I wonder whether he would extend it to the issue of having different laws in different parts of the country. For example, some local authorities have byelaws banning the consumption of alcohol on their streets, and others do not. As he is against CSOs having different powers in different places, does his argument also apply to the eradication of all differing byelaws, of which there must be hundreds?

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

That is a perfectly good point, and I prefaced my opening remarks by saying that I recognise that there are arguments both ways. I wholly support the concept of local byelaws, and those that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, which are eminently sensible. It is a pity that not every authority has decided to go down that route, because such byelaws will be necessary if we are to restore the order that most of us ordinary, law-abiding peaceful civilians would like to have on our streets.

When talking about CSOs, we are discussing acts that are widely recognised by the public to be illegal, and not byelaws. There have been variations in byelaws for many decades; the public have got used to that. Byelaws are usually made visible, for example by placards or notices that say, ''No dog fouling. Penalty x, y or z,'' so people are aware of them. There is no way that someone will know what powers a CSO officer wearing a uniform has simply by looking at him.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

Is there not a difference, philosophically and practically between the existence

of different laws and the enforcement of laws by persons with differing powers.

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

Absolutely. The hon. Gentleman is right; there is a difference. People can usually establish fairly quickly what the law is in a particular place. They can do so by reading notices, which are often put up, or by going to the police station or town hall, or by many other means if they are interested in knowing whether they can get drunk in a particular street and wave alcohol about.

However, there will be no way for people to tell what powers a CSO has if chief officers grant different CSOs different arrays of power from within schedule 4. They cannot even go to the police station to ask about it unless they have the name and number of a particular CSO. They will not have any means of understanding what the situation is from the uniform.

Meg Munn (Labour/Co-operative, Sheffield, Heeley)

Surely most of us, who are law abiding citizens, do not worry about that, because we assume that we are within the law and are behaving reasonably. Those who flout the law do not worry about that either. It is for a local police force to determine the problems of behaviour and the issues in its area, just as it does with byelaws. It could therefore use its members as appropriate. That would be better than people worrying about who is doing what.

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

I do not think that the hon. Lady's argument necessarily follows. Of course, the vast majority of the population are perfectly reasonable, law-abiding citizens and assume that everything that we do is law-abiding. Those people would not, therefore, worry about the nitty-gritty of what is or is not illegal on a particular street. She is right. However, to move on from that and say that therefore the powers of CSOs should vary is a non sequitur. There would be serious grounds for confusion.

Despite what the hon. Lady said, we envisage CSO's using their powers in marginal situations rather than in cases involving serious crimes—issues of disorder, or antisocial behaviour, for example. Whether behaviour is antisocial is sometimes a matter of subjective judgment. Therefore, we must be consistent in determining what constitutes a power of a CSO. A situation such as I described could arise—people could be apprehended by a CSO for acting anti-socially on one side of the street but not if they go into the next street. I submit to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Ms Munn), that that is not what the general public would want.

If somebody is acting antisocially, by drinking alcohol in an antisocial manner, generally behaving unpleasantly and disrupting the community, they should be apprehended by a CSO and dealt with wherever that may be—if a CSO is to have the power to do so. That is what police officers do. If people behave antisocially any police officer can deal with them. If we are going to have CSOs, the same should apply.

Huw Irranca-Davies (Labour, Ogmore)

I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman said that there are arguments on both sides. One of the most important things to remember about the potential employment of CSOs is that it is an innovative scheme. As such, there will be local variations in the need for and the requirements of CSOs. Best value is one argument in favour of variation. We should see how CSOs work in different conditions so that forces in different basic command units can learn from each other. It is inevitable that they will converge into a set model, but for the moment, we should proceed with this innovative scheme by allowing for variability within certain constructions.

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly valid point. However, we are talking about something totally new. These officers are not neighbourhood or community wardens, but people with a considerable level of police power, which has so far applied only to traffic wardens. If we have CSOs, I hope that the public will readily take to them, recognise and appreciate them and give them credibility.

We all know that a bad reputation is easily gained and quickly lost. By having variations in powers, I worry that the public will quickly start to discredit the principle of CSOs because of the sort of situation that I described, and it will take years to undo the damage caused by that initial impression.

Huw Irranca-Davies (Labour, Ogmore)

Surely it should be incumbent upon the various divisional commanders to ensure that they co-operate effectively and that we do not have the sort of boundary problems described by the hon. Gentleman, which would fly in the face of best practice across all aspects of the public sector. We should allow CSOs varied powers, at least in the early stages of this new innovation, and have guidelines that ensure that they work together effectively, in their local neighbourhoods and across boundaries.

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

Obviously, I am all in favour of commanders working together. I remind the hon. Gentleman that he supported Government proposals to override that, and for the Secretary of State to make those sorts of decisions, so he cannot have it both ways.

If we are to have CSOs, we all want them to work, but I am concerned that if we start off with the amount of confusion that I have described, there is a risk that they will quickly fall into public disrepute and be ridiculed, and then the whole thing will begin to collapse around our ears. None of us wants that to happen, which is why we should remove this discretion from chief officers.

Sylvia Hermon (UUP, North Down)

Will the hon. Gentleman clarify what he understands to be the meaning of clause 35(5). It says:

''A person designated under this section shall have the powers and duties conferred or imposed on him the designation.''

That implies to me that it is the designation, rather than the choice of the chief officer, that gives the powers and duties to a CSO.

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

Order. I am unclear whether that relates to the amendment.

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

I have raised the question of whether the chief officer will have the power to vary the powers of different CSOs within his force. The hon. Lady is right to raise that point—notwithstanding your comment, Mr. Stevenson—because it lies behind my earlier question. My reading of the legislation—and of others' interpretation of it, including that of the Police Federation—is that the chief officer will have the discretion as to whether to give the same powers to all of his CSOs, or to vary them.

The amendment deals with subsection (6), where the second line makes it clear that the chief officer will have the discretion to choose which of the 13 powers he wishes to give to his CSOs—that that is the case is also apparent from earlier comments from Labour Members. In my mind, there is also no doubt that he will also be able to give different powers to his CSOs.

I have made my case in the way that I wanted to. I recognise that there are arguments the other way, but if this measure is to work, we will need consistency and clarity in the legislation. There is a serious risk that if the powers are allowed to vary in different parts of the country—from borough to borough, and even street to street—we will not get the consistency and clarity that we have sought to put into this Bill.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. The points raised by the hon. Members for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) and for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) relate to four points that I made on Second Reading, two of which were as follows:

''If the CSOs are to command support in post, they must first be recognisable, which means that they must have a common uniform. Secondly, they must have one set of powers that does not vary between areas''—[Official Report, 7 May 2002; Vol. 385, c. 81.]

The other two related to later clauses.

The hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire referred to the argument that there is no consistency between the powers of traffic wardens in different areas. If, for example, traffic wardens in Bromley are responsible for double yellow lines and traffic wardens in York are responsible only for single yellow lines and dotted lines, there would be uncertainty over their role and they would not command the support that they do. Someone in Lewes may know how far they can go with CSOs and when they go to Wrexham, they may behave accordingly, only to be detained by CSOs who do have extra powers. That, in turn, could lead to detention and an escalation in confrontation because of lack of clarity. It is wrong to give community support officers powers that are, to a degree, antagonistic and liable to cause friction with people against whom the CSO wishes to enforce the powers. We shall address the powers in later amendments.

A CSO might want to exercise a power that is controversial—at least with regard to the person against whom it is exercised. If the power is used in one part of the country but not another, that could cause confusion and uncertainty. What happens if a person lives on the edge of a part of the country in which the chief constable gives the minimum amount of power to CSOs? Of course, many chief constables are opposed to giving powers to CSOs. That is consistent with the need to gain community support.

I think that it is a likely scenario, by the way. In order to maximise support in the community, chief constables might not wish to give CSOs powers that will antagonise those with whom they come in contact. In other places, CSOs might be given the full panoply of support that is in the Bill.

What will happen if people live in an area in which they know, if they are streetwise enough, that if they see a CSO standing in the street when they come out of the pub after a few drinks, the CSO cannot touch them? What would happen if those people wandered across the border to a London borough for a drink with a friend? The CSO there could use an entirely different response. Such people would assert, with some knowledge because of experience elsewhere, that the CSO does not have certain powers, such as the power to seize alcohol. That would be more likely to result in a fracas or confrontation than if powers were understood and consistent throughout the country. Ministers in the Lords failed to address that point properly.

I refer the Minister to a Police Federation of England and Wales briefing that said:

''Each CSO will be given one, some, or all of the powers from the vast array of powers provided in the Bill. This is the recipe for confusion and disorder. How will a member of the public know whether a particular CSO has the power to demand their name and address or to detain them using reasonable force for up to 30 minutes pending the arrival of a constable?''

That paragraph does not address whether CSOs should be in place; we will have to know the views of the Police Federation of England and Wales on that. It is a valid observation and a criticism of the Government's proposals by police officers who know about policing. Their experience on the street shows that there is likely to be a problem. The Minister cannot simply brush that point away because he must realise that people with experience make it.

There is also widespread confusion about the different types of officers that the Bill will create. I mention that now because it is germane to the accountability point. If CSOs are to be accepted by the community, they must command support by wearing a common uniform and having the same powers. If they wear a common uniform but have different powers, it will be difficult for the public to understand that. It will be a complete shambles if CSOs throughout the country wear different uniforms and have different powers. Either way, the system will not work.

If we create a new tier, the public must understand who does what. I suggest that the best way to do that is for police officers—and special constables—to all have the same powers and for CSOs to all have the same powers. Frankly, traffic wardens should be wrapped up with CSOs so that we do not add to the categories of people with power any more than we must. The Minister seems to go in the opposite direction, and that is leading to mass confusion. I do not wish to be disrespectful, but I hear interventions from Labour Members, either in Committee or on the Floor of the House, who appear not to know what powers are

being suggested for particular categories. They stand up and say, ''Well, the street warden system is working very well in my part of the country.''

I am sure that that is true, and I certainly support street warden systems, but that is not what the Bill proposes. It proposes something rather different, and we must get our heads around that.

At a recent Prime Minister's Question Time, the Prime Minister himself used four different titles to describe CSOs. He is not clear about it, and he is in charge of the Government-—[Interruption.] Well, allegedly: we must remember Mr. Alastair Campbell. If the Prime Minister himself is not clear about what powers are being given and what titles apply, what hope is there that the general public will find them acceptable?

Accountability is the bedrock of acceptance of police powers. Accountability requires clarity, yet clarity is missing. I hope that the Minister will not dismiss the amendment but deal with it seriously. It addresses a serious problem.

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

As the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire said, this issue can be argued both ways. He will not be surprised when I tell the Committee that some of the factors discussed this morning were considered when Ministers decided how best to frame the Bill.

We believe that Opposition Members have reached the wrong conclusion on this matter. It is ironic that the Government should have been accused, during the passage of the Bill, of centralism and of removing some local autonomy and yet, even though this provision relies unambiguously on the local judgment, common sense and professionalism of chief police officers, both Opposition parties gang up on us and say that that is no good and that one cannot rely on those people to take sensible decisions. That is an interesting reversal of debate.

I shall deal with a couple of legal points first. In answer to the doubt expressed by the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon), I assure her that schedule 4 allows a selection of powers to be exercised by police civilians, and clause 37 does the same for accredited CSOs. There should therefore be no ambiguity about that.

Chapter 1 of part 4 is about local determination and flexibility. It deals with applying an appropriate policing service to an area that fits the needs of that locality. It is also the best way to introduce a new concept and approach into the police service in this country. I am not attempting to score a political point in the matter, but on Second Reading the hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) said that he was not opposed to the idea of piloting some of the CSO powers to do with detention with the use of reasonable force. I cannot provide the exact reference, as I do not have the relevant Hansard to hand. We will no doubt return to the matter later, but one cannot say that everywhere must be standardised and then that

the use of some of the more controversial powers should be piloted.

We must also reflect the reality that, in the service as a whole, there are different views about the right combinations of powers. We all know that the Metropolitan police service wants to have CSOs with powers of detention and the use of reasonable force. My understanding from a recent conversation with the chairman of the Lancashire police authority is that that authority wants to have CSOs without those powers.

It is reasonable to say, at this stage of the introduction of a new concept, that local flexibility, with the ability to evaluate what happens in practice, is valuable.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

Does the Minister envisage that CSOs from one police authority might be used by another, for example when forces co-operate to cover a big event? If so, CSOs working for one authority might have different powers from those granted by the authority to whom they are on loan. How on earth would that work?

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

The legislation only enables a CSO to exercise the powers when they are on duty in the area covered by the force concerned. There are no cross-boundary powers. I shall come to the broader cross-boundary or street-by-street issue raised by the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire in a moment.

The argument used by the hon. Member for Lewes is quite interesting. He mentioned parking offences in support of his case about confusion. In some areas such offences are dealt with by police traffic wardens, and in others such offences have been decriminalised and are dealt with by local authority employees. Some local authorities have contracted out such enforcement. There is a difference between the powers of police traffic wardens and those of local authority parking attendants. It has not been brought to my attention that that has caused massive confusion in the enforcement of traffic laws up and down the country.

There are other variations. London parks police have different powers from other police officers on the streets of London. Under local government legislation, there are differences between the powers of London parks police and those of police in the few other areas that have analogous legislation—and, of course, those in areas that have no such legislation. Those powers are, again, different from those of the British Transport police. We do not encounter massive practical problems because of those different approaches. The public seem to be able to accept them.

Boris Johnson (Conservative, Henley)

I am still troubled by the problem of a CSO having power on one side of the street but not the other side. The Minister has not yet addressed that. I wonder whether he envisages there being any provision for hot pursuit by a CSO trying to apprehend a criminal, such as that provided for pursuit across state lines in America. Will it be legitimate for the CSO to exercise his powers briefly in the other borough when pursuing someone offending in his borough?

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

The answer, which I thought I had already given, is no. CSOs will not be able to exercise their powers outside their police force area, whether in hot or cold pursuit. I shall come to how we expect police forces to resolve the boundary issues in practice in a moment.

George Osborne (Conservative, Tatton)

To pick up on the excellent point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Johnson), if there were a struggle between a person and a CSO on one side of the street, and in the struggle, the person managed to get to the other side, would they then be safe?

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

A degree of common sense would be required under those circumstances. Let us deal with the street boundary issue. The important point is that officers will, of course, be able to exercise only the powers that are legally available to them. The case of a CSO without a specific power attempting to exercise it over a citizen would not arise. Trying to do so would be a disciplinary offence at the very least. Indeed, there is provision in the Bill for sanctions against CSOs who attempt to exercise powers that they do not have.

Because of the accountability of the chief officer, and the way that the legislation is set out, we should not expect CSOs to attempt to use a power that they may not exercise against a citizen.

Huw Irranca-Davies (Labour, Ogmore)

Does the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) recognise that the picture being painted of villains perpetrating nuisance behaviour and leaping from one police force area to another is hardly likely to happen? Certainly, people in the more remote valley communities that I represent would feel blessed if they had the opportunity to travel so much.

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. It is possible to come up with a bizarre selection of powers and attempt to mock the Bill, but the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire acknowledged that one should not go too far down that road.

I believe that we can rely on the professionalism of the chief officers, their legal duties and responsibilities and on the way in which they set up CSO schemes to select sensible powers that are appropriate to the policing needs of their area.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

Will the Minister give way?

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

I should like to make some progress. It is reasonable for us to expect neighbouring police officers to continue to have professional discussions about cross-border issues and common problems. The alternative is that we standardise at the outset the same powers throughout the country. In the development of a new element of the police service, such standardisation would be a wrong way in which to proceed. It would deny us and the police service the ability to gain from the experience of what works effectively in practice.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

A related, but slightly different, point has been raised with me by some rank-and-file police officers in my area. One problem faced by police officers is that of drunken young men who constantly challenge authority. Does the Minister accept that,

when new CSOs are in operation, drunken youths could say, ''You can't do that. You don't have the power.'' In one area, a CSO might have been given such a power, while in another part he may not. Rank-and- file officers are saying that such a difference will put CSOs in danger.

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

The hon. Gentleman raised two separate issues, the first being that someone may challenge the power of an officer. It has already been drawn to the attention of the Committee that that potential challenge could exist under the existing byelaws that govern drinking in public places. The ability of a person to challenge a police officer in one part of town and say that he cannot stop him drinking in public or confiscate the alcohol, but that he can take that action in another place is theoretically a challenge that can be mounted at the moment.

I share the views of the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire. When byelaws have been brought in, they have reduced drunkenness in public places. I look to an extension of those byelaws throughout the country. The kernel of the debate is that it is possible to consider theoretical problems, but we need to look at practical circumstances under which the law potentially gives rise to anomalies, but can be dealt with in practice. A separate issue concerns the practical exercise of a power by CSOs, but CSOs operating in an area in which the chief constable had chosen not to give them powers over drinking in public places would have no business to exercise such powers. Clearly, a critical part of the exercise is to ensure that CSOs are properly trained in the exercise of the designated powers that they have been given.

Patrick Mercer (Conservative, Newark)

I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying the matter. However, a misapprehension has arisen from two sources. First, I spoke to the Police Federation yesterday. It said that in all probability CSOs will be used to deal with low-level problems, but that such problems are often the most difficult ones. Secondly, I shall paraphrase a series of statements that were made to me in Newark nick on Friday night. The sergeants and the constables were broadly expecting—[Interruption.] I was a guest, unlike my predecessor.

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

Order. As members of the Committee know, I keep a wary eye on interventions. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will ask his question.

Patrick Mercer (Conservative, Newark)

Thank you. Most of the officers accepted the fact that CSOs could be used to police the streets more effectively, but considered that their powers had to be absolutely consistent. There was to be no variety in power because they were worried that that would lead to confusion and a legal morass. I do not know whether they understand the point, but they are certainly concerned.

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

I can deal with both those points. We do recognise the escalation of low-level problems, yet there has been consensus in the Committee on the role of neighbourhood and street wardens. They deal with

low-level nuisance problems without the use of powers. On Monday, I was in Newport, an area in which neighbourhood wardens, their employers and the police are looking to use the accreditation scheme to confer additional powers. The wardens are very effective in dealing with youth nuisance around the estates, which they do on the basis of their training, their skill in interacting with members of the public and their experience in managing difficult situations.

Theoretically, asking someone who has only civilian powers to go and talk to a group of kids hanging around the late-night off-licence could present difficulties. Neighbourhood and street wardens, who are properly trained to know when it is not appropriate to intervene, can be effective. Later on we will debate whether community safety officers and CSOs will get additional powers and proper training in the best use of those powers. Training in how to avoid conflict is an essential part of the exercise. The forces that employ CSOs will make the commitment to training and support to enable them to avoid conflict.

On absolute consistency, the decision for the Committee is straightforward. If the Committee were invited to include in the Bill only that set of powers on which everyone is absolutely agreed—the lowest common denominator—it would be a somewhat less extensive list than the one in the Bill as drafted. Forces such as the Metropolitan police would be unable to get what they want—the full suite of powers and a range of CSOs—and evaluate the effectiveness of the powers in practice. That would be a poor way of implementing the new legislation.

What can we expect down the line in terms of experience of operation use by police services as CSOs increase? Should it prove necessary, we can introduce a greater degree of standardisation—through the police's own mechanisms, such as the Association of Chief Police Officers' pooling of knowledge, through the increasing role of the National Centre for Policing Excellence that we discussed in earlier clauses and, if necessary, through the powers that exist to establish a code of practice, as under clause 2. However, that should be done on the basis of evaluated evidence of what works.

I am confident that diversity will decrease in a few years' time. As best, police practice is identified, and there will be a coming together of key elements. That is not to say that it will be standard across the country. The needs of a police service in a dense metropolitan area will always be different from those in rural areas. However, we should expect the police service and the framework that we are developing in the Bill to tackle any real anomalous problems that may arise.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I have listened to the Minister with great care, as always. Will he put on record whether he believes philosophically that CSOs across the country should have a uniform that is recognisable and in common, or whether the local variations to which he referred require separate uniforms?

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

The key issue is to ensure that CSOs are identifiable by members of the public. There is no absolute standardisation of traffic warden uniforms, for example, but most are identifiable as such wherever

one goes and whoever employs them. It is a professional issue and one that the service will carefully examine. The key test is that there should be no confusion by members of the public about whether a person is a CSO. That is extremely important.

I do not want to anticipate a later debate, but in practice neighbourhood wardens and street wardens do not all wear the same uniform, if we can call it a uniform. They tend to wear distinctive dress and insignia, and are recognised in the communities that they serve.

Paul Stinchcombe (Labour, Wellingborough)

Before the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) intervened, my right hon. Friend was making a powerful case for local flexibility. However, one matter still troubles me. I do not see why, to avoid confusion, we cannot give all the CSOs standard powers and then leave how those powers are exercised in individual areas to the operational decision making of the respective forces.

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

Few of those in the police service whom we consulted would have welcomed the idea of employing a group of people with legal powers but, at an operational level, leaving it to the chief constable to instruct them whether to exercise those powers. The preference is for the approach that we have taken, which is that the decision is for the chief officer. We could have legislated for what I described as the lowest common denominator set of powers, and then allowed others discretion. However, on balance when we drafted the Bill, we felt it best to allow the approach that we used.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I am grateful to the Minister, who is being patient. Will the system allow a chief constable to vary the powers regularly, if he so decides? He might decide that one power should be withdrawn if it had caused problems, and that another should be added. What process has to be gone through to add powers?

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

The chief officer would be able to change the powers of CSOs. I might suddenly receive an urgent message from the people from whom I receive urgent messages, but my recollection is that the Bill does not lay down a different specific procedure for dealing with that. As we discussed on Tuesday, we expect the matter to be discussed by the chief officer and the police authority. It is sensible to expect police officers not to make sudden and arbitrary changes on a repeated basis over a period. I cannot imagine that any chief officer would want to do that. After all, they remain responsible for the activity of the CSOs and the delivery—

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

Help is at hand.

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

Yes, but the help at hand confirms what I thought, which is that the ability to modify the designation does not require a separate procedure. On some issues, we believe that chief officers will handle the use of the powers sensibly, and that there is a point at which we should not prescribe every dot and comma of how they go about doing it.

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

As ever, I am grateful to the Minister for the way in which he has responded. I readily accepted in my opening remarks that some of his arguments were clear and one had to understand them, although we may come to a different conclusion. However, some of his remarks would have been best left unsaid, not least the suggestion that the motive for the amendment is that we believe that chief officers will not make sensible decisions. I find that quite offensive, and the motive is far from it.

As the Minister said in other contexts, throughout the Committee's proceedings we have been in favour of allowing chief officers much more flexibility, which would lead us to the view that he chose to take on the amendment. The credibility of the scheme is so critical that consistency is important. We are not concerned with whether sensible decisions are made, but whether we have a consistent system that the public will understand and appreciate.

It is rather disingenuous to say that there would automatically be variation simply because we have made noises about support for pilots. By their very nature, pilots will mean variation. That does not mean to say that the whole system should have variation under the Bill. At this stage, there is no question of pilots anyway. We will have that debate later, if at all. We can deal only with the parts of the Bill that we have reached. It is correct to say that parks police and some transport police have different powers, but that is a minute point. Few people come across parks police, and most understand that they have fewer powers. Hardly anybody ever sees a transport policeman. I use the railways a lot, but I have never seen one on a train to my constituency or around the country.

In response to the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Stinchcombe), the Minister said that few who had been consulted were in favour of the discretion to add to a minimum level of powers. I would add that few whom the Minister consulted wanted CSOs at all. The fact is, as the hon. Member for Lewes observed, they are almost going to be forced upon them—[Hon. Members: ''No, they are not.'']—Hon. Members may not think that that is the case, but we established in previous debates that the Government intend to set up a ring-fenced fund to promote CSOs. Chief constables may find that their only way to access money for more person-power on the streets is to use CSOs, whether they like them or not.

Ian Lucas (Labour, Wrexham)

If the hon. Gentleman is opposed to the imposition of CSOs by the Home Secretary, why is he arguing against the ability of separate chief constables to determine what powers those officers have?

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

In my view that is a nonsensical question. I am in favour of more money for more manpower on the streets. However, I believe that chief constables should have complete discretion—with the authority—as to whether to spend it on CSOs or on more officers. Most of the chief constables to whom I have spoken would rather have two regular officers than three CSOs. The point is that powers must have public credibility. That is my theme for the morning.

We have considered the Minister's points and he has not convinced us. If the innovation is to work, it must have credibility with the public and that can be achieved only with a level of consistency that I fear will be removed by the Bill as it stands. I wish to press the amendment to a Division.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 9, Noes 12.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I beg to move amendment No. 149, in line 37, at end insert

'except that the powers conferred on a detention officer can only be exercised in the presence of and on the direction of a constable.'.

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

With this it will be convenient to take the following amendments: No. 48, in schedule 4, page 126, line 14, leave out from 'shall' to 'in' in line 15 and insert

'only exercise any powers conferred by this paragraph'.

No. 49, in page 126, line 22, at end insert—

'(2) A person to whom this paragraph applies shall not exercise any powers conferred by this paragraph except in the company, and under the supervision, of a constable.'.

No. 50, in page 126, line 31, at end insert—

'(2) A person to whom this paragraph applies shall not exercise any powers conferred by this paragraph except in the company, and under the supervision, of a constable.'.

No. 51, in page 126, line 37, at end insert—

'(2) A person to whom this paragraph applies shall not exercise any powers conferred by this paragraph except in the company, and under the supervision, of a constable.'.

No. 52, in page 128, line 16, at end insert—

'(2) A person shall not exercise any powers of search by virtue of paragraphs (b) to (i) of sub-paragraph (l) except in the company, and under the supervision, of a constable.'.

No. 53, in page 129, line 48, at end insert—

'(2) A person shall not exercise any powers of entry and search by virtue of this paragraph except in the company, and under the supervision, of a constable.'.

No. 54, in page 130, line 30, at end insert—

'(2) A person to whom this paragraph applies shall not exercise any powers of seizure by virtue of this paragraph except in the company, and under the supervision, of a constable.'.

No. 30, in schedule 5, page 137, line 23, at end insert—

'(2) A person to whom this paragraph applies shall not exercise any powers conferred by this paragraph except in the company, and under the supervision, of a constable.'.

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

We move to the power of CSOs. The reason we tabled the amendments relates to the philosophy of CSOs and to how we feel that they can best be used in the community. We firmly believe that any new tier of people with police powers must be acceptable to the community. As we have seen with the street warden schemes in Newport and other places, it is best if such people gain the support of the community so that they can, effectively, police by consent. It is more productive if they gain the tolerance and aid of the community, and work with the agreement of the community rather than exercising powers that may be antagonistic in certain circumstances. [Interruption.] I do not know why the hon. Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate) laughs. There is nothing wrong with trying to gain support for a particular end in a non-confrontational way. In fact, it is a sensible solution—hard cop, soft cop. Police officers have a full range of powers to come down hard on people, if necessary, and another group of people can cajole and achieve the correct result in a non-threatening way. That ideal will be spoilt if CSOs are given powers that will bring them into confrontation with members of the public, and they will be exposed to ridicule, attack or at least lack of support, if they do not receive full training as necessary. The Minister will doubtless tell the Committee that they will receive full training, but the Police Federation and others are concerned about that.

The amendments would remove those powers, which will undermine respect and support for CSOs. They would thereby increase their effectiveness. As Labour Members have testified in Committee and on Second Reading, it is possible for schemes, such as street warden schemes, to operate successfully with the consent of the community and to achieve the ends for which they were established. A moment ago, the Minister was waxing lyrical about the effectiveness of one particular scheme. I am delighted to hear of that success, which brings into question whether further powers are needed to bring about those same results.

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will give me credit for going out of my way to say that the scheme in Newport is looking to gain extra powers under this legislation. That hardly makes the case that extra powers are unnecessary.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

Yes, I readily accept that the Minister said that, but he also said that the scheme was working well.

George Osborne (Conservative, Tatton)

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Stockport scheme, near my constituency, which was one of the first warden schemes in the country, does not want more powers? It is feared that it would break down the bond of trust between wardens and the Stockport community if they were seen to be more like police officers than neighbourhood wardens.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

That is a common view, not just among street wardens but among police officers and local authority employees and officials.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

Does the hon. Gentleman recollect that, on Second Reading, several Labour Members, including the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor), said that they had spoken to warden scheme organisers and leaders who made it clear that they did not want extra powers?

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

That is a helpful and accurate intervention. I refer Labour Members to the Second Reading debate when such comments were made. The matter is not as clear-cut as the Minister may wish to paint it. There is trepidation about the consequences of giving wardens extra powers when schemes are already operating successfully.

Ian Lucas (Labour, Wrexham)

Is it not the case that the amendment relates to detention officers, whose powers, according to part 3 of schedule 4, are exercised in the police station, not in the community?

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

That is not accurate, because if the hon. Gentleman looks at this group of amendments he will find that some of them do not relate to detention officers.

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

Order. That is right. The amendments go wider than detention. They also deal with being accompanied by a constable in exercising certain powers.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

The hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) has drawn me on to the subject of detention officers, and I am happy to discuss that.

Officers who are civilians rather than police officers are to be given a range of powers that are obtrusive and liable to bring them into conflict with members of the public. It is quite likely that members of the public will not wish to be fingerprinted, subjected to intimate searches or photographed. They would be more likely to accept being subjected to such intrusive operations if they were required to do that by a police officer than by a civilian—particularly in the case of intimate searches, which is addressed by a later amendment, so we will discuss that when we reach it.

Paragraph 20 of schedule 4 gives these citizens the right to make an arrest at a police station for another offence. It would be odd if we had to rely on civilians to make an arrest in a police station; one might have thought that it would be possible to find a police officer somewhere in a police station to make that arrest, but apparently not. Perhaps we will have surrogate police stations that are staffed by civilians, with no police officers anywhere near them to make arrests.

That reminds me of a true case in Lewes. Three or four years ago, the police rang up the environmental health department of the district council—which was quite a distance away—to complain that the pub next door to the police station was causing a noise disturbance; health officers had to be called in to deal with that.

I hope that we do not get into a situation where there is an absence of police: thankfully, we are getting more police, and I pay tribute to the Government for that—and I hope that they will raise their target. However, if we are to have more police, I cannot believe that we will not be able to find one or two of

them to make an arrest at a police station, and yet part 3 of schedule 4 is giving powers to civilians to make such arrests.

Colin Challen (Labour, Morley and Rothwell)

Does not the hon. Gentleman understand that the whole object of this exercise is to get the police out of the police stations and on to the streets?

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

Of course I do, but I also understand that there is potential for conflict in giving civilians powers that the public will accept if they are exercised by police officers, but will not necessarily accept if they are exercised by civilians. I hope that the hon. Gentleman also understands that.

Even if we manage to get the police out on the street, I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that there will be no police in the police stations, and that they will be entirely staffed by civilians. That would be a very curious situation, but it is what the hon. Gentleman implied.

I have explained why it is inappropriate for controversial powers to be exercised by CSOs or detention officers, unless they are accompanied by a constable. Other amendments in this group—Nos. 48, 49, 50, and so forth—focus on different powers of that kind, such as the power to stop vehicles, to carry our road checks, and to deal with cordoned areas. Those are operations that will require more than one person—it is difficult for one person to cordon off an area. Several personnel will be used in such circumstances, and therefore it would not be unreasonable to expect at least one constable to be around to ensure that the people who are helping him are doing their job properly. As for detention officers, it is not unreasonable to expect there to be one constable somewhere in a police station who can make an arrest.

Therefore, these are not radical amendments. On the contrary, they attempt to strike a balance by allowing the use of CSOs, to help the police and to remove the necessity for the police to do everything, while at the same time ensuring that the police are present in a supervisory capacity—even if that is merely a minimal supervisory capacity—to give the public confidence about situations that CSOs may not have anticipated or be experienced in dealing with.

Meg Munn (Labour/Co-operative, Sheffield, Heeley)

Some police forces might choose to use CSOs to support police constables. Others may not want to do so, because it may not be appropriate to their area. Do the amendments not limit police forces in employing community support officers, rather than give them flexibility?

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

Of course they do, and I am open about that. Labour Members may disagree with my intention, but I am making the case that some of the powers being given to CSOs are a power too far for them and should be exercised only when they are accompanied by a constable.

The amendments are reasonable and I hope that they gain the Minister's support. If he is not going to give me his support, I hope that he will at least give recognition to my case, which many police officers support throughout the country.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

As hon. Members will have noticed, my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire and I have added our names to some of the amendments in the group. We support the general concept behind the measures proposed by the hon. Member for Lewes, partly because those who are at the sharp end—both rank and file police officers and many of those involved in warden schemes—feel so strongly about the matter.

As my hon. Friend said, most of the people that the Minister consulted were not in favour of the CSOs. The scheme has been pushed by one force alone—the Metropolitan police. No doubt the Treasury is also exerting pressure in favour of the measures, as it regards them as a way of cutting costs and having policing on the cheap. The amendments specifically refer to the powers that the new individuals will have.

The Police Federation rightly made the point that many of the situations in which the Government envisage using CSOs are not low-level issues. The Police Federation says that the public is generally aware and supportive of police powers. Because of that support from the law-abiding public, there are reductions in the number of occasions when arrests need to be made forcibly. Without the minimal co-operation of most people being detained, police powers are inoperable. The extension of further powers to CSOs will expose CSOs to potentially some of the most difficult and dangerous situations faced by police officers, such as public order support operating at times of terrorist threat.

The Police Federation suggests that

''the Government has not realised the difficulties involved in dealing with anti-social behaviour specifically earmarked for CSOs in the Bill. Anti-social behaviour is frequently caused by drunkenness and accompanied by aggressiveness and irrationality. Dealing with people in that state is no easy matter: it is not at the lower end of police competencies, rather it calls for considerable inter-personal skills, backed up by the authority of the office of constable. Dealing with anti-social behaviour cannot safely be undertaken by people with less training than police officers.''

We share the concerns of the Police Federation about the supervision of CSOs. My hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire and I visited several warden schemes, including two in my constituency, which operate in different ways. Neither the police officers in charge of liaising with wardens nor those who run the warden schemes seek the kind of powers that the Government propose. Indeed, they are seriously worried that the position will become worse and that the provisions will lead to less effective policing. They believe that serious dangers will arise for CSOs without safeguards such as those suggested in the amendments.

Huw Irranca-Davies (Labour, Ogmore)

The hon. Gentleman's concerns have also crossed my mind. We do not want to put CSOs in a position where they can endanger themselves or others while undertaking their duties. As a result of that concern, I went out with officers from the Met. There are frequent allusions to the Met's views being of no account, but it may surprise the hon. Gentleman to know that the wardens were quite confident in their ability to discern when and where they should not intervene, and when and where they should call the Met for backup. They were

more concerned about equipment and training than about their ability to discharge those powers on their own.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

The hon. Gentleman is perfectly entitled to speak from experience, but my experience and that of my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire in other parts of the country is very different. The Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers in every part of the country, has strong views. I entirely accept that there will be concerns about training and equipment, but we dealt with those in other parts of the Bill. We strongly believe that the safeguard of having backup from someone with the office of constable is essential for the reasons that we have set out.

I support what was said by the hon. Member for Lewes. In some ways this is the one of the most important areas of the Bill. The Government are putting forward something entirely new; the public will find it difficult to come to terms with it and I believe that there will be serious dangers. I am not reassured by the Minister's rather complacent approach, particularly his attempt to dismiss the views of rank-and-file police officers, because it suggests that, because the Met want this provision in this particular form, the Government must go along with it. That is not acceptable. We are still seriously concerned.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I want to reinforce the stand taken by the Police Federation; I believe that we should listen to the views of the operational policeman. It is striking that the federation should wholeheartedly support large portions of the Bill. We all know from our dealings with our local police force that officers are frustrated because of how they have to spend their time, and they want change in that area. However, it is significant, for example, that although the Police Federation accepts a huge range of powers without question, it opposes a detention officer arresting a person at a police station for another offence.

I remain to be convinced that the Government have fully listened to such points. We are talking about people who are trying to protect their jobs, and who do not want those new people coming in, yet they support a large number of the recommendations and proposals. Nevertheless, they have huge concerns about some of them, which have not been adequately addressed.

I also share the concern expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes about the need for the changes work. Putting people in confrontational positions and giving them powers about which there is considerable doubt, does not seem to be a recipe for success. All those involved should be working together to ensure the scheme's success. I should like some detailed attention to be paid to the points raised today by all hon. Members. Are we really listening to what the police are saying?

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

Of course we have been listening to what people have been saying, and there are areas of genuine disagreement, but we believe that we are proceeding in a prudent manner. It is difficult to

describe the amendments as anything more than wrecking amendments. They would so tie down the use of CSOs, saying that every CSO had to be accompanied by a police officer for any reasonable exercise of their duties, that it would make the position unworkable. It is a great shame that the Liberal Democrats should have proposed such a wrecking measure, and wider attention will be drawn to it in due course because it clearly contradicts everything that has been said in other places. It shows that they have failed to recognise the potential benefits to the community of enabling officers—not just CSOs—designated under schedule 4 to free policemen to go out in the community where the public want to see them, as my hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Rothwell (Mr. Challen) said.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

Does the Minister accept that the number of constraints, as he puts it, are limited? CSOs are to be given a range of powers that we have not sought to constrain. I should be grateful if he would represent that in his remarks.

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

Let us take detention officers. There is a debate in the police service about CSOs. The Metropolitan police force is particularly committed to them, other forces are keen to develop them, some are less convinced and certain chief constables are opposed to them. There is nothing like that debate among those running our police forces about the other duties covered by schedule 4—those of detention officers, escort officers and investigating officers. However, the hon. Gentleman's lead amendment effectively seeks to make it impossible to use officers designated under schedule 4 for detention purposes.

Many forces wish to use officers in such ways. Cheshire constabulary has suggested that, with alternative approaches to escort duties, it could free the equivalent of 15 officers to front-line duties. Cleveland force is looking to free 23 officers, and the police bureaucracy task force, which is due to complete its work at the end of July, has indicated that the equivalent of about 6,650 full-time officers a year are tied up dealing with prisoners in police stations. Faced with that commitment of police officer resources, it is sensible for the measures in schedule 4 to be used by properly trained, designated officers who are employed by the police service and accountable to the chief constable, and for the exercise of whose duties the chief constable is responsible. There are policing functions that do not need the full powers and expertise of a police officer. Those listed here can be carried out satisfactorily by fully-trained support staff with appropriate limited powers.

George Osborne (Conservative, Tatton)

The Minister mentioned Cheshire police, my local force. That force welcomes back-room support for the police, such as detention officers; what is not welcome is front-line support. The officers do not want CSOs; they would rather have support in the back room than on the streets.

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

The hon. Gentleman needs to be aware that he is in danger of signing up to a group of amendments that would cripple the back-room use of those officers as well. Perhaps he should have an urgent discussion with the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire before we proceed to a vote.

Bridget Prentice (Labour, Lewisham East)

Opposition Members seem to be split about whether we should have civilian staff in police stations. It is not just the Metropolitan police force that is in favour of giving neighbourhood wardens extra powers. My local authority is looking forward to the opportunity to use wardens who have been given extra powers alongside CSOs—and the sooner the better.

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

Order. The hon. Lady is capable of catching my eye if she wants to make a speech.

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

I return to the point about saving police time and cutting down on bureaucracy. I shall quote from another source that has recently been made available to us, the ''Snapshot of the Criminal Justice System'' published by the Metropolitan police on 13 June. It found that on a given day 21,788 police hours were spent processing arrests. Obviously that is not an average day, but on the one that they looked at that is how much time was spent on that. One of the key objectives of this part of the Bill is to enable police forces to make significant inroads into that figure.

Let us deal with the powers of investigating and detention officers. Our intention is that designated investigating and detention officers should carry out specialist and specific tasks that tie up police officers' time and prevent them from carrying out the visible duties and functions for which they are uniquely trained and equipped.

In imposing a dual requirement on police constables to accompany and supervise investigating or detention officers when carrying out some of their functions, rather than allowing the properly trained and accountable officers to perform tasks themselves, the amendments would undermine the flexibility which is a key feature of this part of the Bill. That is what the hon. Member for Lewes is attempting to do.

He is also attempting—I think unreasonably—to constrain other measures that we want to be carried out by CSOs, such as the power to stop vehicles for the purpose of a road check. If that could be done only when the CSO was accompanied by a police officer, it would remove their effectiveness in assisting with road checks. I see no strong basis for doing that.

If properly used by CSOs and members of accredited community safety schemes, the power to remove abandoned vehicles will help to tackle those problems and allay the concerns of our constituents. I do not know about the constituencies of other hon. Members present, but the blight caused to communities by abandoned vehicles, which may be vandalised, stolen from or burnt out, is a significant problem in my own. The task of dealing with that problem does not have to be restricted to police constables and that is why the Bill is framed as it is. If CSOs could exercise powers only when accompanied by a police officer, the idea of enabling more people to be there serving the community is destroyed in one fell swoop.

The power to enforce a cordon is another example. We put that power in the Bill, after discussion with the Metropolitan police and others, to free up police officers at the very times when additional demands are placed on them. The power is designed to be exercised

when there is a terrorist alert and under the powers a cordon can be erected only with the authority of a senior officer. However, if a city, a community or our country is faced with a terrorist alert and, subject to the provisions elsewhere in legislation, police officers are still required to supervise the enforcement of a cordon, as the amendments propose, we are clearly not adding to the protection of the public or the safety of the community. Nor would that help us to deal with a serious incident such as a terrorist alert.

I respect the hon. Member for Lewes in many ways, but sometimes he seems to depart to another planet, given some of the things that have happened round the world in the past 12 months. His arguments fail to take account of the need to equip a police force and a police service to respond flexibly and sensibly to demands that we hope we will never have to confront but which, in our heart of hearts, we know that we might have to.

Huw Irranca-Davies (Labour, Ogmore)

A superintendent overseeing a batch of wardens who were awaiting the enhanced powers that would make them CSOs told me that he was genuinely concerned that they should be the eyes and the ears and have the discretion to deal with things on the ground, so that they would not suck the police into every incident. Does the Minister recognise that if CSOs were not given that discretion, that would negate their role?

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

Yes. The amendments have been designed to achieve the very thing that the Police Federation and others said that they did not want. They would lead to a large number of police officers being tied down to supervising the work of CSOs and accredited community safety officers. My hon. Friend makes an important point. We believe, and it is now emerging as a consensus across the Committee, that with appropriate training and deployment we can rely on people to exercise their powers in a sensible and appropriate manner.

I have made the key points that I wanted to. For the record, I point out that the chief constables of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside and North Wales have all written to the Home Secretary, welcoming the arrangements to improve the visible police presence on the street through the appointment of CSOs, where that is considered appropriate by local decision makers, and under the direct control of the chief constable.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I am grateful for the Minister's detailed response and for the arguments that he presented. He spoils his arguments by maligning the motives of those who oppose him. There is no need to accuse me and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mrs. Brooke) of deliberately tabling wrecking amendments. I have explained more than once our position with respect to CSOs. We support the concept but believe that CSOs should be community-based and enjoy the community's support. For that reason, they should not have powers that might bring them into conflict with the community.

It is quite a simple position. The Minister may not agree with it, but it is not fair of him to accuse Liberal Democrat Members of trying to wreck the Bill.

Vera Baird (Labour, Redcar)

Does not the hon. Gentleman accept that it is obvious that the amendments would inevitably limit the effectiveness of all these new types of officer?

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

No, I do not accept that. I accept that they would limit the CSOs' powers, and by that strengthen CSOs by making them more acceptable to the community and therefore more effective. The implicit consequence of what the hon. and learned Lady says is that there should be no ceiling to the powers given to CSOs. She must accept that a line must be drawn between the powers exercised by police officers and those exercised by people who are not police officers. The argument today is about where that line is drawn.

Huw Irranca-Davies (Labour, Ogmore)

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the amendments would mean that police officers would not spend their time trapping villains but would be trapped with the CSOs for every minute of the day?

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I do not accept that, and Labour Members should allow me to develop my arguments. I have given way consistently, and will be happy to again when I have addressed the points.

Where is the line to be drawn between civilianisation and professional policing? That is the nub. To what extent should we give police powers to—

Mr. Hawkins rose—

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

All right. I give way to the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins).

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

I think that I might be able to help the hon. Gentleman. Does not he share my surprise at the intervention by the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird), who on Second Reading said of her own constituency:

''A poll has been taken about whether the wardens would benefit from having powers of detention, and they do not want them. They fear that they would not be safe while exercising such powers and that they would be distanced from the community.''—[Official Report, 7 May 2002; Vol. 385, c. 117.]?

That was the end of the hon. and learned Lady's speech.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

That was an interesting intervention. I am glad that I allowed the hon. Gentleman to intervene.

Vera Baird (Labour, Redcar)

The hon. Gentleman will have to give way. What on earth has that got to do with what I said to him earlier? My wardens do not want the powers, but my chief constable might well want CSOs to have them.

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

Order. We have spoken about hon. Members' motives and what was said on Second Reading. I hope that the Committee will return to the amendment. I am sure that the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) will do that.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I shall do my best, although the intervention by the hon. Member for Surrey Heath was pertinent.

I was talking about the line to be drawn between civilianisation and professional policing. It is nonsense to say that we do not want to free up police, where that is consistent with the objectives that I have set out. It is not sensible or accurate to say that we do not want civilians to help the police. There is widespread support for scene-of-crime officers or for people to analyse blood samples, or whatever. Plenty of people work for the police and, by doing so effectively, free up police. Sussex police in my constituency has been very good at freeing up officers, but the question is where to draw the line. I draw the line between powers that are non-confrontational and those that are potentially confrontational. When the confrontational powers are used, it would be appropriate for persons to be accompanied by police officers.

We heard that Labour Members want community support officers to be the eyes and ears of the police. I do, too, and there is nothing to dispute. It is an Aunt Sally put up to be knocked down. We also heard that they want the police to be freed up. I do, too, and we should consider the Minister's point about cordons. Undoubtedly many police officers are used to establish cordons, but whereas he wants no officers to be used in establishing cordons, I want one, perhaps in a particular area, to supervise the CSOs. That would not be terribly onerous or demanding and would not reduce the ability of the police to do other work. I am perfectly happy to see CSOs helping, as it is a sensible proposal and would be good use of their time, but the Minister is being disingenuous.

The Minister also mentioned escort officers. Unless I have misunderstood, escort officers do not feature in the amendments. CSOs and detention officers both feature, but escort officers do not. There is no suggestion, except in a later amendment, that their work should be curtailed. We have accepted escort officers as part of other Government proposals to free up the police and bring in civilian help.

The Minister's other point was that there was no objection to civilians' exercising the powers of detention officers. That is not true, and I can guess only that he has not seen the Police Federation briefing, which made it clear that it has objections to those proposals. A parliamentary briefing was sent out in June 2002, and on page 16 it says:

''We oppose detention officers having the power to require attendance at a police station for fingerprinting . . . arrest at a police station for another offence . . . and require attendance at a police station for taking a sample''.

Those are in paragraphs 19, 20—the one to which my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole and I referred—and 27 respectively. Therefore, it is not true to say that there are no objections to the powers. The Minister may wish to gloss over them, but they are there. The question comes down to this: where do we draw the line between the powers that are appropriate for police officers to exercise and those that are appropriate for civilians to exercise?

The Minister introduced the issue of terrorism and emergencies. We are all conscious of situations that could arise, especially post-11 September. Who could not be so conscious after seeing those terrible pictures

from New York? However, the Minister must recognise a point that was made during the debates on anti-terrorism legislation, which is relevant now because it relates to the powers of police constables and CSOs. He must be careful not to throw away the civil liberties agenda in his efforts to clamp down on terrorism.

It is no use saying that everything must go and there are no civil liberties implications, because there are. A balance must be struck and a line drawn between accountability and civil liberties and not unnecessarily restraining the police and giving them the powers necessary to do their job. The Minister draws the line where no police officer is required to be present before an area is cordoned off, and I would draw it where one constable must be present to supervise the CSOs.

Vera Baird (Labour, Redcar)

Amendment No. 149 would require that the powers conferred on a detention officer could be exercised only in the presence of and on the direction of a constable. That would mean that the constable would have to be in the same room when a detention officer searched a person, to tell them which pocket to search. The constable would have to be in the same room for intimate searches and fingerprinting, too, and as soon as the constable left the room, the detention officer would have no powers. Is the hon. Gentleman really suggesting that the amendment is not an attempt to wreck entirely the powers of the detention officer?

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

The hon. and learned Lady is right to draw attention to that implication. I agree that it exists, but I do not believe that it goes quite that far. Indeed, the powers given to the detention officers are far more intrusive to the individual and their civil liberties than the powers given to CSOs, for example, to deal with cordoned-off areas. That is why I am not unhappy with a tighter rein being held on detention officers in that context than on CSOs in the slightly less intrusive situation of dealing with a cordoned-off area. In reacting to the powers, I am considering at all points what is right in civil liberties terms and what is right realistically to allow the police to do their duty. That is where I draw the line; the hon. and learned Lady and others may draw it elsewhere.

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

Given that the hon. Gentleman has quoted the Police Federation a number of times in support of his argument, it would help if he would clarify whether he believes that his amendment accurately reflects the federation's views in the briefing submitted to members of the Committee.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I am confident that I am fully aware of the Police Federation's views. They are not identical to the Liberal Democrats' views, but nor are they identical to those of the Government. Indeed, they are much closer to our views and to those of the Conservatives than they are to those of the Minister. As far as I can tell, the right hon. Gentleman appears to be keen to listen to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir John Stevens, but not to anyone else. I had lunch with representatives of the Police Federation yesterday, and they reiterated their opposition to CSOs and many other proposals that the Government have made, and their support for the

amendments that my colleague and I are moving today.

Vera Baird (Labour, Redcar)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

For the last time, I think.

Vera Baird (Labour, Redcar)

I am grateful. If, as the amendment said, a detention officer could exercise his duties only in the presence of a police officer—granted, everyone who is searched has the right to be searched on their own in a room—it would be pointless to have the detention officer there at all, because the policeman could do the search.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

No. That is a very picky point, but if the hon. and learned Lady wishes me to deal with it, I will. There is no reason why a member of the public should not be searched by a detention officer with a constable present. It is also perfectly possible for the detention officer to carry out the rest of the work related to the search, such as logging the possessions in the person's pocket and doing the necessary paperwork, that would otherwise be completed by the constable. Such an exercise could free up police time.

Again, there is a consistent division between the jobs that can realistically be freed up because they are non-confrontational, and those that involve intrusiveness and a potential erosion of civil liberties. As I said, that is where I have drawn the line, so the amendments are consistent. I am sorry that the Government take a different view. The amendment should be subject to a vote, and I ask that amendments Nos. 49 to 51 be subject to a vote when we reach schedule 4, so that we may express our opinions.

Meg Munn (Labour/Co-operative, Sheffield, Heeley)

I shall be brief. Selective quoting of the Police Federation has puzzled me, too. We have heard a great deal about issues relating to detention officers, and it seems clear from the briefing that the federation sent us that it supports most of the powers: non-intimate searches of detained persons, searches and examinations to ascertain identity, intimate searches of detained persons, fingerprinting without consent, warnings about intimate samples and non-intimate samples, photographing persons in police detention, and requiring a person arrested to account for certain matters. The federation supports CSOs' having a range of powers.

Ian Lucas (Labour, Wrexham)

Having spent quite a lot of time in a police station as a solicitor advising defendants, I believe that one reason for the Police Federation's support in relation to taking photographs and fingerprints is that that is one of the biggest wastes of police time and one of the most tedious tasks that the police do. Any proposal that will free up the time that they spend on such tasks is excellent.

Meg Munn (Labour/Co-operative, Sheffield, Heeley)

I agree. I am also concerned that throughout the debate we have heard a lot about the powers being antagonistic. The reality is often that when a person is apprehended and taken to a police station, they may not like it, but they accept that they have to go through those procedures.

George Osborne (Conservative, Tatton)

The hon. Lady quoted the Police Federation, so she obviously has a high regard for its judgment on these matters and presumably agrees with its list of 10 reasons against CSOs having powers in general.

Meg Munn (Labour/Co-operative, Sheffield, Heeley)

The hon. Gentleman needs to follow the whole process. I am largely responding to the issues that the hon. Member for Lewes raised. I never said that I agreed with the Police Federation completely, and I hope that all hon. Members will use their judgment on the matter. The Government's argument, which I support, is that a range of powers can be given if the police force and their chief constable wish to do that. An amendment that provides that some actions can be taken only if a police constable is present clearly intends to wreck the role of CSOs, as the Minister said.

I shall not speak at great length, but I have spent time with people—often young people—who have been arrested, and they are happy to undergo the procedures, which are straightforward. There is therefore no reason for CSOs not to undertake them.

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

For clarification, does the hon. Member for Lewes wish to press amendment No. 149 to a Division?

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

No. I shall beg leave to withdraw amendment No. 149, but I want to press amendments Nos. 49, 50 and 51, en bloc if necessary, when we reach schedule 4.

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

Yes, that is perfectly in order. There will be one vote on the three amendments.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I beg to move amendment No. 143, in page 35, line 3, leave out subsection (8).

George Stevenson (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent South)

With this, we may take the following: Amendment No. 42, in schedule 4, page 123, line 40, leave out paragraph (a).

Government amendment No. 171.

Amendment No. 43, in page 124, line 22, leave out paragraph 2.

Government amendment No. 173.

Amendment No. 44, in page 124, line 32, leave out paragraph 3.

Government amendments Nos. 175 to 177.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

If the previous group of amendments was controversial, the next one will be even more so, in light of the Government's intention through amendment No. 171 to reinsert the power to detain, which was removed in the House of Lords. Members will be pleased to hear that I shall spare the Committee the philosophical argument, which is essentially the same as for the previous group of amendments. I shall therefore draw a line under that.

However, there is a practical argument about the position in which we put CSOs if they are given the right to detain, irrespective of possible antagonism and the impact on community support to which I referred earlier. They could be asked to bite off more than they can chew. For example, CSOs could require a person who acts antisocially to give a name and address. Amendment No. 43 would remove that power. People who are already acting antisocially, and therefore not being helpful or engaging in friendly conversation, and are asked for something that they do not want to give will presumably refuse to do that. The CSO's response may be to try to detain the person, using reasonable force. ''Reasonable force'' is the concept that the amendment challenges.

CSOs therefore have the power to try, using reasonable force, to detain for 20 minutes someone who is behaving antisocially, may well be under the influence of alcohol or drugs, which may be the cause of the behaviour, and refuses to give a name and address. I presume that that is the culmination of attempts to calm the situation, as I cannot imagine a CSO using the power immediately. The CSO will ring for a police officer. We are told that CSOs will free police time, but if they all detain people for half an hour, many telephone calls will be made to police stations, requesting police officers' attendance. There will therefore be more calls on the police to attend incidents.

The police officer who has been called will ask what is happening. The CSO will reply, ''I've got someone who's a bit drunk and won't give a name and address, and I'm holding him.'' The police will grade the call. A grade one call means that a life is threatened, a grade two call is less serious and so on. They will conclude that it is not a particularly serious call and doubtless it would receive the same priority that would be given now to a call by a member of the public along those lines. All hon. Members can identify cases in which the police have failed to attend a similar incident within 30 minutes, or even an hour, because of lack of manpower. Such a case happened in my constituency recently. Vandals were attempting to smash up Glynde station, which is unstaffed. Local residents made a citizen's arrest, held the vandals and called the police. The police said that they were answering a grade one call somewhere else and that they had no spare manpower, and it took them an hour and 20 minutes to arrive. That problem will not go away; the same problems will occur.

It is quite possible that a CSO could be in a position in which he or she—the CSO could be a she, of course—might have to hold a person or persons for 30 minutes while those being held were antagonistic, refusing to give their name and address and, possibly, under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Attempting to hold such a person for 30 minutes would be a deeply unpleasant experience for a CSO. Of course, if the police did not turn up within half an hour, the CSO would have to let the person go. What would be said to the CSO? Would the person say, ''Thank you very much for the conversation. It was very nice to meet you. Cheerio. Same time next week?''? Alternatively, would the person be deeply unpleasant and use a

stream of invective? Worse, could the situation lead to a fracas and violence because a person resisted detention by a person whom they did not consider to be a proper police officer? I suggest to the Minister that that situation is not fanciful, but quite likely.

George Osborne (Conservative, Tatton)

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, as do my local police officers. They said that the individual who will be detained will probably not be alone but in the company of friends and associates who will stand around the CSO, exerting great pressure on that individual.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

That is exactly right. I understand and support the Government's entirely honourable motives, which are to deal with antisocial situations and low-level crime, which is currently not addressed. However, the Government are being unfair to put CSOs in situations in which they could be surrounded by boisterous individuals and have to hold the situation for half an hour without even the certainty that a police officer would attend within that time. CSOs would not have the same depth of training as police officers to deal with such a situation and they will not have further powers required to handle the situation. They will be exposed to vulnerable situations, such as a Friday night in a town centre. We should not put people in such situations.

Colin Challen (Labour, Morley and Rothwell)

Perhaps we will hear from the Minister that the issue of training will be taken care of. The hon. Member for Lewes assumes that a CSO will immediately launch into a 30-minute detention in every case regardless of its circumstances. That should be compared with the current actions of the police. If a single police constable recognises a serious situation, he or she is unlikely to enter that situation and put him or herself at risk. The constable would call up a response team, and the call would probably trigger a fairly fast response. I imagine that the same thing would happen in this case and in case of a citizen's arrest. We are making a lot out of not very much.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I can only respond by repeating points that I have already made. I am happy to recognise that CSOs will receive training. However, they will not and cannot receive the same depth of training as the police. They will not be trained as well as the police.

I painted a scenario in which a CSO would not immediately charge into immediate detention for 30 minutes, but in which that would be the cumulative effect. I do not think that CSOs will go into a situation and say, ''Right, you'll be detained for 30 minutes.'' However, a situation may occur in which detention is the logical conclusion. A CSO will consider that that happens when a situation gets out of hand and is particularly stressful, but not if it is low key. CSOs will try to detain if the situation is potentially dangerous. I repeat that I believe that that will put them in a difficult situation that is unfair and exposes them unnecessarily.

Amendment No. 42 relates to the power of CSOs to issue fixed penalty notices. One issue relates to section 5 of the Criminal Law Act 1967, which is about wasting police time. That is extraordinary, and I hope that I have read the provision correctly—the Minister

will tell me if I am wrong. Does the provision apply to wasting a CSO's time? Does the definition of ''police'' include other people?

A range of issues have been exhausted during discussion of previous amendments but, clearly, the power that the Government wish to give to CSOs—

It being twenty-five minutes past Eleven o'clock, The Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned till this day at half-past Two o'clock.

Standing Committee A

Clause 35 - Police Powers for Police Authority Employees

Win Griffiths (Labour, Bridgend)

I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following: Amendment No. 42, in schedule 4, page 123, line 40, leave out paragraph (a).

Government amendment No. 171.

Amendment No. 43, in schedule 4, page 124, line 22, leave out paragraph 2.

Government amendment No. 173.

Amendment No. 44, in schedule 4, page 124, line 32, leave out paragraph 3.

Government amendments Nos. 175 to 177.

You were concluding your speech, Mr. Baker, on amendment No. 123.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I was indeed, Mr. Griffiths. I was going to say that you had cut it tight, but perhaps it is better to say that your timing is immaculate. I had just about concluded.

I am wholly opposed to powers of detention being handed to CSOs. It is inappropriate that such powers should be exercised by anyone other than police officers. It will bring CSOs into difficult and dangerous situations and will be counter-productive for policing, particularly if there are different powers in different parts of the country. That is the view of the House of Lords and I hope that, instead of steamrollering the measure through, the Minister will listen carefully to the arguments.

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

I want to address some of the issues raised by amendments Nos. 143 and 42, and then speak to Government amendments Nos. 171, 173, and 175 to 177. The amendments in this group would either give community support officers and other designated persons the powers they need to perform the role for which they are intended to maximum effect or deny them such powers.

Amendment No. 143 would seriously undermine the ability of investigating officers, detention officers, escort officers and community support officers to carry out effectively many of their designated functions. In

reality, it would prevent the exercise of most of the powers by designated officers unless with the consent of the suspect.

One of the key purposes of the Bill is to free up highly qualified police officers from police station duties and duties elsewhere that could be done by properly trained civilians. The use of reasonable force is not a power that anyone takes lightly, but there will be situations in which designated individuals will need the same powers as a constable to use such force as is necessary to discharge their duties effectively without having to be shadowed by a police officer. Having to involve a police officer would undermine the whole point of the proposals.

For example, if a suspect refused to allow his fingerprints or a non-intimate sample to be taken, a designated detention officer would commit an assault if they carried out the procedure without having the power to use force if necessary. If they could not use reasonable force, they would be able to fingerprint or take a non-intimate sample only when a suspect consented and would have to rely on a police constable to carry out those procedures if the suspect refused to co-operate.

It is self-evident that reasonable force must be used carefully. To justify using force in any situation, a police constable and, in future, a designated officer, must first establish that the person who is being fingerprinted or searched is unwilling to co-operate sufficiently to enable the procedure to be carried out. As with police officers, designated persons will have to consider both whether force is justified and what degree of force is reasonable in the specific circumstances.

It is important to remind the Committee that appropriate safeguards will be in place. First, anyone who has been given the power to use reasonable force will be properly trained in its use and accountable to the chief officer and the new Independent Police Complaints Commission, when it is established, in the same way as police officers should they misuse that power. The standards will be as high for designated staff as they are for police officers. If the chief officer has doubts about the ability of designated officers to use reasonable force to high standards, they should be able to withdraw, modify or simply not grant that designation. Designated persons will also be obliged to have regard to any relevant codes of practice in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.

Removing paragraph 1(2)(a) of schedule 4, as proposed by amendment No. 42, would deny chief officers the opportunity to give CSOs the power to issue fixed penalty notices for a range of disorder offences. The principle of issuing fixed penalty notices in respect of such offences has already been extensively debated in the context of the Criminal Justice and Police Bill in the last Session. Relevant offences include throwing stones at railway lines, throwing fireworks in a thoroughfare, disorderly behaviour while drunk in a public place, wasting police time—to which the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) specifically

referred and which I will discuss later—giving false report and other public nuisance and disorder offences.

The amendment is interesting. I gather that Opposition Members do not object to the principle of CSOs issuing fixed penalty notices, and I have heard no argument to persuade me that this set of offences is inherently different. Such notices can be issued by non-police officers—street wardens can have local authority fixed penalty notice powers in respect of offences such as littering, and dog wardens can issue them in respect of dog fouling. More analogous to CSOs is that traffic wardens can also issue such notices. We are used to those people using their powers appropriately. They are properly trained to exercise them and, in the case of traffic wardens, are generally trusted by the public. I believe that CSOs will be similarly professional and accepted by the public.

I do not accept that the types of offences listed in chapter 1, part 1 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 are inappropriate for CSOs to deal with. CSOs deployed in communities will play a key role in reducing the incidence of public nuisance and disorder and in making communities safer. The ability to issue fixed penalty notices for those offences that cause nuisance and disorder will provide CSOs with appropriate, proportionate and much-needed enforcement powers.

The hon. Gentleman raised an interesting point about wasting police time. He will be pleased to hear that I have taken advice during the lunchtime adjournment. The offence—designed to deal with hoax calls among other things—is not limited to wasting the time of a constable. A court is unlikely to have sympathy with hoax callers who claim that it is not an offence because they wasted only the time of a CSO.

The requirement to provide a name and address is included as a specific power in paragraph 2 of schedule 4 in respect of antisocial behaviour, and is challenged by amendment No. 43. It is also included as part of the wider power of detention for CSOs reintroduced in Government amendment No. 171. We believe that denying CSOs the power to require a name and address will hinder their effectiveness. What irresponsible dog owner will accept a penalty notice if he knows that failing to accept it will, in all likelihood, lead to no further action? The ability to require a name and address will enable the fixed penalty notice to be enforced. Similarly, it will be a useful support for CSOs in enabling them to deal with antisocial behaviour within the community. In more serious and persistent circumstances, it will help to provide evidence for an antisocial behaviour order should a particular individual clearly refuse to co-operate with a CSOs in such a way over a period of time.

I do not believe that granting the power to request a name and address breaches an important principle. It is a sensible power for officers to have. We are extending it to police officers who do not currently have it, although in practice they have a variety of

methods available to them for dealing with such situations. As with all the powers under this part of the Bill, there are appropriate safeguards in relation to training and accountability.

What happens if an offender will not provide his or her name? In another place, Opposition peers believed that powers under this part of the Bill should be limited, and should not include the ability to enforce any of the powers. They removed the power of detention of both CSOs and accredited persons. We believe that the removal of the CSOs' power to detain was misjudged, and Government amendment No. 171 will reintroduce it. Government amendments Nos. 173 and 175 to 177 are consequential on the two main Government amendments.

It is worth noting that the Metropolitan police service shares the Government's view on the matter. It considers it appropriate for CSOs, as part of the police service, to be able to detain using reasonable force when necessary as a last resort. A convincing case can be made that including the power to detain will maximise the efficiency of CSOs and reduce the bureaucratic burden on police officers. I can return to those matters in greater detail if the Committee would find it helpful.

George Osborne (Conservative, Tatton)

Will the Minister clarify what powers a CSO has to take someone to a police station, as opposed to detaining them on the spot? Will he confirm that he or she can take someone to a police station only if that person consents?

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

The hon. Gentleman is right. If someone refuses to accompany the CSO to the police station, the option would be detention by the use of reasonable force.

It is worth noting that we have limited the power of detention to 30 minutes. There has been some debate about the 29 minutes and 59 seconds question. Thirty minutes was chosen not as a recommended or typical period of detention, but as a maximum. Clearly, the expectation is that a police response, when it is necessary, would usually be forthcoming well within that time. Although there might not be a police constable at everyone's elbow, ensuring that a reasonable response is achievable will be one of the factors taken into account by commanding officers when they are considering how to deploy both their regular officers and their CSOs.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the sort of offences that would involve CSO activity would necessarily be low grade, and that they therefore might not merit a quick police response under the normal grading process?

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

We are trying to ensure that the police service can offer a comprehensive service to our community. One of the strongest arguments for introducing CSOs with those powers is to ensure that a set of activities in the community that are not always given the highest priority—for reasons that we understand—are not left neglected. My fear about the approach taken by the hon. Gentleman is that the sum total of the impact of his amendments would be to

deny the police service and local communities the opportunity to tackle those issues effectively. He needs to keep an eye on the big picture, and what we are trying to achieve.

George Osborne (Conservative, Tatton)

I have another clarifying question. If a police officer does not turn up before the 30 minutes have expired, could the CSO retain the offender for another 30 minutes, perhaps by again asking him his name and address, and then saying, ''Well, you haven't provided it''? Or does the parking space principle apply, whereby one cannot return?

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

That conjures up visions of the CSO marching someone round the block to see if they can get back into the same place before someone else takes it. It is not our intention to use a roll-over principle.

We could have not put anything about powers of detention in the Bill, and could have simply relied on the citizen's power of arrest. The Government chose not to do that, because there would have been a general feeling of discomfort at the idea of employing full-time professionals who were trained with the general citizen's power of arrest. We have tried to specify in the Bill as clearly as possible the extent of the powers that will be available to CSOs.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

To pursue the amusing but relevant point made by the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne), if a person is allowed to go after 30 minutes, what is the minimum period that must elapse before the CSO can re-detain him?

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

That would be a matter of judgment in the circumstances. The CSO would have to be aware, as would the chief officer, that their conduct was subject to scrutiny, first through their accountability to the chief officer, and secondly through the IPCC. As with all aspects of policing in practice, a great deal of operational on-the-spot judgment is involved about the best way for someone to conduct themselves. Policing involves many aspects of judgment that cannot be codified to the nth degree. The officer's training would be important in ensuring that he can exercise his judgment correctly and properly. That is the only serious way to deal with such issues.

Further points may be made in the debate, possibly by the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice), to which I should respond. However, that is my initial response to the amendments and my introduction of the Government's amendments.

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

During the Committee, there has been a lot of discussion about, and allusions to, Opposition policy. The Minister refers to Opposition amendments. I want to make it clear that some of them are not official Opposition amendments but are tabled only in the names of Liberal Democrat Members. I shall explain why we support some but not others. [Interruption.] I cannot hear what the hon. Member for Lewisham,

East (Ms Prentice) is saying from a sedentary position, but I doubt that it is polite. I should be astonished and flattered if it were.

The official Opposition approach the debate from a point of principle that I readily accept cannot realistically be completely adhered to. However, the principle from which we start is that a police constable's powers are given to him as a result of his professionalism, training—which takes roughly two years—and responsibilities. Those powers should not be given to people who have not attained those levels of responsibility, training or, indeed, commitment and the level of professionalism associated with a fully trained and competent police officer.

In an ideal world, that would have been our stance. However, we recognise the need to be pragmatic, and that principle has long since been wounded—ever since the advent of traffic wardens, when some police powers were given to others. Other examples could be cited.

I shall concentrate on CSOs, rather than the other three categories of civilians. The debate is about the police employing civilians, not neighbourhood community wardens, for example. That is completely new. As far as I know, no civilians are employed by the police to do police duties that fall under the clause.

We are worried about CSOs, who will almost invariably operate outside the police station either alone or, perhaps, in pairs, but often not close to a policeman. Our examination of their powers involves those that might be described as confrontational and interventional as opposed to some of the others. We do not support the lead amendment, which relates to fixed penalty notices, because we do not consider that power to be significant, but we take a more robust view on other powers.

We are worried that if CSOs are given too many powers, there will be a temptation in some quarters to make CSOs a surrogate police force used in places where police officers should be used. I refer in particular to neighbourhood and community policing. Debates have been held in the House on that subject and there is much cross-party consensus that neighbourhood policing in its fullest sense—I do not mean just walking up and down the street but becoming part of the community—is a vital part, if not the most important part, of policing. I am worried that proponents of CSOs with the whole panoply of powers envisage a devaluation of the role of community neighbourhood policing resulting from the use of CSOs instead of a fully qualified and trained police officers. That is part of the basis for our worry about some of the powers.

We recognise that we have a political reality and that there is demand from some quarters of the Metropolitan police for the powers, especially the power of detention. We reluctantly accept that some powers will be given and when we consider schedule 4 properly, we shall debate their other aspects.

The power to detain will be used either if a person refuses to give their name and address or if the CSO suspects that the individual has given the wrong name and address and not complied properly. It is

interesting that the Government wisely listened to the other place about provisions on accredited community safety schemes, which we shall address in clause 36 and schedule 5, because they are not reinserting provisions on powers of detention but they are retaining provisions on the power to demand name and address. Therefore, they have given in on the argument that was paraded on Second Reading that the power of detention is an essential back-up to the power to ask for a name and address. That cannot be the case because the Government have given in on introducing that for accredited community safety schemes.

We reach the question of what detention is, and I shall quote one or two outside bodies. The Police Superintendents Association of England and Wales, which is an eminent body, says:

''It is our view that in law, and in the eyes of the general public there is no distinction''

between a detention and an arrest. Whatever the case might be in law—I am insufficiently competent to decide what that is—I have no doubt that there is no distinction between detention and arrest in the eyes of the general public. They are both highly interventionist actions.

The organised crime unit of Cleveland police contacted me, and it said:

''There is no difference between detaining somebody and arresting somebody. This is a play on words, to take a persons liberty is a serious issue and police powers should only be available to lawfully sworn police officers.''

The Association of Police Authorities said:

''The APA notes however that such a power''—

the power to ask for a name and address—

''may be associated by some with a power of stop, and that there is a significant lack of confidence in some sectors of the public about police use of powers of stop, and stop and search.''

The widespread cross-section of opinion within the police force is that the move is very worrying. The definition of detention and the clarity of the situation are unclear to the citizen.

That brings me to the offences involved and the citizen's arrest, to which the Minister referred. It is unclear what offences are involved. Under amendment No. 171, proposed new paragraph 1A(6)(b), a relevant offence is

''an offence the commission of which appears to that person to have caused—

(i) injury, alarm or distress to any other person; or

(ii) the loss of, or any damage to, any other person's property''.

That is an all-embracing description. The amendment goes on:

''but a designation applying this paragraph to any person may provide that an offence is not to be treated as a relevant offence by virtue of paragraph (b) unless it satisfies such other conditions as may be specified in the designation.''

In other words, we return to the issue that we discussed this morning, which was that it would be in the power of the chief officer to lay out the relevant offences in the designation. That would lead to even further confusion.

Presumably, CSOs will continue to have the power of citizen's arrest, alongside the power of detention. Nothing in the Bill makes me believe that it has been removed from a CSO. As a citizen, a person can arrest anyone who is in the act of committing an arrestable offence or if he has reasonable grounds for believing that that person is committing such an offence, and anyone who is guilty of the offence or someone the person suspects is guilty of the offence. The powers of a fully qualified police constable go further than that, but it is not clear whether the powers of a CSO to detain go further. Will the Minister explain what offences will be considered to be relevant offences that would carry the power of detention? That is clearly not deemed necessary because someone refuses to give his name or address, otherwise the amendment would not contain proposed new paragraph 1A(6)(b)

That brings me to training, in which the Minister has much faith. He thinks that it will work out well. It takes about 35 weeks of training before a newly engaged police officer is allowed to patrol the streets on his own. It is expected that CSOs will receive two or three weeks' training. Some debate may take place about the precise length of training, but I suspect that it will remain a fraction of the time given to a police officer. How will the CSO have the background knowledge to apply any level of discretion that will be essential if he must decide when to use the power of detention and when to use the reasonable force that goes with it?

Health and safety is a concern of the Police Federation. It is considered that CSOs could be in personal danger. Yet they could not possibly have had the level of training in self-protection as that received by a full police officer. They will not carry some items of protection, such as batons or pepper sprays. Perhaps the Minister can clarify whether they will carry handcuffs. There is a serious risk that they will be put in physical danger. The chief officer is liable for any injury that an undertrained CSO suffered when using his power.

The Minister said that he did not choose the period of 30 minutes because it was the right time, but because a maximum time had to be set, and that such a power will be used only in circumstances in which a police officer can arrive within 30 minutes. That may be a noble intention but, as Ministers have said, legislation can last for generations, so we must think not only about what is the ideal, but what might happen in practice. As the hon. Member for Lewes said this morning, there is always the possibility that things do not work out in the way that is intended, and therefore one has to be able to address situations when they arise.

The response of my constituents—and, I suspect, of many other hon. Members' constituents—to the idea that a police officer would arrive in 30 minutes is, ''Chance would be a fine thing.'' In many parts of the country, the chance of getting a police officer within 30 minutes is remote. The Minister will probably reply to that by saying, ''Well, in those cases, the chief officers will not have CSOs,'' which may well be true, but I do not want him to belittle my argument by responding in

such a way, because that does not deal with the sort of situation that the hon. Member for Lewes referred to this morning. A police officer may only be in the next street, but if there is suddenly a grade one call—a call about an emergency, such as a road accident—the police officer will be called away. Therefore, regardless of how good the intention is, the fact is that the police officer will not get there in 30 minutes.

That raises the issue of what happens next. Does the CSO just let the individual walk away, which would do no good at all for the credibility of the CSO scheme, or, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton suggests, is some form of re-detention available? The Minister's response to that was vague, to say the least.

There is another issue. If police officers are asked about what is the first and most important thing for them to do when they apprehend someone—the word ''apprehend'' has not been used before, and I use it now to differentiate between detention and arrest—before subsequently, perhaps, arresting them, they will say that it is to get them off the street; get them out of sight of the public; get them away. They will say that, because as long as apprehended people remain in a public space they form a focus for bystanders, and more importantly, they can form a focus for more trouble from their friends and others who might seek to exploit the situation in that way.

This proposal does the opposite of that. The answer that was given to my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton was that if the individual refuses to go to the police station, the CSO has no option but to ask them to stand there—and if necessary, to hold them there, using reasonable force. The mind boggles as to what could happen in the following 30 minutes—if that is how long it takes. The Government have failed to address that in all the discussions that have taken place on this subject since they first mooted the idea of a 30-minute period. We are guaranteeing the creation of a magnet for trouble on our streets: somebody being held for 30 minutes will attract more trouble. That is a certainty.

The Police Federation says, in its briefing to Committee members, that,

''the period of forcible detention could itself cause the detainee to become agitated being held in public and provoke further breaches of the peace by members of the public sympathetic to the detainee; without the minimal co-operation of the detainee, the power is inoperable.''

We must also ask ourselves, what happens when the police officer arrives? We can forget the 30-minute period, because the police officer has arrived. Is he obliged automatically to arrest the individual for refusing to give his name and address? What happens if he thinks that the CSO has blown the matter out of all proportion? Does he or she have to perform the arrest, even if it does not seem justified? will the evidence of the CSO alone be sufficient for an arrest, and if necessary, a prosecution? What are police officers to do if they feel that CSOs have overreacted? If an officer declines to carry out an arrest, he has completely blown the credibility of the CSO, but if he does carry out the arrest, he is compromising his own

judgment and professional view and may provoke even more trouble that will involve other police officers.

There are very real practical problems, as well as the issues of principle, in the use of detention powers. That is why I strongly resist the Government's attempt to reinsert this provision into the Bill. Having said that, I recognise that the Metropolitan police have voiced a desire for this power. Throughout the Committee proceedings, and the whole progress of the Bill, we have been anxious to listen to the voice of the police, and it would be wrong to stand here and say categorically that the Met have got it wrong. I believe that they have misjudged the situation in believing that the provision is necessary, but I recognise that they have that strong view.

Although I wholly oppose the blanket power of detention, if the Minister were to set up a pilot scheme, we could judge whether it works, monitor it and see the ups and downs. We might be sympathetic to that. None of us can be sure how this element of the Bill will work out: it is brand new territory for all of us. I am trying to be reasonable about the matter. We do not believe in the principle, but we accept that it will happen, so we think that he should come up with an alternative to the blanket power. Until he does, I am afraid we must resist that power, and I strongly oppose amendment No. 171.

George Osborne (Conservative, Tatton)

As I have not yet made a speech in the Committee under your chairmanship, Mr. Griffiths, may I say what a pleasure it is to do so?

I absolutely agree with everything that my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire has said. He is making exactly the same point that all the police officers I have spoken to in the process of preparing for the Bill have said to me, from the chief constable to the divisional superintendent to the officers in the local police stations in my constituency. The point that we return to is a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) earlier: we are not asking CSOs to get involved in low-level policing. It is often the most difficult kind of policing because it is dealing with people who are almost by definition antisocial. They may be drunk, or aggressive.

We know from our own lives that dealing with such people is quite difficult, but it will be doubly so for CSOs on the street. When a police officer deals with such people, he or she does not know what to expect. Anything can happen; often it is fairly routine, but matters can get out of control. Police officers have three things going for them when dealing with such people. First, they have extensive training and experience, which have taught them how to deal with such situations. Secondly, they have a panoply of powers, so that if the person giving trouble wants to escalate the situation, the police officer can deal with that.

Thirdly—and this point was made well by my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire—police officers have the power to remove someone from the street. Many hon. Members have been out on patrol with the police on a Friday or Saturday night.

The thing that struck me most about dealing with antisocial people outside a pub was the importance of taking them off the streets by getting them into the police van and taking them to the police station.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

When my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire and I visited other countries, such as Belgium and Holland, we saw that community policing works when there are highly trained people in the community who are seen as an elite force. The very fact that such countries have made the fully trained police officers, with the experience described by my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton, an elite force—so that they are not taken away from the streets for other incidents—has led to success. Unless the Government are prepared to have a few pilot schemes to see whether that works, they are probably going in the wrong direction.

George Osborne (Conservative, Tatton)

I agree with my hon. Friend. There are many other options that we should consider, such as paying special constables, and perhaps we will come on to them later. The point is that CSOs will not have any of the things that police officers have. They will have limited powers, limited training and crucially will not have the power to grab someone and put them in the back of a police van to remove them from a confrontational situation on the street.

This is not to reduce the argument ad absurdum, but there will be situations on our streets, day in and day out, in which police officers do not turn up for 30 minutes. Regardless of the best intentions of the police to respond quickly, they do not always respond as quickly as they should. There will be situations on our streets in which CSOs find themselves in the extremely tricky position of detaining people in public. Perhaps a crowd of people will gather and perhaps the colleagues, associates or fellow thugs of the person being detained will hang around and cause trouble. Such people may even count down the minutes, which means that a poor CSO will stand there while someone counts, ''28 minutes, 29 minutes . . .''. [Interruption.] That is counting up—a very good point. As the Minister said earlier, a CSO will be unable to detain a person for a second time and will have to let them go after 30 minutes.

I am seriously concerned about the power of detention, which does not show an appreciation of what day-to-day policing is like in many of our town and city centres. As my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire charitably put it, it may be appropriate for the Metropolitan police in central London dealing with tourists in Trafalgar square and Covent garden, but it may not be appropriate for people in Manchester or towns in my constituency.

Cleveland police made this point to my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire and my chief constable in Cheshire made it to me: what is the philosophical difference between arrest and detention? Detaining someone for 30 minutes and depriving them of their liberty is, in effect, arresting them. However,

we are in a ridiculous situation in which someone can be deprived of their liberty but not removed from a situation, even if removing them would protect both them and the CSO.

The origin of the CSO idea was a scheme dreamed up in the Association of Chief Police Officers to badge public officials to make health visitors, bus drivers and other such people working for a public authority more conscious of street safety. The original idea was that a bus driver who noticed that a bus shelter had been vandalised would report it rather than ignore it, and that a health visitor who met someone who said that they had been intimidated would also report it. That was the origin of the idea, but it has been turned into a pseudo-police force, and I am not sure why that has happened.

On Second Reading, many hon. Members talked about the neighbourhood warden schemes, but those are red herrings. The schemes are excellent, but we are not talking about them. We are talking about a wholly new idea that has nothing to do with neighbourhood warden schemes.

I do not know what the CSOs will be called, and I was reflecting on that earlier with my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Johnson). Since policemen ended up being called bobbies or peelers, perhaps CSOs will become denhams or johnnies. They will certainly not be called CSOs when they get into the public domain. I urge the Minister to put in a bid for denhams to stop them becoming blunketts.

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

They will not be rookers now.

George Osborne (Conservative, Tatton)

A rooker sounds more appropriate for some reason, but I am not sure why.

Seriously, there are practical concerns about the powers that the Government propose to give to CSOs, and in particular about the power to detain for 30 minutes. The matter was raised in the House of Lords, which defeated this part of the Bill. I urge the Minister to address those practical points and explain how the power will be used in practice on the streets, day in and day out.

Bridget Prentice (Labour, Lewisham East)

I want to make a few brief points and put on the record the reasons that the Met are so enthusiastic about the proposal, but first I want to say to the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire that in my earlier comment from a sedentary position I was congratulating him on his discernment in making it clear that he was not supporting everything that the Liberal Democrats said. I perfectly understand his taking that position.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned that most people do not know the difference between detention and arrest. That is probably true. He went on to say that we all have the power of citizen's arrest, but most of us do not know the difference between arrestable and non-arrestable offences. Therefore, although citizens have that power, they do not always know whether the activity that is taking place is an arrestable offence. In that sense, there is a problem with the language.

As I said, I want to put on record why the Met support the measure and why they are very much in favour of the detaining role for CSOs.

Boris Johnson (Conservative, Henley)

Does the hon. Lady know whether it is possible to be detained for a non-arrestable offence?

Bridget Prentice (Labour, Lewisham East)

I am tempted to say, ''Ask me one on sport,'' which is my usual answer. To be honest, I will have to come back to the hon. Gentleman. I shall get on safer ground by discussing the Met's position.

The examples that Opposition Members gave suggest that enormous amounts of anti-social behaviour involving crowds of people take place in the middle of the night and that it will be impossible for a single CSO to cope with such incidents. In fact, in the view of the Met and those of us who represent London constituencies, much of the work that CSOs will do during the day will reduce much of the antisocial behaviour. Their visible, uniformed presence will make a significant difference.

A more likely scenario is that a CSO who stops someone will be able to identify the person, because they know who the most likely culprits are in their local community. Even if they do not, if a person will not give their name and address or appears to be giving a false name and address, the CSO's immediate reaction will be to call for back-up. The Met assure us that in London—I am sorry if it is not the case in other parts of the country—the back-up will be able to arrive well within 30 minutes. Therefore, the 30-minute limit is not nearly as important as the emphasis that Opposition Members put on it would suggest. It is highly unlikely that someone will wait 29 minutes 59 seconds.

Meg Munn (Labour/Co-operative, Sheffield, Heeley)

Is not ''community'' the important word in the officers' title, whatever other name they end up getting? Not only will they know their community, they will probably be able to stay there longer and build more links than do currently serving police officers, who often get moved on to other roles.

Bridget Prentice (Labour, Lewisham East)

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. That is exactly what their role will be, and of course they will be working under the management of the local community police officer.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

Do we have any reassurance that they will be doing that? Is not the danger that CSOs will replace community police officers? Most local communities want a proper, elite force of community police officers with the full panoply of powers, not a second-class version.

Bridget Prentice (Labour, Lewisham East)

I certainly do not think that local communities want an elite force. They want community police officers, people whom they know and can recognise, whom they can go up to and talk to in the street and who will turn up at their residents and tenants association meetings and so on. The community support officers will be working in

conjunction with local people, which I think enhances their role in the local community rather than detracting from it.

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

When my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath and I refer to an elite force, we do not mean, er—

Meg Munn (Labour/Co-operative, Sheffield, Heeley)

The SAS.

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

An SAS-type force—indeed. I thank the hon. Lady—I was trying to think of the right descriptive terminology. What we mean is making people realise that these are the best police, because that is the most important part of the job.

What I really want to challenge the hon. Member for Lewisham, East (Ms Prentice) on is this: she mentioned CSOs operating in the community under the neighbourhood police officer, for want of a better phrase, but we are also told that the Met do not want them for that. They want them for security patrols in the city centre of London. Would we not be forgiven for being slightly confused about what the officers are actually to be used for?

Bridget Prentice (Labour, Lewisham East)

I do not see that there is necessarily any confusion at all, and why both roles cannot be used. In Westminster, in the centre of London, CSOs may well be used for that security role. In Lewisham, on the Downham estate in my constituency, they will be dealing with the young tearaways, as I think they were described last week—toe-rags is another favourite description—who should not be out and about in the middle of the day but behind a desk in a classroom. It is perfectly possible for CSOs to fill both those roles.

Huw Irranca-Davies (Labour, Ogmore)

It may be of interest to my hon. Friend, and of assistance in some of the points that she raises, to note that since 1997 there have been more than 250 additional police officers on the beat in the South Wales constabulary. If community support officers were opted for there, they would be in addition to those police officers, not in place of them. Does she agree with Baroness Gardner, who said:

''I would rather have community support officers than no one''?—[Official Report, House of Lords, 7 March 2002; Vol. 632, c. 431.]

Bridget Prentice (Labour, Lewisham East)

I am sure that Baroness Gardner can be assured that she will have more than no one—she will indeed have the community support officers.

In conclusion, I simply say that I hope that other police authorities and chief constables, if they do not immediately take the opportunity to have community support officers, will look at the effect that they have in the Met. The idea is embraced both by the Met and by local authorities that have neighbourhood warden schemes and want to see both schemes working hand in hand. The suggestion, from the examples given in this debate, that the power of detention is too great, is wrong both for the community support officers in the street and for those working as detention officers and elsewhere. Those who represent them support the

Government's position on giving them powers of detention and of use of reasonable force. That should be put on record.

The scheme will be welcomed by local communities, certainly in London, and I imagine that other major cities will also find their policing enhanced by having community support officers.

Vera Baird (Labour, Redcar)

I want to raise the major difficulties that the amendment would give to all kinds of officers, even excluding CSOs. The issue of the 30 minutes' detention is a very interesting one and I shall await the Minister's response on it. Leaving aside CSOs for the time being, and considering the duties that will be given—as I had originally understood it, with the full support of both Opposition parties—to the other civilian officers that are to be created, unless those duties are backed up by the right to use reasonable force, they are a recipe for trouble.

Let us consider a situation in which an escort officer is escorting someone from A to B and that person tries to escape or refuses to be taken there. What is the officer to do if he does not have a power of reasonable force to restrain the person until further help arrives? An escort officer cannot do the job if he does not have the power to back it up. The straightforward point is that the amendment would cross escort officers from the list of new people who will help the police.

We considered detention officers quite carefully this morning in pursuit of the suggestion of the hon. Member for Lewes that such officers should have one-to-one supervision from police officers. Detention officers' duties will include searching people. A detention officer who has, and will therefore use, that power might ask someone to turn out their pockets, and that person might refuse. If the detention officer were to put his hand into the person's pocket to take out an item, he would technically be guilty of assault, and could be prosecuted. Surely we do not want to give civilian officers duties that they cannot carry out without risk of prosecution. We must face the fact that the amendment would cross detention officers, as civilians attached to police, off the list.

Although investigation officers are concerned with tasks such as obtaining special procedure material and searching premises once people who have been arrested are moved from them, they will also be involved, under the powers in the schedule, in searching premises while people are there. They are given the power to search. A person might not want an investigation officer to use that power. He might not want him to go into a particular room and could bar the way. How is the officer to do the duty imposed on him if he is not entitled to move the person away, or at least tell the person that he is entitled to move him, and could he please move? Investigation officers simply could not do the job that I thought everyone was keen to allocate to them.

We have to face the fact that if the amendment is agreed to, we will have to cross investigation officers off the list of the assistants that the Bill is fervently trying to provide for a thoroughly overworked police

force. Such officers are welcomed in principle by the police officers to whom I have spoken. The submissions of pressure groups show that those groups welcome them, too.

Part of the foundation for the powers are the facts elicited by the study, ''The Diary of a Police Officer''. I believe that it was the Minister's idea that officers should keep a record of their day-to-day activities. The conclusions were that less than 50 per cent. of officers' time was spent outside the police station—I think that some 55 per cent. was spent in it. When they were in the police station, they were mostly carrying out jobs that would be done by detention, investigation and escort officers. Consequently, the amendment would, at a stroke, restore to the police all the duties that I thought we were anxious to take off them because they were too menial and trivial to occupy their time. The amendment makes it perfectly plain that the Liberal Democrats are against all support officers.

George Osborne (Conservative, Tatton)

Several members of the Committee—and police officers—have struggled with the distinction between arrest and detention. Could the hon. and learned Lady throw the light of her legal expertise on to the problem and illuminate the matter for the Committee?

Boris Johnson (Conservative, Henley)

Can one be detained for a non-arrestable offence?

Vera Baird (Labour, Redcar)

I cannot say, ''Ask me one about sport,'' as I know nothing about it.

In response to the hon. Member for Henley, I suspect that none of the offences are arrestable, but I am only venturing on the matter, as others have considered the matter far more carefully than I have. Something akin to the general arrest condition power in section 25 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 is to be used. That gives a police officer, at any rate, a power to arrest someone he has seen committing an offence that would normally be summonsable if the person refuses to give a name and address. That is the analogy that can be drawn here, but I will leave distinguishing detention from arrest to the Minister.

Those points must be forcefully made, to show the complete lack of sense in the amendment, and in the Liberal Democrats' public stance that they are in favour of this kind of support officer—because they cannot be.

I also seek assistance from official Opposition Members, because I cannot understand why they are not supporting amendment No. 42. It is a Liberal Democrat amendment, and it would remove from schedule 4 the right to give a fixed penalty notice for offences of disorder. They are not supporting the attempt to remove that, so they are happy for CSOs to give fixed penalty notices in respect of offences of disorder—which, of course, requires that they take the offender's name and address—but they are supportive of amendment No. 43, which would remove paragraph 2 from schedule 4, which gives the power to ask for the name and address of someone who has been acting in an antisocial manner. They are happy for CSOs to have the power to ask for a name and address when

somebody has been behaving in a disorderly way, but they are not happy for them to have that power when somebody has been behaving in an antisocial manner.

I am anxious to be intervened on by an official Opposition Member, so that they can clarify what I see as an utter absurdity.

Boris Johnson (Conservative, Henley)

I did not intend to speak, but the hon. and learned Lady's comments have inspired me to say something on behalf of the potential miscreant. Nobody has spoken for him. I wanted to put myself in his shoes, by imagining that I am rolling around the streets of Henley late at night and much the worse for wear when a figure with a helmet on looms out of the fog and says, '''Ello, 'ello, what's all this 'ere, then? You're nicked, chummy.''

In those circumstances, we know exactly where we stand: a police constable is exercising his authority under the law, because he has the right to arrest me for being drunk and disorderly—and I respect his right to do that, and understand what is going on. On the other hand, if I am in that condition and a CSO arrives and says the same thing to me, I would be in confusion, and nothing that Labour Members have said has enlightened me, or elucidated the position. I do not know what powers the CSO will have over me. I do not know how long he will be able to detain me for, as that seems to vary from area to area. I do not know what offences he will be able to detain me for. Even the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) could not explain whether someone could be detained for a non-arrestable offence.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend who, as always, is making an enormously powerful contribution to the debate. He might be interested to learn that his point about the concerns of miscreants has been supported by one of the high temples of new Labour thinking, in the form of a submission to the Home Affairs Committee by the chief executive of the London borough of Islington—which is perhaps not usually a spiritual friend of his. The chief executive says:

''It is almost certain that CSOs will not have the support and trust, as do the current wardens, especially amongst young people who will see them as a threat.''

Even in Islington, there is support for my hon. Friend's argument.

Boris Johnson (Conservative, Henley)

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for that helpful intervention.

It is vital that all of us in this Room, and other potential miscreants, should be able to know exactly where we stand with these people, and what authority they have over us.

Vera Baird (Labour, Redcar)

My guess is that the officer would tell a person what power he had. If he had a book of fixed penalty notices in his hand, it would be a fairly reasonable guess that he had the power to give the person one for whatever was being done.

Boris Johnson (Conservative, Henley)

That is very interesting. I am pleased that the hon. and learned Lady is so convinced of that, because our earlier discussion suggested that it was unclear whether CSOs would have the same powers in different areas. I was not sure whether they would have the same uniforms. It would be a grave disservice to set up CSOs without a clear understanding among the public about their powers. Do we expect miscreants to obey automatically the authority of some chap who appears wearing a peaked cap and a purple sweater—or whatever the curious uniform might be—and announces that he proposes to detain them for 30 minutes?

Ian Lucas (Labour, Wrexham)

Does the hon. Gentleman therefore oppose the establishment of pilot projects for community support officers?

Boris Johnson (Conservative, Henley)

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman was listening earlier, because he would have heard it said from the Opposition Front Bench that we do not object to such pilot schemes. The burden of the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire was that we should have pilot schemes but that the system should not be rolled out higgledy-piggledy throughout the country with different CSO schemes doing different things. Confusion might be fatal to the respect in which the CSOs should be held. That I why I oppose amendment No. 171.

Sylvia Hermon (UUP, North Down)

It might ease the hon. Gentleman's concern if he looks at the definition of a relevant offence in the amendment, although far be it from me to defend a Government amendment. The powers to detain that a CSO will have are contained within that definition. He need not have sleepless nights about the issue.

Boris Johnson (Conservative, Henley)

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for her kindly intervention—[Interruption.]—although I am informed by my wise hon. Friends on the Front Bench that she misread the amendment.

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

This has been a useful discussion. I shall try to be brief yet reply to as many points as possible.

The hon. Member for Henley asked what would happen if he was discovered in a recumbent position in the town centre of Henley after a good Friday night out and what his interaction with the CSO would be. It is difficult to imagine that the CSO would do anything other than approach him and say, ''Good evening, Mr. Johnson. We've been enjoying ourselves, haven't we?'' Given that the CSO would undoubtedly recognise the hon. Gentleman—

George Osborne (Conservative, Tatton)

Not in his constituency.

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

The CSO would certainly be aware of the hon. Gentleman's place of work and might well conclude that he had been satisfactorily able to identify the hon. Gentleman for the purpose of issuing a fixed penalty notice. The other subjects of this afternoon's discussion would not apply.

It is important to recognise—this point was rightly made by the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire—that the starting point of the process is the identification of the individual to get a name and address for the purpose of exercising the powers in the Bill. The issues that we have discussed this afternoon come into play only when a person refuses to give his name and address or the CSO has reasonable grounds to believe that the name and address given is false. Our intention is not to introduce a wide-ranging power for CSOs to scour the streets searching for individuals to detain—that thought might have inadvertently crept into the debate. The power derives from the ability of a CSO to identify a name and address to allow action to be taken under the relevant legislation.

Hon. Members reflecting on points made in the debate might conclude that—this is not my argument—police officers in, for example, rural areas, should not have the power of arrest. We are told that, if it is not possible immediately to remove someone from the scene and take them to a police station or guarantee that the police will arrive in less than 30 minutes, the attempt to detain someone physically is doomed to failure. Where does that leave the substantial number of much-respected rural police officers who patrol small towns on their own, not by car, who cannot guarantee backup within a particular time by a police car? That is clearly part of the reality of policing in rural areas, but no one suggests that those police officers should not have wide-ranging powers of arrest and the ability to use reasonable force. Some of the dilemmas about when it is prudent to exercise those powers, to which my hon. Friends referred, obviously arise for serving police officers, but no one would seriously suggest that they should not have those powers. A key part of the Government's approach is that it is reasonable to expect that the powers that will be made available to CSOs under Government amendment No. 171 will be used after proper training, with discretion and full awareness of the circumstances in which it would be appropriate to use them, including the time in which support might be available.

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

The Minister again refers to proper training. The mind boggles about how much training will be crammed into a short period. If people are going to be trained for 35 weeks, they might as well be full-blown police officers.

The Minister made a point about rural areas. No one was suggesting what he implies. My constituency contains some remote areas, as do those of some of my hon. Friends and, indeed, of some Labour Members. No police officer in a rural area will willingly arrest someone with a view to holding them in that place for the next 30 minutes. They will use their discretion about whether to arrest the person, and if they decide to do so, they will take into account how quickly they can move them to the local police station. Every rural police officer I know uses a car. If they are on a bicycle, they are close to a police station. Whatever happens, they have a means of getting the person off the street fairly quickly.

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

I believe that the hon. Gentleman will find that having two on a bicycle is an offence, although whether a person can be arrested for it, I am not sure.

The hon. Gentleman concedes the point. I did not suggest that anyone was proposing that rural police officers should not have powers of arrest. I was merely making the point that in many circumstances police officers must exercise their powers with discretion, using their judgment about whether they would be in a worse position by doing so. Similar issues arise in the exercise of the much more limited powers of detention available to CSOs, and the same discretion will need to be used. The debate has been characterised by the assumption that no discretion would ever be used, rather than that it would be reasonable to assume that it would be.

Sylvia Hermon (UUP, North Down)

Will the Minister clarify two points? Under the amendment, CSOs, where they exist, may have the power to detain. Article 5 of the European convention on human rights, which is incorporated into our law in the Human Rights Act 1998, governs freedom from detention and arrest. Will he guarantee that CSOs will have training in human rights legislation as part of their so-called proper training, and not just in PACE? Secondly, will a person who is unlawfully detained by a CSO have an enforceable right to compensation?

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

We have taken advice on the drafting of the Bill to satisfy ourselves that it is ECHR compatible. I undertake to write to the hon. Lady to confirm this, but I understand that human rights training as well as specific PACE powers will be included in the basic training of CSOs. Working from memory, basic training for the Metropolitan police CSOs—which does not include any of the powers that we are discussing because the Bill has not been passed—will include basic training in ECHR requirements. Clearly, should Parliament accede to the powers in the Bill, additional training will be needed to take account of specific requirements.

Compensation for wrongful detention should be possible, but I will write to members of the Committee to confirm whether there is an automatic right and what the procedures would be. I need to take advice on that. I hope that I can clarify that matter later.

To return to Henley town centre, if the hon. Member for Henley had not been recognised by a CSO—unlikely though that it is—and a police officer then arrived, in detaining the hon. Gentleman the CSO would have exercised a power of enforcement not a power of arrest. A police officer arriving at the scene would be able to arrest the hon. Gentleman under the general power of arrest, subject to his or her judgment.

A constable can arrest for a non-arrestable offence if general conditions for arrest in section 25 of PACE are met, one of which is that a summons is not appropriate because the name and address of the individual is not known. A safeguard may be

involved—the police officer may recognise the hon. Gentleman and decide that there is no need for arrest because he can enforce the power.

Boris Johnson (Conservative, Henley)

Will the Minister clarify for a final time whether it would be within the powers of a CSO to detain somebody for a non-arrestable offence?

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

The CSO would effectively be able to detain somebody for a non-arrestable offence in the sense that offences relating to public order are not all arrestable. The CSO would be able to detain if it were impossible to satisfactorily establish the name and address of the individual, even though the root offence that had given rise to the situation was non-arrestable.

There are other examples in law in which an individual can be detained when no criminal offence has been committed. In a very different area of law, an individual may be detained for up to six hours while police apply for a banning order under the Football (Disorder) Act 2000. Detention powers of that sort are not without precedent. There are also powers to detain without criminal offences having been committed under immigration laws. Other examples draw a distinction between arrest and detention.

The Metropolitan police envisage CSOs being deployed in three different roles: enhancing security around this part of London and other sensitive areas, supporting law and order on transport routes, and in the community, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, East referred. It is reasonable, especially in a large force, for CSOs to be deployed in more than one range. That does not detract from the potential role of CSOs working in the community. However, we must make it clear, and examination of speeches made by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary or myself clearly state that it is no part of the Government's strategy for CSOs to be a replacement for professional community or neighbourhood-based policing. CSOs will complement policing. The hon. Members for South-East Cambridgeshire and for Surrey Heath said that fears have been expressed that the police will withdraw to elite serious crime work and will not be in the community. That is not our intention under the Bill. We recognise—as they do—that highly professional, committed professional police officers working in the community must be a core part of the model of policing that will be effective in the 21st century.

Boris Johnson (Conservative, Henley)

My mind is working slowly this afternoon. If someone spits out chewing gum in the street—a non-arrestable offence, I imagine—could the CSO detain that person for 30 minutes?

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

Not directly for that offence. I shall need to consider the specific littering offence. If an offence were committed under the relevant offences that are designated for the purposes of CSOs, the CSO could detain the person directly for the commission of that offence. The powers of the CSO relate to the power to issue a fixed penalty notice for the offence. The fixed penalty notice depends on having the name and address of the person who committed the offence. The trigger for the power of detention is if the CSO

were not satisfied that he was obtaining the name and address of the person who had committed the offence. That is how the process will work. It is important that members of the Committee understand that the power does not give the CSO the ability to grab somebody directly because of something that he has done. We want to deal with the inability of the CSO to follow up with a fixed penalty notice.

I hope that I have addressed all the issues that have been raised. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, East made a powerful speech in support of the clause and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar masterfully demolished the Liberal Democrat amendments, so I shall not repeat her arguments.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

Following that challenge, I want to pick up on one or two points. As she knows, I have tremendous respect for the hon. and learned Member for Redcar. I cannot think of anyone better to represent me in court were I on a charge—as long as she promised not to persecute Liberal Democrats in the process. However, for once, her logic is flawed. Her arguments were considered before the amendments were tabled. We have not sought to remove from escort officers the power to use reasonable force. It is still contained in part 4 of schedule 4, at line 15 on page 134 of the Bill, as are further powers to enable escort officers to carry out searches and to seize and retain items found on a search. With respect to the hon. and learned Lady, her argument was not correct.

As for detention officers, we want to restrict significantly what they can do without having a constable with them. I shall not rehearse the argument that we had this morning. We hold a different view about the breadth of their powers. We do not want detention officers to put their hands in people's pockets. The hon. and learned Member for Redcar thinks that that is all right. We do not. We think that investigation officers will play a useful role as civilians, but we are slightly worried that the minority of their time will be spent in consultation with members of the public. The hon. and learned Lady has been uncharacteristically unfair in her criticism of our amendments.

The Minister asked me to respond on the matter of fixed penalty offences. I did refer to it at length earlier because the key issue was that of detention. The test that we sought to apply is whether they are likely to be intrusive, cause problems and meet with resistance. We are concerned about the very issue that the hon. Member for Henley was discussing a moment ago. A very minor offence could then escalate, because someone refused to give their name and address, into a detention or an arrest, and what was a simple matter could become a very big one. That is why we want to limit the number of fixed penalty notices. However, the principle that CSOs should give out fixed penalty offence tickets is not one to which we are opposed. It all depends on the offence, and we have tried to be quite specific about that.

The Minister compared CSOs performing that function to traffic wardens. With respect to him, I do not think that that is a fair comparison. With traffic

wardens, the ticket is given not to a person but to a vehicle. The person might not even be there—in most cases they are not. There is then a stringent system, using the registration number of the car, for identifying whether the person has paid. That is a very good system but it relies on the courts and the legal system for its enforcement, not on the person giving the ticket, except in the initial stages. I do not think that a comparison between a traffic warden giving a ticket to a stationary vehicle and a CSO giving a ticket for disorderly behaviour, under very different circumstances, is fair.

The main issue is detention. A number of arguments and concerns have been raised about that, both when I spoke and by Conservative Members. The Minister has tried his best to deal with some of them but I do not believe that he has convinced everyone in the Room. He has not convinced me, although I am sure he has convinced himself and perhaps some others. The period of training, to which the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire referred, and the questions of how long that should be and whether it will be sufficient, are very important. If there is now to be human rights training as well, as there must be, that is something else to pack into a couple of weeks. Those people will have very much of a crash course before going out on to the streets fully ready to take action.

The hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire also mentioned handcuffs, and I do not think that the Minister responded to that point when he replied. He must have forgotten it, but I thought that it was worth pursuing. Another issue that has been rightly raised is whether the offenders should be left on the street. Police officers want people who are causing trouble off the street so that they do not become public spectacles. With CSOs, they will be kept on the street and become street theatre—a very welcome diversion. People on their way home from the pub, or wherever it happens to be, will suddenly be entertained by someone in uniform trying to keep one of their mates busy for half and hour. That will draw a crowd and will become deeply unpleasant for the CSO involved, as I made clear in my initial comments.

Another question is what will happen if a CSO has overreacted and wrongly detained a person, and the police arrive and say, ''It's OK—off you go.'' I think that the hon. Member for Henley or the hon. Member for Tatton made that point. My understanding is that if that person can demonstrate that they have been falsely held, that will be a matter for compensation because it will in effect have been false arrest. On the other hand, if the police officer follows through and takes someone to the station, that creates more work for what was originally a pretty minor offence. The situation is not clear.

So far as the pilot scheme is concerned, I am having doubts about that. The hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire said that he was being generous in offering it, and I think that he was being exceedingly generous. Perhaps the shadow Home Secretary has encouraged him to be generous. The scheme could

work, but there is a danger that Labour Members might suggest that it would produce precisely the hotchpotch across the country that some of us are trying to avoid. However, if the Minister were pragmatic he might want to take that idea with both hands as a way of dealing with the issue. The Bill is constructed to allow a different solution for London from the rest of the country. The business managers might be able to conclude that to offer CSOs in London and not elsewhere could be a way forward, both to get the Bill through and to meet majority opinion in London and elsewhere. However, that is a matter for the Minister.

The hon. Member for Lewisham, East very interestingly said that the presence of officers in uniform, in itself, will make a significant difference. She is absolutely right. That is one reason why we believe that it is not necessary to give CSOs controversial powers. They will do the job very effectively, and make a big difference, simply by being there in uniform. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Lewisham, East for reinforcing the point that I made earlier. I thank her very much for that.

The point about backup is an important one, and it may well be that the Metropolitan police are confident that within 30 minutes there will be backup available. I believe that that would be easier in London, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Lewisham, East, than it would be in mine. In my constituency, which is by no means unusual, there are four big towns that are some distance away from each other. It takes more than an hour to drive from one end of the constituency to the other, and it is in south-east England.

If there is a big event not far away—in Brighton, for example—that has drawn police officers out for the evening, at most one police car will be covering the three other towns on the coast. All that there is on some evenings is that one police car with two officers covering three towns. If those two officers in the car are expected to respond simultaneously to CSOs in Lewes, Seaford and Newhaven, it is just not going to happen. There is a genuine issue concerning the response of officers in rural areas.

Bridget Prentice (Labour, Lewisham East)

I see the point that the hon. Gentleman is making, but if that big event is taking place in Brighton, and there is only one police car to cover the other three areas anyway, there are not enough police officers either. At least the presence of a CSO on the streets would reduce the possibility of crime in the first place.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady, but they should not have the power of detention, which would exacerbate the situation. Having a CSO on the streets will help, and I am fully in support of that. I want to see CSOs on the streets, but they do not need that power of detention.

The Minister talked about the police's power of arrest and the discretion used by officers. Of course, CSOs should use discretion; that point was well made by the Minister and I accept it. However, it often happens that police do not make arrests or bring

people into detention for that reason. They are confronted with 30 or 40 people and they have to deal with that. The way to deal with it is not to deal with it until reinforcements come, which is very sensible. CSOs may not necessarily have that same level of training from the two or three weeks that they have.

It is clear that there are many question marks about the power to detain. The power to detain was removed on a cross-party basis in the House of Lords. It has been opposed by ACPO, by different shire authorities throughout the country, and by Liberal Democrats and Conservatives today. I believe it is a step too far. I hope that the Government will think again about the power because I am confident from what I understand of the situation that there is unlikely to be a change of mind in the Lords if the Government insist on reinserting the provision here in the Commons. Having said that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment made: No. 169, in page 35, line 14, leave out subsection (10)—[Mr. Denham.]

Clause 35, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 4 - Powers exercisable by police civilians

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I beg to move amendment No. 45, in page 125, line 21, at end insert—

'(2) This paragraph shall only apply where a designated person reasonably suspects that the person to whom section 12 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 (c.16) (alcohol consumption in public places) applies has not attained the age of 18.'.

Win Griffiths (Labour, Bridgend)

With this we may discuss amendment No. 29, in schedule 5, page 136, line 37, at end insert—

'(2) This paragraph shall only apply when an accredited person reasonably suspects that the person to whom section 12 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 (c. 16) (alcohol consumption in public places) applies has not attained the age of 18.'.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

This is an important issue on which we have already touched, and I shall be careful not to repeat the arguments that have already been put.

We are all aware of the enormous problems that alcohol abuse causes for the individual, the community and society, and it is undoubtedly a major contributor to antisocial behaviour. One of the amendments applies to CSOs and the other to accredited community safety officers, and their purpose is to distinguish between the treatment of minors and adults. Given my experience of these matters, I shall put the case rather strongly. I also want to make the point that this is an issue on which we can think about the great strengths of both community support officers and community safety officers.

I have been a local councillor for a very long time and I represent a relatively affluent ward in which alcohol abuse by young people is a big problem.

Colin Challen (Labour, Morley and Rothwell)

Will the hon. Lady address the question of how a designated officer can ascertain the age of an alleged minor if they cannot detain them for a short while?

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I shall come to the question of age, but first I want to make some points of principle.

I am endeavouring to speak strongly in support of the use of community support officers. A few years ago there was a situation in my ward that was totally out of control. It involved more than 100 young people who had bottles of vodka and every other expensive spirit of which one can think. Young people were swinging from trees and, sadly, police officers had to be brought in from other areas, which was bad news for them, because the situation was totally out of control. It would have been a tremendous advantage to have had community support officers or, in the case of minors, community safety officers.

A multi-agency approach is necessary in such situations, particularly when young people are involved. A lot of training is required, even when dealing with minors, to treat such situations satisfactorily. I welcome the extra support as far as minors are concerned because innocent young people can be tempted into binge drinking, which can make them seriously ill unless adults are around. There are many strong reasons why an extra presence will be helpful in dealing with a major problem for society that is a feature in my part of the world.

I would appreciate help from the Minister with an issue that is, perhaps, an aside, but which may have relevance to the debate. Our local police superintendent told me that one of his greatest frustrations in dealing with under-age drinking was that his police officers are able to take open containers of alcohol and just tip the contents away on the spot but, if a container has not been opened, they must confiscate it, take it to the police station and deal with a lot of paperwork. Again, I can see how support officers might help at that point. Often, just to add insult to injury, the parents will come and collect the alcohol. It would be useful to know whether community support officers would improve that situation for everyone concerned, because it seems an inordinate amount of work to do in dealing with a situation with minors.

However, I wish to move on to the main subject of the amendments, which is adults. I acknowledge the intervention of the hon. Member for Morley and Rothwell (Mr. Challen). I believe that community support officers can deal with minors in a park in the middle of a residential area. However, just outside my constituency, on the quayside, there are many public houses, very close together, and many outside areas where drinking takes place. I do not think that it would be practical to send community support officers into such a situation, particularly in the early hours of the morning. That is one of the most severe problems in my area, and senior police officers are always needed to deal with it. A distinction must be made between drinking situations involving minors and those involving adults. They are different in many ways.

To pick up on the hon. Gentleman's point, the amendment says ''reasonably suspects.'' I accept that it is exceedingly difficult to judge whether someone is 17 or 18, but the issue must be covered. It may be that the amendment is not phrased as it should be to deal with it, but I am sure that the Minister can address that. I agree that a judgment would have to be made, but the principle has been addressed by hon. Members.

The situation that I described of heavy, sometimes riotous drinking down on the quay is not for low-level policing. Dealing with it requires considerable skills, training and experience and, as has been said before, we would undermine all the pluses of bringing in civilians if we put them in confrontational situations that are very difficult to handle. I anticipate the reply that, in such a case, one would send police officers out. However, I do not think that the situation in my part of the world is quite as it is in London, because we would be very fortunate to get a policeman out in half an hour. There is a shortage: at night, there are sometimes only three patrol cars on duty. It is very tight. Yes, we need extra resourcing, but community support officers cannot deal with such difficult matters. I ask the Minister to give consideration to the amendments and to my queries.

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

I shall be brief. Conservative Members added their names to the two amendments for many of the reasons just given by the hon. Lady. As I made clear earlier, we seek to avoid CSOs being put into confrontational situations. I am not suggesting that someone under 18 is not confrontational. As we all know, they can be, but I seek to minimise risk to CSOs, which is why I believe that it is right to limit their power to confiscate alcohol to confiscating it from those whom they suspect are under 18. It is perfectly true that they have no mechanism for immediately knowing the truth of the situation. It is a matter for discretion.

In an earlier debate, the Minister lauded the discretion that CSOs will have, and this is an example of when they would have to use that discretion. We are discussing amendments Nos. 45 and 29. The latter inserts the same provision into schedule 5 for accredited community safety officers. I suspect that they will be much less well trained and not directly accountable to a police officer or chief constable because they will not be employed by the police, so it

is even more important for them that they should not be put in the confrontational situation of trying to confiscate alcohol from an adult—who may be drinking alone, but is more likely to be drinking with a group of others—and precipitating the risk of serious disorder.

The hon. Lady was right to table those amendments and I share her concern about the distinction between pouring away alcohol from an open container and not pouring it away if it is in a closed container. I endorse what the hon. Lady said and the Minister may want to respond to that.

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

This has been a useful debate and I am pleased at the acceptance, at least to a limited degree and concerning juveniles, of the role that CSOs and accredited community safety officers can play in dealing with such issues, which concern public order and health and are of concern to the wider community, as the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole said. The consensus about the role of CSOs and accredited community safety officers is important.

I shall deal first with the question of pouring away or confiscating alcohol. The background is that around the time that designated areas were introduced under current legislation, it was felt that it would be logical to harmonise the treatment of closed containers of alcohol between adults and juveniles. Prior to that it was possible to confiscate closed containers of alcohol from juveniles, but not from adults in those designated areas. I suppose the problem was what to do with people on their way home from the off-licence.

A considerable case has been made by some police officers to whom I have spoken that while there is an impeccable legal logic in harmonisation of the treatment of closed containers held by juveniles and adults or those who are old enough to be in possession of alcohol, that logic does not apply so well when trying to police the situation on the street. I cannot give a firm indication today, although the tone of my comments may suggest that the issue has been raised before. The hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire has written to me—the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole may also have done so—and we are considering whether the logic may need to be a little less impeccable in the law so that the logic on the streets is a little more useful and flexible.

The hon. Lady was right in her amendment to recognise, as we all do, that some alcohol-fuelled violence and disorder will always require the attendance of police officers and a level of skill that we would not look to rely on in CSOs and certainly not in accredited community safety officers. The hon. Lady was right to make that point. However, I have a real difficulty in the dividing line in her amendment concerning age. Even if a judgment could be made, it is possible that a 20-year-old might be part of a group of younger juveniles who could be satisfactorily dealt with by CSOs if the behaviour was not particularly threatening. All sorts of anomalies and dilemmas

would arise. I understand the hon. Lady's point, but in practice the difficulties in creating a dividing line based on age would be insuperable.

As in earlier debates, I am not saying in resisting the amendment that we would expect CSOs to be in the front line in all incidents of violence fuelled by alcohol, but the hon. Lady's proposal is not workable. My hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Rothwell asked the right question at the beginning of our discussion. I make no criticism of the hon. Lady, but the question is very difficult to answer in practice, so I must resist the amendment.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I thank the Minister for his comments. I am pleased that he has taken up that issue, and I am glad that I risked straying there, because it was worth doing so. When I was considering this, I was reminded that that had been raised with me, and it is important to address it, particularly now that we are moving into this arena and focusing on reducing unnecessary paperwork.

I am still concerned about this. I agree with the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire that it is even more worrying for the accredited CSOs, who will have even less training, should they be put into that position and be expected to do something, which they could be. I want to place on the record that I have deep concerns about the level of confrontation that could come about if it becomes an obligation—which may well be the case—for these civilians to take action in incidents such as a severe brawl. However, as we have a lot more to debate this afternoon, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendments made: No. 179, in page 125, line 23, leave out 'under section 35'.

No. 180, in page 125, line 35, leave out 'under section 35'.

No. 181, in page 126, line 2, leave out 'under section 35'.—[Mr. Denham.]

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I beg to move amendment No. 47, in page 126, line 5, leave out from 'limb' to end of line.

Win Griffiths (Labour, Bridgend)

With this we may consider amendment No. 34, in schedule 5, page 137, line 23, at end insert—

'Entry to save life or limb

6D An accredited person whose accreditation specifies that this paragraph applies to him shall have the powers of a constable under section 17 of the 1984 Act to enter and search any premises in the relevant police area for the purpose of saving life or limb.'.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I will not delay the Committee unduly over this, as it is not a matter to go to the wall over. This is a probing amendment that is intended to seek clarification from the Minister about the circumstances that he envisages might lead CSOs to conclude that serious damage to property might ensue. I also wish to know if he is satisfied that sufficient safeguards are in place to prevent misuse of that power.

As the Minister knows, the power to gain entry to a person's property, and to search it, is potentially draconian. We have traditionally resisted that in this country—we hold to the view that an Englishman's home is his castle. Therefore, before we give another group of people that power, it is right to raise the issue, and to check what safeguards will be in place.

Nobody would dispute the exercise of this power if we were dealing with a case of saving life or limb, but there is a question as to what extent the intrusion on a person's property can be justified. I look forward to the Minister's response.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

I understand that it is helpful to probe what the Government have in mind, but we do not support the amendment of the hon. Member for Lewes. I was relieved to hear him say that it was a probing amendment because, in its present form, my party could not support it.

However, it does no harm to explore the whole area that it addresses and, like the hon. Gentleman, we will listen with interest to what the Minister has to say because we share a common interest—even if we do not agree about the precise form of words here—which is to uphold the importance of our tradition that an Englishman's home is his castle.

That is especially the case at present, because there have been concerns in other areas of the criminal law in the past few days. I understand that the Government have now accepted that it was a blunder to try to give all sorts of draconian powers, in relation to snooping on people's e-mails, in other legislative proposals.

It is always wise to probe what the Government are up to, so that we can ensure that our traditions, and the constitutional safeguards for our citizens, are maintained.

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

This debate is about extending another power to CSOs. When property is threatened with serious flooding, or possibly fire, I would not be surprised if a police officer entered the property and attempted to deal with the problem. Indeed, most of us would not be surprised if a member of the public took similar action, but we must decide whether it is more fair and straightforward to give the CSO such power.

Given that the CSO would be in uniform and working for the police service, he would be less likely to be challenged and asked, ''What power do you have to do that?'' than a milkman or passing tradesman if they responded to a situation during their normal working life. It is more that we want to ensure that the CSO, acting as we may expect an ordinary citizen to act, is properly protected by having such a power in the Bill, than that we want to extend the power. That is a key part of accountability. As we said during the more controversial discussion that we had earlier, it is useful to have the power in the Bill.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I am perfectly satisfied with the Minister's answer. I hope that, when CSOs are in training and powers are conferred on them, it will be drawn to their attention that they must not feel obliged to take chances with their own safety. I hope that they

understand that, on some occasions, it will not be appropriate to enter a burning building, but to call the fire brigade instead. Having said that, I am happy to beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendments made: No. 182, in page 126, line 7, leave out 'under section 35'.

No. 183, in page 126, line 18, leave out 'under section 35'.—[Mr. Denham.]

Amendment proposed: No. 49, in page 126, line 22, at end insert—

'(2) A person to whom this paragraph applies shall not exercise any powers conferred by this paragraph except in the company, and under the supervision, of a constable.'.—[Norman Baker.]

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 7, Noes 11.

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

I beg to move amendment No. 192, in page 130, line 37, at end insert—

'Arrest at a police station for another offence

17A (1) Where a designation applies this paragraph to any person, he shall have the power to make an arrest at any police station in the relevant police area in any case where an arrest—

(a) is required to be made under section 31 of the 1984 Act (arrest for a further offence of a person already at a police station); or

(b) would be so required if the reference in that section to a constable included a reference to a person to whom this paragraph applies.

(2) Section 36 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (c.33) (consequences of failure by arrested person to account for objects etc.) shall apply (without prejudice to the effect of any designation applying paragraph 20) in the case of a person arrested in exercise of the power exercisable by virtue of this paragraph as it applies in the case of a person arrested by a constable.

Power to transfer persons into custody of investigating officers

17B (1) Where a designation applies this paragraph to any person, the custody officer for a designated police station in the relevant police area may transfer or permit the transfer to him of a person in police detention for an offence which is being investigated by the person to whom this paragraph applies.

(2) A person into whose custody another person is transferred under sub-paragraph (1)—

(a) shall be treated for all purposes as having that person in his lawful custody;

(b) shall be under a duty to prevent his escape; and

(c) shall be entitled to use reasonable force to keep that person in his custody.

(3) Where a person is transferred into the custody of a person to whom this paragraph applies, in accordance with sub-paragraph (1), subsections (2) and (3) of section 39 of the 1984 Act shall have effect as if—

(a) references to the transfer of a person in police detention into the custody of a police officer investigating an offence for which that person is in police detention were references to that person's transfer into the custody of the person to whom this paragraph applies; and

(b) references to the officer to whom the transfer is made and to the officer investigating the offence were references to the person to whom this paragraph applies.

Power to require arrested person to account for certain matters

17C Where a designation applies this paragraph to any person—

(a) he shall have the powers of a constable under sections 36(1)(c) and 37(1)(c) of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (c.33) to request a person who—

(i) has been arrested by a constable, or by any person to whom paragraph 20 applies, and

(ii) is detained at any place in the relevant police area,

to account for the presence of an object, substance or mark or for the presence of the arrested person at a particular place; and

(b) the references to a constable in sections 36(1)(b) and (c) and (4) and 37(1)(b) and (c) and (3) of that Act shall have effect accordingly as including references to the person to whom this paragraph is applied.'.

Win Griffiths (Labour, Bridgend)

With this it will be convenient to take Government amendments Nos. 195, 204, 260 and 261.

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

The amendments improve on the way in which powers are allocated between detention officers and investigating officers under schedule 4. They link the powers that relate to detention officers in the schedule to those that may be conferred on investigating officers. The amendments do not change or alter the scope of the powers.

The two powers in question are, first, the power to arrest at a police station for a further offence, and secondly, the power to require arrested persons to account for matters such as the presence of an object, substance or remark, or their presence at a particular place. On reflection, those are essentially powers that may be needed to support the process of interviewing suspects. That is more properly done by a designated investigating officer, or of course a police officer, if designated investigating officers are not being used. By

switching the powers of part 3 of the schedule to part 2, the amendments help to maintain the distinction between persons who are responsible for the detention and custody of suspects and those whose responsibility is investigation and interviewing.

Amendment No. 192 will create new paragraph 17A, and will provide a power whereby a custody officer may transfer responsibility for a person in police detention to an investigating officer. That is because section 39(2) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 provides that the custody officer's responsibility to ensure that codes of practice are complied with, for example, ceases when the detained person is transferred to the custody of a police officer investigating an offence and is in police detention, or when an officer has charge of that person outside the police station.

Under the Bill, when an escort officer is given lawful custody of a detained person outside a police station, the custody officer's responsibilities can be transferred. However, as the Bill stands, the custody officer cannot be relieved of their responsibilities if the case is transferred to the investigating officer.

The amendment modifies section 39(2)(a) of PACE, so that when the investigating officer is given lawful custody of the detained person in the police station, the custody officer's responsibilities can be transferred. Otherwise, there would be an anomaly whereby the investigating officer would be dealing with the prisoner, but the custody officer's responsibilities would remain in place. That is not what would happen if a police officer were conducting the investigation. In such circumstances, it would be quite unlikely that the custody officer would want to hand the detained person over to an investigating officer, but we do not want to hinder the use of the powers.

The duty under section 39(3) of PACE for the person investigating the offence to report back to the custody officer on how the codes are being complied with once the detained person is returned to his custody will also apply to a designated civilian investigating officer under proposed new paragraph 17B. Amendments Nos. 260 and 261 are consequential and technical.

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

Never have I been more honest than in saying that I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation. I wrestled with the amendments but could not for the life of me understand what the Government were up to. I do not have any notes in front of me because I genuinely wanted to hear what he had to say. He has explained the amendments extremely cogently and clearly. I was puzzled as to why he was removing powers when that is what the Opposition have been trying to do throughout the debate. I now understand not only what he is doing but why. The logic is clear and entirely supportable, so I have nothing more to say, other than to thank him again for explaining what the Government are doing.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

The Minister may recall that earlier, in discussion on a large group of amendments, I raised the issue of arrest by civilians at a police station for a further offence. I now take the opportunity to raise it

again, as what with the huge number of issues raised, he did not respond to it. Why is it necessary for a civilian to carry out an arrest at a police station for another offence, and why is it not possible for a police officer to be summoned to do that? Presumably, police officers would not be very far away.

I confess to the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire that I have not researched section 31 of the 1984 Act in as detailed a manner as I might. I would be grateful if the Minister could put on the record, for Hansard, the offences that are covered by the proposal and the maximum penalty faced by a person who was charged and found guilty of such an offence. I have reservations about citizens carrying out arrests unless it is absolutely necessary, and I am not convinced that such an arrest is necessary if it occurs in a police station.

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

At the risk of sounding like a cracked record from earlier today, I say that the ability to make a subsequent arrest arises in an interviewing police officer's normal practice if a further crime for which the suspect must be arrested comes to light during the interview. As we envisage the possibility of investigating officers being able to carry out interviews in the police station, it is logical that the investigating officer to whom the further offence is disclosed may use the power of arrest. After all, the offender would be sitting in the custody suite of the police station. That is different from arresting people out on the streets and bringing them into the station. The set of powers that will be used by the investigating officer allows completeness.

There is no getting away from the fact that we are using schedule 4 to extend certain limited police powers to civilians who have been properly trained in order to make the maximum use of those civilians and free up the maximum police time for other duties. Our judgment is that the power can be properly extended.

I understand that the penalties that might arise would depend on the offence, so it might be better if I write a slightly longer reply to the question asked by the hon. Member for Lewes on that point.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendments made: No. 193, in page 130, line 39, leave out 'under section 35'.

No. 194, in page 131, line 8, leave out 'under section 35'.

No. 195, in page 131, line 14, leave out paragraph 20.

No. 196, in page 131, line 28, leave out 'under section 35'.

No. 197, in page 132, line 2, leave out 'under section 35'.—[Mr. Denham.]

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I beg to move amendment No. 59, in page 132, line 10, leave out paragraph 23.

We have already rehearsed the arguments on this issue and I suspect that we shall just repeat some of them. I quote from a statement about intimate body searches that was made on Third Reading in the House of Lords by Lord Dholakia. He said:

''People who are detained in police custody are innocent until proved guilty. I used to receive most complaints about that concern when I was at the Police Complaints Authority.''—[Official Report, House of Lords, 25 April 2002; Vol. 634, c. 412.]

Such a comment underlines the sensitivity of the issue.

I understood the Minister's argument in our previous debate on the subject to hinge on the fact that few intimate body searches will be conducted and instances in which there will not be a trained medical person around will be rare and, therefore, it will not matter if the powers are given to a civilian who has received a certain amount of training. I still see the issue from the other angle: if an intimate body search will be such a rarity, why not have the additional safeguard that the search should be carried out by a trained police officer? The issue is sensitive. Some people say that it feels like verbal abuse as well as a physical act on them. In many ways, it is a degrading practice for both parties. It places a burden on detention officers, and because it is so rare, I think that the police could cope with this one exceptional call on their time. The amendment is very important, and I would like to thank the Minister for his comments about it in a letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes.

Nick Hawkins (Conservative, Surrey Heath)

We understand the motivation of the Liberal Democrats in tabling the amendment, and will listen with interest to what the Minister has to say. The hon. Lady is right that over the whole country and the whole range of powers that are exercised, not a huge number of intimate body searches are conducted. Nevertheless, a large number of searches are made of groups of passengers coming into the United Kingdom from certain countries.

I have a constituency interest in the matter, because as hon. Members will realise, my constituency is not far from Heathrow airport. Some of my constituents work for Air Jamaica. It is common knowledge that a huge number of passengers coming into the UK on Air Jamaica flights have been on the receiving end of intimate body searches, for reasons that I am sure we all understand. I also have senior officers in the various security forces and the police force at Heathrow among my constituents, who have discussed with me the sensitivity of some of these issues.

I understand, therefore, what the hon. Lady says about the importance of handling such difficult searches with great care. I know that the Minister, those who advise him and police officers with responsibility for such delicate matters, are aware of the sensitivities and the balance that must be struck. However, the onus is on the Government to convince not only the Committee but the country as a whole that it is wise to extend the powers to conduct intimate body searches beyond the category of highly qualified, highly trained police officers and medical personnel with the required training and safeguards who are

working with the police, as the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole mentioned. Although this is perhaps not an issue on which we would go to the wall, she was right to raise it.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I reiterate what my hon. Friend said and thank the Minister for taking the trouble to write in such detail about this amendment. It is very helpful when a Minister does that, because it enables us to see the argument and construct our approach accordingly. The issue is a difficult one. I have read the Minister's letter carefully and I understand his point of view. Clearly, the preferable solution is for a medically trained person to carry out such searches, not merely because they are better able to do it and, frankly, know what the human body is—I will end up down a difficult road if I pursue that point.

Medically trained people would be less likely to cause problems and more likely to have the support of the person being searched. They are less confrontational and regarded as neutral in such situations. Police and civilian officers would not be seen as neutral.

I was pleased to hear in the Minister's letter that only five searches were carried out by constables last year. It is good that the number has been kept so low. Ideally, none should be carried out, and if any are necessary, registered doctors or nurses should carry them out. However, if a search must be conducted by someone other than a doctor or nurse, for the best possible reasons, my hon. Friend and I believe that it would be more defensible and effective and would be regarded better by the public if it was carried out by a proper police officer, rather than a civilian. I, and the Minister, want to avoid circumstances in which someone is intimately searched by a civilian, nothing is found, there is a hoo-hah and they say, ''I have been searched by a civilian, which is outrageous in this country.''

What if someone is searched and nothing is found? Do they not have a reasonable case for saying that their privacy has been violated? What is the test to justify the search? Is it reasonableness? Will the Minister confirm that, irrespective of who carries out the search—whether a civilian or a police officer—in all cases it will be carried out by someone of the same sex?

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

I thank Opposition Members for having raised the issue constructively. I realise that the hon. Member for Surrey Heath will be aware of this, but for those reading the record in the future, an intimate search for drugs may be carried out only on medical premises by a registered doctor or nurse. The matter essentially involves things that are likely to cause harm to someone else.

The hon. Member for Lewes asked about the safeguards and tests that will apply. Under section 55 of PACE, such a search may be carried out only with the authority of a senior officer. That authority can be given only if there are reasonable grounds for believing that the person has concealed on him something that he may use to cause physical injury to himself or

others. In addition, the authorising senior officer must have reasonable grounds for believing that the item cannot be found by a different method. Someone who pursued a complaint against the decision to conduct an intimate search would have to pass those tests.

The search must be conducted by a registered doctor or nurse, unless the senior authorising officer considers that that is not practicable. There is no question of the authorising officer judging what is desirable. The PACE codes are clear. The search must be conducted by a registered doctor or nurse, and only when that is not practicable will alternative arrangements come into play. Under current legislation, a few times a year police officers are authorised to carry out an intimate search.

As the Committee is aware—I wrote to Opposition Members—the revised draft PACE codes of practice were issued for consultation on 12 June. Annexe A to code C covers intimate searches. The revised draft codes stipulate that a proposal for a search to be carried out by someone other than a medically qualified person should be considered only as a last resort and when the authorising officer is satisfied that the risks associated with allowing the item to remain in place outweigh the risks associated with removing it. That is a further test.

Notes for guidance have been added that include advice on the factors that the authorising officer should consider before authorising an intimate search. As hon. Members will appreciate, the codes are subject to consultation. Once comments have been considered and any amendments have been made, the final codes will be presented to the House and another place under the affirmative resolution procedure, which gives the possibility of further parliamentary scrutiny.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

I may have not understood correctly, in which case I apologise, but I thought that the reason for the power was that there was felt to be a real risk that someone might harm themselves—perhaps, as in the example in the Minister's letter, with razor blades—and that that would be a sudden matter: someone would see a razor blade, and the person held would say that he was going to kill himself, creating an immediate issue about removing the item. That is why, I believed, the power was being authorised. In such circumstances, how will it be possible to have authorisation from a senior officer, who may be some way away? How would that apply if the search was carried out by a civilian rather than a police officer?

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

It remains the case that in all circumstances, even if a matter is pressing, authorisation must be obtained from a senior officer. However, it is inevitable that the senior officer may not be physically present to give authorisation, perhaps by virtue of being out at an incident, in a rural area travelling between one police station and another, or whatever. In those circumstances, authorisation may have to be given by telephone, but it must be given.

Let me deal with the question whether the power should be extended beyond police officers. I have some sympathy with the view expressed by the hon. Member for Lewes that, in the limited number of cases in which

an intimate search is made, public acceptability will be greater if they are carried out by a police officer. However, if the search happens to be carried out by any of the 125,000 police officers at constable or sergeant level, we will have to allow for the possibility that they may not have received recent training in this respect. In practice, a dedicated detention officer may be better trained in this power than a police officer who has not done custody duty for many years and not been recently trained in these skills. It is not self-evident that, in all circumstances, it is better for a search to be carried out by a police officer. However, I accept the general thrust of the hon. Gentleman's argument.

We have to strike a difficult balance. There are huge gains to be made in operational efficiency by using civilian detention staff. Our fear is that, if the power to conduct an intimate search on that limited number of occasions a year was used, forces might feel that they could not take the risk of civilianising the service, because of the need to ensure that adequate other cover was in place. The question for the Committee is whether we should face that risk, given the limited number of occasions on which a non-medical member of staff exercises the power in the average year. It would not be worth losing the potential gains of significant civilianisation to cover that small number of occasions. If we add the fact that the civilian detention staff are probably more likely to be appropriately trained and certainly more recently trained than a general police officer—not necessarily a specialist detention officer who is a police officer—the case is made.

Paul Stinchcombe (Labour, Wellingborough)

I am slightly uneasy about the Minister's argument, although I am listening to it with great interest. As I understand it, the existing powers vested in police officers to conduct intimate searches are used only rarely in any event. In that case, as a matter of first principle, it seems likely that not much police officer time will prima facie be freed up by extending the powers to CSOs. In those circumstances, would it not be sensible simply to ensure that there are appropriate numbers of trained officers in relevant stations?

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

My hon. Friend misunderstands me. Of course, very little time will be freed up by substituting detention officers for police officers on the five occasions a year when intimate searches are made. The question is whether a police officer has always to be available in case a police station is unlucky enough to have to conduct one of those searches. That would mean that police officers would have to be deployed in greater numbers than if we went ahead with full civilianisation. That is the core of the argument.

My hon. Friend makes a reasonable point about the level of training that should be available to police officers. Indeed, under wider police reforms, we are trying to make that much more systematic and competence-based than it has perhaps been in the past. These issues should be addressed.

On balance, the danger of restricting the significant gains from civilianisation outweighs the step that the Committee is being asked to take. Everything takes place within the framework of PACE codes and guidance. Given that there is absolutely no question about either the preference in law that that provides for the use of medical staff or the tests that have to be passed by the authorising officer, including that of the harm being potentially greater than the harm produced by taking action, I hope that the Committee will resist the amendments.

Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat, Lewes)

What about my point about the same sex?

John Denham (Labour, Southampton, Itchen)

The position on the same sex is the same as for a police officer. A constable may not conduct an intimate search of a person of the opposite sex. That is in the PACE code of practice, and the same will apply for a detention officer.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I thank the Minister for those comments. He has been very persuasive in some respects, but I wish to press the amendment on the basis that, at this stage, I am not fully convinced by his argument that the requirement of a police officer could prevent the bringing into being of civilian detention officers. It is a very powerful argument, but I do not think that this forum is such that the convincing evidence can actually be provided in it. I am still very unhappy about the matter, so I hope that there will be further correspondence. I should like to go and talk to police officers about the matter, to get a better feel on it, but because of my very strong feelings on the issue, I wish to press the amendment to a vote.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 2, Noes 9.