Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill

Public Bill Committee, 18 January 2005.

Standing Committee D

Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill

Bill O'Brien (Labour, Normanton)

Order. Before we begin, I ask everybody in the Room to make sure that mobile phones are switched off, so that there are no interruptions.

New Clause 12 - Interception of communications (No. 4)

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

I hope that we can make as much progress in our four sittings this week as we did last week. On reflection, the new clause is slightly more tightly drafted than I might have wished. However, I hope that it will allow us to have a general debate on the admissibility in courts of intercept evidence.

On Thursday, I was able to ask the Leader of the House a question about the Government's attitude towards the use of intercept evidence, and I asked him to recall the review of both Houses, published on 18 December 2003, that was carried out by a very senior committee of Privy Councillors into the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. That committee argued unanimously that intercept evidence should be permissible in British courts. In their response, the Government promised that they would comment early in 2004. There was then a White Paper, ''One Step Ahead'', on the Bill in which, as both the Ministers who are here will recall, the Government made it clear that they hoped to comment by June 2004. Last autumn, the then Home Secretary made it clear that he hoped to give a view on intercepts before the end of the year.

Now, here we are in 2005, and we still have no response from the Government on this important concept. I live in hope that the Minister will give us the definitive Government view today. I hope that she will tell us whether she accepts my amendment or whether the Government will provide their own new clauses on Report, allowing intercept evidence to be admissible in the British court system.

Even more compelling, further in to the guts of the report, based on serious evidence taken by our distinguished colleagues in Britain and elsewhere, the committee says in paragraphs 208 and 209 on page 57:

''In our view, one way of making it possible to prosecute in more cases would be to remove the UK's self-imposed blanket ban on the use of intercepted communications in court. This was also the view reached by Lord Lloyd in his 1996 Report, to which we have seen no convincing response, and by Lord Carlile—''

a distinguished and senior colleague once in this House—

''when giving evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee on his review of the operation of part 4''

of the Act that I have mentioned

''the Government did not accept the case for removing the ban on the use of intercepted communications as evidence when the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 replaced the Interception of Communications Act 1985. The reasons given were, essentially, that allowing the use of intercepted communications as evidence would reveal the authorities' capabilities, prompting criminals to take more effective evasive action.''

I shall return to that point later.

''More recently, the Home Secretary has said that the issue is under review, and we understand that the review is likely to continue into the New Year.''

For the sake of clarification, I should assure the Minister that ''new year'' meant more than a year ago.

It is worth looking a little further into what the report said, because it is extremely relevant to our discussions this morning. It stated:

''The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 forbids the use of domestic intercepts in UK court proceedings. There is, however, no such bar on the use of foreign intercepts obtained in accordance with foreign laws. Nor is there a bar on the admission of bugged (as opposed to intercepted) communications or the products of surveillance or eavesdropping, even if they were not authorised and were an interference with privacy. There is no bar on foreign courts using British intercept evidence if the intelligence and security services are prepared to provide it . . . Other than the Republic of Ireland, we have not been able to identify any comparable country with such an extensive ban. In international operations (such as against al Qaeda) the USA has published details of its intercept capacity of landlines, mobile phones, satellite phones, diplomatic correspondence and satellite intercept of foreign communications . . . We understand the concerns of the intelligence and security services, which include not only the protection of sources and methods but also the need to ensure that interception for intelligence purposes is not impeded by the imposition of complex procedures to meet evidential requirements. We recognise that a balance has to be struck''.

Further on, the Committee states:

''Relaxing the ban would not place an obligation on the prosecution to use intercepted evidence. We can also see the case for modifying the normal rules governing the disclosure of evidence so that, for example, the prosecution would not be obliged to disclose intercept evidence, or even its existence, unless they chose to rely on it.''

Finally, in paragraph 214, the Committee states:

''Consideration could also be given to having different classes of warrants authorising the interception of communications, some allowing evidential use of the product and others not. This is the approach taken by some other countries (where interception by the police and investigating judges in particular can be used evidentially).''

My contention this morning is that that authoritative report, at the very least, deserves a proper, formal and timely response from Home Office Ministers, which it has yet to receive.

We move on to the White Paper on the Bill. I wish to draw the attention of the Committee to paragraph 6.2.2, which reads as follows:

''The Home Office led review is expected to conclude by June 2004.''

The review referred to is the review into the use of intercept material. It goes on:

''If Government were satisfied that adequate safeguards can be designed to prevent the disclosure of sensitive capabilities, and that the review had concluded that the benefits of this move would clearly outweigh the costs, then it would bring forward legislation to allow the evidential use of intercept material.''

Our purpose this morning is to try to facilitate the Government in doing just that.

I turn directly to the new clause. Its purpose is to enable intercept evidence to be used in criminal proceedings brought by SOCA. The simplest way to achieve that objective is to amend the definition of the relevant offence under section 18(12) of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. The Act establishes a structure for authorisation by warrant of obtaining intercept evidence. A general exclusion on the use of such evidence in criminal proceedings is set out in section 17, although that is subject to a number of limited exceptions in section 18 to do with the Special Immigration Appeals Commission and the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission among others.

Although this is not the time to seek to establish a new system for the handling of intercept evidence in criminal proceedings generally, which I do not think can be entirely ignored, there is much to commend a system where the intercept material is scrutinised by an independent High Court judge who is not the trial judge. For the purposes of laying a foundation for the use of intercept evidence by SOCA, it is plainly more sensible to propose an amendment that is consistent with the exceptions for using intercept evidence that presently exist.

Simplicity is a great virtue, and the proposed amendment will provide a remedy to what many of us would argue was a glaring omission from the Bill. That the Government are not proposing that intercept evidence can be used in SOCA cases is severely limiting. Either serious organised crime is being taken seriously, on a par with official secrets, special immigration and terrorism cases, or it is not. For our fellow citizens, it is every bit as devastating as those cases. Since the Government persistently tell us that there is a clear link between serious organised crime and terrorism, it seems extraordinary that the use of intercept evidence in SOCA cases has not yet been proposed. The Opposition do not believe that this is the opportunity to propose a wholesale repeal of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, and in this instance we want to ensure that SOCA has the powers that it needs. As I said earlier, we urge the Government to produce the Home Office-led review which, as I have explained at some length, is still lacking.

There are a number of central issues under this new clause. First, the Government cannot constantly make the link between terrorism and organised crime and not give the agency that will deal with serious organised crime the powers currently given to those dealing with terrorism cases. Secondly, numerous reports over an extensive time scale have lead to the Government's being under pressure to allow telephone intercept evidence to be used in criminal proceedings. Thirdly, Britain is one of the only countries not to allow the use of telephone intercept evidence. Although I am not a lawyer, I am advised that we are the laughing stock of the international legal community in this respect.

The Government consistently point to a link between terrorism and serious organised crime. The Prime Minister did so when speaking about identity cards. The Home Secretary, on Second Reading of this very Bill, said:

''All nations are considering the interrelationship between organised crime and terrorism''—[Official Report, 7 December 2004; Vol. 428 , c.1044.]

We submit, therefore, that the concessions on the blanket ban on the use of telephone intercept evidence extended to a number of situations in the context of terrorism should be extended to the world of serious organised crime. If the Government propose to set up an organisation to deal effectively with organised crime, it must have the same jurisdiction and armoury as other bodies dealing with similar levels of crime.

Secondly, I turn to reports stating that the ban on the use of telephone intercept evidence should be lifted. In my opening remarks, I mentioned the 1996 report by Lord Lloyd, which recommended lifting the ban on the use of intercept evidence in his review of terrorist legislation. On 28 September 1999, a consultation paper entitled ''Interception of Communications in the UK'' was published. That recommended a lift of the ban on the use of telephone intercepts. I have already mentioned the recommendations made in the debate on the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 and, more recently, in the Newton Committee report from which I have quoted extensively. The Government must respond to these calls.

In an international context, one of the great difficulties Britain faces in combating serious organised crime is obtaining the necessary evidence for convictions. It is that particular issue in the Lloyd report which I wish to draw to the attention of the Committee. In considering the arguments for and against the admissibility of telephone intercept evidence, he made several points, and I can do not better than to quote from one paragraph of his report. Lord Lloyd said:

''The first and most obvious argument is that evidence of intercepted material is admissible to prove guilt in each of the countries which I have visited, and in every other country of which I have knowledge. The United Kingdom stands alone in excluding such material. Thus in the United States the use of intercept material in evidence is regarded as essential. In many instances, including high-profile cases involving the New York Mafia, convictions otherwise unobtainable have been secured by the use of intercept material. I put to officers of the FBI the suggestion that they were having second thoughts about the use of intercept material. I could find no support for this suggestion. In France I was told that intercept material has proved very valuable in terrorist cases. Thus, some 80 per cent. of the evidence against those suspected of involvement in the 1995 bombings is derived from intercept. Similarly, in Australia interception is regarded as an 'extremely valuable aid to criminal prosecution' . . . 664 for offences ranging from murder to serious fraud were based on intercepted material, nearly 500 of those prosecutions being for drug offences. Convictions were obtained in 87 per cent. of the cases. Often, when presented with the evidence of an intercept, the defendant pleads guilty.''

In America, Congress passed the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act in 1968. Title 3 of that Act contained the first comprehensive federal legislative framework governing electronic surveillance for use in criminal investigations. Between 1987 and 1997 electronic surveillance conducted pursuant to title 3 assisted in the conviction of well over 21,000 criminals. Louis J. Freeh, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1993 to 2001, said:

''As demonstrated by the lives saved and the important investigations and prosecutions successfully completed, the use of electronic surveillance has served the public extremely well . . . Indeed, law enforcement agencies at all levels of government have uniformly found electronic surveillance to be one the most important—if not the most important—sophisticated investigative tools available to them in the prevention, investigation and prosecution of many types of serious crimes. This tool has been critical in fighting terrorism, organised crime, kidnapping, drug trafficking, public corruption, fraud, and violent crime, and in saving numerous innocent lives. In many of those cases, the criminal activity under investigation could never have been detected, prevented, investigated, or successfully prosecuted without the use of evidence derived from court-authorised electronic surveillance.''

Louis Freeh said that under oath when giving the evidence to the Federal Communications Committee in Washington in 1999.

If telephone intercepts can be used so successfully in America, we need to hear why the Government feel that conditions in Britain are so different that they would be of no help to us. Indeed, not allowing intercepted telephone communications to be admitted in evidence is completely illogical, particularly as other intercepted conversations are admissible. For example, if a listening device is placed in a person's house and a conversation is taped recorded or transmitted by a wireless device and recorded somewhere else, that intercepted conversation is admissible in evidence. Individuals can be wired up with recording devices attached to their bodies, and their conversations with others are admissible.

As I explained earlier, in operations such as that against al Qaeda, the USA has published details of its intercept capacity, by category and in considerable detail. We should of course bend over backwards to meet the concerns of the intelligence and security services. The Opposition understand that a balance needs to be struck between the public interest in prosecuting cases and the public interest in maintaining the effectiveness of our intelligence-gathering procedures and capabilities. However, we believe that if telephone intercepts cannot be used evidentially, that balance has not been struck.

Of great importance to our case is the fact that relaxing the ban would not place an obligation on the prosecution to use intercepted evidence. The amendment would simply allow SOCA to submit intercept evidence in court; SOCA would stand on a par with the other agencies that deal with serious crime and terrorism. In other words, it would be SOCA's and the prosecuting authorities' call. They would not have to use it.

I admit that there are questions of court procedure. If Parliament were to agree in principle that intercept evidence could be used, I fully understand that secondary legislation might be needed and that the Government would have to make decisions about how that should be handled and about court procedure, and so forth. Above all, however, the new clause is declaratory and would give the Government a chance to respond, at long last, to my points and to the reports.

In summary, first, we live in a new era after 9/11—that is common to us all. That has imposed great pressures on our judicial system. No doubt, the Government are considering the Law Lords' decision on those who are detained at Belmarsh. I fully understand the Government's argument that, given the new circumstances, some people in our society are so dangerous that they must be locked up. However, if we can bring such people within the judicial system, we certainly should. It may be that allowing the use of intercept evidence will indeed bring some of those people inside the judicial system, which is very much to be desired. Clearly it is undesirable to lock them up and throw away the key. We fear that as yet the Government have failed to strike the right balance.

Secondly, I am concerned that the British obsession with secrecy is getting in the way of making the right decisions on intercept evidence. As I said earlier, the argument that British criminals are so insular that they do not know the capabilities of virtually every other country in the world that uses intercept evidence does not stand up to serious scrutiny. Will the Minister confirm what is widely believed, namely, that the opposition of the three principal intelligence-gathering agencies and the police to the use of intercepts no longer holds and that at least one of those bodies, if not two, no longer objects to the use of intercept evidence in the British courts?

Thirdly, the inconsistencies in our present approach are legion. I understand that both legally and illegally obtained overseas intercept can be used in UK courts and that overseas courts can use legally obtained British intercept material—and, presumably, illegal material as well.

Finally, the proposed new clause would not introduce compulsion. It is an enabling measure that would enable SOCA or the prosecuting authority—perhaps following the Australian model of involving a judge, perhaps even a separate judge to the one trying the case—to use such intercept evidence where appropriate. No one would have to use such evidence, but it would be available to the prosecuting authorities.

I hope that the Government will consider my arguments seriously. If they do not like the new clause but decide that it offers the right way to proceed in principle, we shall table amendments on Report to make such powers available to the British court system.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

Good morning, Mr. O'Brien. The hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Mitchell) originally tabled four separate new clauses dealing with intercept communications, three of which attracted the signatures of my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) and myself. The version that did not do so is the one that the hon. Gentleman has not withdrawn. Whether or not that shows an aversion to our support, I do not know, but I regret it, because we share a view about the admission of intercept evidence. New clause 2 is our least favoured option because it does not deal with offences under the Terrorism Act 2000, which seems a perverse exclusion, given the circumstances in which we live.

The hon. Gentleman has explained that he does not believe that the new clause is drafted sufficiently widely. I shall not dwell on that other than to say that the principal reason for extending the admissibility of evidence is, in my view, the danger of terrorist activity. I take seriously the Privy Council report to which he referred—the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 review. Lord Newton's committee proposed a package to strengthen our legal system and our powers of interdiction against the threat of terrorism and it makes sense to consider all aspects of that package rather than one or two in isolation.

As the hon. Gentleman said towards the end of his remarks, the Government face a huge dilemma in dealing with the Law Lords' decision in the Belmarsh case. I do not need to reiterate our position on that question: we believe that people should not be incarcerated indefinitely without being brought before a court, and that it is right to expedite in any way possible the bringing of people before a court to face charges. A clear difficulty at present is the inadmissibility of the evidence in the possession of the security services that is derived from intercept communication. Always when dealing with such issues we are creating a balance between the security of state and citizens and the interests of the individual. I have given the matter careful thought and the balance is clear to me: we should allow the material in question, provided that it has been properly gained, to be admitted in court.

Having come to that view—that in terrorism offences it is in the interests of justice and of the security of the nation to allow material derived from intercept to be admissible in court. Once one has crossed that rubicon, there is no logical reason why the admissibility should not be extended to other offences. The lock is not on the admissibility in court; it should surely be on the way in which the evidence is derived, with reference to restrictions on the derivation of intercept material in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. Material derived properly under RIPA should be admissible in court in respect of offences on which it provides evidence that would be of value to the court.

We must ask why the Government are being so tardy about dealing with the issue. I appreciate that these are difficult matters, but I suspect that the tardiness is not a result of an attempt to derive a careful balance between the interests of the state and the individual. We have already seen the Government's response to that question in the case of incarceration without trial in Belmarsh. There must therefore be reservations on the part of the security services about the use of material that they have obtained from GCHQ or elsewhere. That is an argument that Ministers need to have with the security services and they need to win it. It seems remarkable that the British system is so out of kilter with that of other countries.

The Liberal Democrats support the admissibility of intercept evidence. The Government have taken long enough to come to a decision and the Bill is an entirely appropriate vehicle for making the changes that most of us anticipate and many of us want. It is an essential part of deriving the balance, so that we can revisit some of the other provisions of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act and come to sensible conclusions about how to protect our citizens and at the same time provide for a proper court procedure and for justice to be done.

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield on his lucid and persuasive speech. It seems as though our policy on allowing evidential use of intercept material is inconsistent, irrational and impractical. Why has the Home Office still not completed its review of the topic, which would have allowed suitable measures similar to the Conservative amendment to be included in the Bill? The ''One Step Ahead'' White Paper of March 2004 expected the review to be complete by June 2004, and it was referred to by the then Home Secretary as part of his series of anti-terrorism legislation in November 2004. The Home Office itself said, in its summary of responses to the same White Paper, that most respondents were supportive of the measure.

Even Liberty does not support the present total ban on use of intercept material. It said in August 2004 that

''there are no fundamental civil liberties or human rights objections to the use of intercept material, properly authorised by judicial warrant, in criminal proceedings.''

The organisation cannot see the reason for the present distinction between intercept material that is banned and evidence from bugging, surveillance and eavesdropping that can be admitted, even if not authorised. Foreign intercepts can be used if obtained, Liberty says. Only the UK and Ireland maintain a total ban on intercept materials.

New clause 12 might not be the perfect answer, but I certainly support my hon. Friend in saying that we are being left behind other countries on a vital issue of national security. In November 2004 my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) accused the Government of being ''all talk'' on intercepts, and said that, despite the Home Secretary setting out that weekend a series of anti-terrorism measures including juryless trials and the use of wire-tap evidence in criminal trials, there was no legislation in the speech to provide for them. He described them as

''a Government who say that protection from terrorism is a priority, but not yet . . . There can be no better example of the Government's pre-occupation with talk, spin and newspaper headlines.''—[Official Report, 23 November 2004; Vol. 428, c. 19-20.]

I hope that today we will hear some positive news from the Minister. It is time for action.

Vera Baird (Labour, Redcar)

I apologise for being slightly late in arriving this morning, Mr. O'Brien.

It is believed that about 1,500 phones a year are tapped under Home Secretary's warrants, but, as has been made clear this morning, evidence thus derived can only be used for intelligence, although it is broadly believed that was used in the Belmarsh detention process. Evidence gained in that way is specifically not admissible in court, however—indeed, nobody can even ask in court whether a phone has been tapped. That applies if a phone has been tapped in a public telecommunications system, which means if I am on my landline and my phone is tapped, perhaps in the receiver, the evidence is not admissible; similarly, if the tap is somewhere on the line to the exchange—I understand I am using slightly old-fashioned language—that is not admissible. However, if the tap is between a base station in my house and the cordless phone in my hand, that the evidence is admissible, as that region is not part of a public telecommunications system but part of a private one owned by myself. If my phone is tapped on a private network, the evidence is admissible, as the tap is in a private telecommunications system—as in the case of the Assistant Chief Constable of Liverpool, Alison Halford, whose phone was tapped internally in a network owned by the police. Similarly, if prison phones are tapped, which they are all the time, that the evidence would be admissible because the telecommunications system is private.

The need for operational secrecy therefore seems odd, because it is quite plain that if, for technical reasons, the material becomes admissible, the fact that the tap is being done is often disclosed and the material used. As the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield said, if one bugs someone's house rather than their phone, what is said on the phone will be admissible because a public telecommunications system is not involved—I am sure that it is technically possible using a sufficiently strong microphone to hear both ends of a conservation Phone taps are widely used in most of Europe, the US, Japan and Australia.

Let me tell the Committee about a case I was involved with just before I became an MP. It concerned an Anglo-Dutch drugs conspiracy, the arrangements for which were made by a Mr. Big in the UK and a Mr. Big in Holland. It seemed quite plain that the phones were being tapped at both ends, but no one could ask whether they were being tapped at the British end and none of the material produced here—if there was any—could be used. However, all the material tapped at the Dutch end was used, even though the calls were often initiated somewhere on the south coast of England. Although we do not use our own phone taps, we can use Dutch phone taps covering phone calls initiated in the UK. I do not understand the technology, but when the Dutch Mr. Big came to the UK, phone conversations held entirely in the UK between both Mr. Bigs were intercepted by the Dutch, and they were used even though the calls were made in the UK. That shows how illogical the position is. I doubt that the UK Mr. Big would have been convicted if not for those phone taps, which seems a shame.

It seems clear that the police have moved from rooted opposition, as has the Crown Prosecution Service. David Calvert-Smith, the former Director of Public Prosecutions, described the ban as

''a damaging restriction . . . weakening Britain's fight against organised crime, drug trafficking and terrorism'',

and he said that the admission of phone taps would assist enormously. Major criminals obviously take a great deal of care not to use land lines, or even mobile phones registered to them, regularly, but that does not mean that phone tapping them is impossible. I understand that the National Criminal Intelligence Service and MI6 are against it, but it is said that MI5 has long been reconciled to it, although it notes that

''We do not want to alert serious criminals to the ways that we catch them.''

Customs is said to be guardedly open minded.

Meanwhile, as Opposition Members mentioned, moves are being made from the other vantage point. Liberty, always with one eye on civil liberties, regard it as acceptable for the fruits of phone tapping to be admissible. However, it says that the disclosure of material that would be necessary at trial might be an issue, and one can see the problem. Everything that undermines the prosecution or assists the defence has to be disclosed. If a phone has been bugged for two years and the Crown wants to use only 10 minutes, the prosecution is likely to have to disclose the rest of the recordings—even if they have not listened to the rest of them—because it could undermine the prosecution. That could be expensive and time consuming. It gives scope for cross-examination and risks undermining the Crown's case, but that is what trials are for and I cannot believe that it is impossible to solve that major problem.

The reports that I have read say that the Secret Intelligence Service and the electronic eavesdropping agency GCHQ claim that criminals and terrorists will be tipped off about their techniques if they are made public. However, Sir David Calvert-Smith said that the vehement arguments used by diehards are implausible. Criminals know already that their telephones are likely to be tapped. He said:

''It has been common knowledge for years.''

Experience shows how valuable tapping is as an intelligence tool. The argument is that it disrupts drug traffickers and serious Revenue fraudsters, and the benefits of allowing the fruits of phone tapping to be used in court must outweigh the disadvantages of exposure in court of details of law enforcement intelligence techniques.

A strong advocate of the admissibility of phone tap evidence is the new director of SOCA, Sir Stephen Lander, who, after 25 years in the secret services, says that he is an enthusiast for the move, although there would have to be robust arrangements to protect sources and techniques. He has said,

''Here's something that happens in almost every jurisdiction but not here, but the protection of techniques argument is a valid one''.

He describes the question as ''complicated'' but says that he has a lot of sympathy with the straightforward approach of asking, ''If everyone else can do this, why can't we?''

That is a good question, which is given added urgency now that it is believed that material of the kind in question has been used in the Belmarsh cases. If it were made admissible in criminal courts, it might at least partially solve the dilemma affecting the Belmarsh internees, by enabling them to be prosecuted using the material that has already been gathered. I should be grateful for an update on the position and on the Government's thinking.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

I listened with interest to the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) and to my hon. Friends. I agree with the sentiments that they have expressed. It seems to me that the key issue is not the admission of the evidence of the contents of the intercept on which the prosecution might rely to secure the conviction—indeed, if that were the only issue the continuing reluctance to make use of intercept evidence would seem positively crazy and perverse. The problem, which was touched on lightly by the hon. and learned Lady, is the status of intercepted material as unused material in any prosecution. It would not be good enough for the prosecution to say, ''Here is the evidence of the intercept of a telephone conversation of 24 June between the two Mr. Bigs,'' if they also had records of intercepts of all the other conversations that Mr. Big had had in the previous 12 months, because there would be a duty to disclose that to the defence, too, as unused material. I assume that that is the reason why the Security Service has always shown itself so reluctant in the past to depart from the existing slightly bizarre state of affairs, in which the existence or otherwise of intercept material is simply rubbed out of the picture, so that no one can mention it in court, the prosecution can not rely on it, and, for that matter, the defence can have no access to it, even though a defendant might say, ''I suspect that my telephone was intercepted on a day six months ago and that evidence, if I have it, would show that I am not guilty.'' Admissibility cuts both ways. I suspect that the real problem for the Security Service is the way in which the evidence in question might lead to other intercepted material, besides that on which it wants to rely, being revealed.

I hope that the Minister will feel able not only to deal with the specific point, but to engage in some creative debate about some of the surrounding problems. If the issue that I have identified is the nub of the matter that is preventing the Security Service from allowing intercepted material to be adduced in evidence, we must think creatively about whether we can find ways to get round that problem. As the Minister is aware, there are ways in which unused material may currently be subject to public interest immunity prevention from disclosure. The judge must make the decision whether the material is so sensitive that it should not be disclosed to the defence. It therefore does not seem to me to be beyond the bounds of the possible to devise suitable rules for such an approach. However, the Committee must understand, as we embark on a very important debate, that if one decides to allow the admission of material on which one wishes to rely to secure a conviction, it is inevitable that other material relating to the defendant that might either be prejudicial to the operation of the intelligence services, or help the defendant to secure an acquittal, will have to be scrutinised in some way at a judicial level in the courtroom process. That will cause difficulties.

That is not a reason, however, not to try to find a way through the problem. It is clear—starkly clear, in the Belmarsh context—that if we are at the stage of detaining people without trial even though adducible evidence on which they might be convicted is available, we are doing both ourselves as a state that supports the rule of law, and those whom we detain, a singular disservice. The matter is becoming increasingly urgent. Prior to detention without trial at Belmarsh, it could have been described as of abstract academic interest only, but that is no longer the case. That is why it is so important that the Minister makes a full response today.

Tony McWalter (Labour/Co-operative, Hemel Hempstead)

There is perhaps a new opportunity to deal with such matters rather differently from how they have been dealt with of late. I am a member of the Select Committee on Science and Technology, which in 2003 issued a report entitled ''The Scientific Response to Terrorism''. The Home Office opposed, root and branch, almost every suggestion that our Committee made. We wanted American-style openness about the way in which such matters are dealt with, but the Home Office wanted clam-like silence.

One result of the criticisms that we made in the report was that the Home Office finally appointed a chief scientific officer, to get credible information about the technical capacity to deal with some of the issues that we raised. We have an opportunity to discard the tradition of regarding silence and the cloak as the most effective way of dealing with such problems, and to accept the fact that criminals who devote their lives to such matters generally know a great deal about de-encryption techniques for messages and the like. Hiding things might have been wonderful in the days of the enigma code, but it is no longer effective. We need to deal with such matters in a new and different way.

Caroline Flint (Labour, Don Valley)

The contributions from the hon. Members for Sutton Coldfield, for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) and for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly), my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar, the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. McWalter), illustrate how complicated the issue is. There is no evidence that other countries are more successful than the UK in their use of intercept to tackle terrorism. As my hon. Friend the Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety knows well, people from around the world come to the UK to talk with us about how we organise our defences against the threat of terrorism.

Although I do not accuse hon. Members of doing this, we should be careful when talking about how to tackle terrorism not to lay a negative challenge at the door of those who, through the gathering of intelligence, defend us from terrorism every day, just because we have particular rules about the use of intercept. It is also important to recognise that the use of intercept in the UK as an intelligence-only tool has led to some impressive results. In 2003, interception led to the seizure of 26 tonnes of illicit drugs and 10 tonnes of tobacco, the detection of £390 million of financial crime and 1,680 arrests. As the interception of communications commissioner, Sir Swinton Thomas, stated in his most recent annual oversight report:

''It is my view that in 2003, as before, interception played a vital part in the battle against terrorism and serious crime, and one that would not have been achieved by other means.''

We know that, under the current rules, interception helps to prevent terrorist atrocities through effective disruption and that it enables the placing of enforcement teams to catch criminals red-handed in possession of contraband. That is important, because those outside the Committee listening to some of the debate might think that intercept intelligence is not being used to tackle terrorism and serious organised crime in this country.

As hon. Members have outlined, there have been a number of Committees and individuals with sincerely held views, like all of those who have spoken so far in this Committee, about trying to do our utmost to tackle both terrorism and serious crime. They have had debates and produced reports—those mentioned by the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield—and I am not for one minute undermining their concerns and efforts. It is true that the review that we have been undertaking has not, perhaps, concluded as fast as people might have wanted. It is also important to recognise, however, how complex and serious this area is as regards the Government's coming to a position in which they feel able to report.

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

I am listening very carefully to what the Minister is saying. The Government have not yet concluded their long-promised report. When will they?

Caroline Flint (Labour, Don Valley)

The hon. Gentleman pre-empts my next point. We hope to make an announcement shortly. The new clause would pre-empt the conclusions of the review that we have undertaken into whether a change in the law on evidential use of intercept product would be likely to deliver bigger, better and quicker convictions of organised terrorists. As I said, we hope shortly to announce the outcome of the review, which has carefully examined both the advantages and likely risks involved in any regime change. The new clause crucially does not address the very formidable difficulties in using intercepts as evidence in a way that would protect the capabilities and current value of the technique as an effective intelligence tool.

The review has not provided compelling evidence to suggest that the use of intercepts as evidence would secure more convictions of terrorists or, for that matter, serious organised criminals, who we know often employ sophisticated measures to avoid incriminating themselves. We know, and it has been mentioned by a number of hon. Members this morning, that the top targets are particularly astute in distancing themselves from crime. Even when product is compelling, it may at times be best to avoid disclosing it, as that would reveal how the evidence was obtained. Disclosure without safeguards would have two damaging effects. It would mean that criminals and terrorists would learn how to avoid detection and, we believe, it could impair co-operation between our intelligence and law enforcement agencies. That is important, because we know that this uniquely close intelligence and law enforcement co-operation has been deployed very effectively in the UK. It has meant that we have been able to protect sensitive techniques from the vigorous defence probing that is one of the strengths of our adversarial judicial system. Overseas regimes do not have this necessarily close inter-agency co-operation, and therefore do not run the same risks of sensitive exposure. In the UK, we have a unique combination of an adversarial judicial system, alongside common law precedent and, of course, responsibilities under the European convention on human rights. It is not an easy task, therefore, to assume that we can import the framework in which another country uses this type of material. The review has looked extensively at the use of intercept overseas.

I want to clarify a couple of points about foreign intercepts. They have been used very rarely in UK courts.

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

But they can be.

Caroline Flint (Labour, Don Valley)

I said rarely, which implies that they can be. Of course, the disclosure of foreign intercepts raises none of the difficulties of exposure that the disclosure of domestic intercepts would raise.

Intercept material provided by the UK is not disclosed to foreign jurisdictions for use as evidence. I wanted to clarify that because some hon. Members have suggested that we provide domestic intercepts for use as evidence in foreign courts, and that certainly is not the case.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar mentioned Sir Stephen Lander's views on the issue. He has made it clear that intercepts may be used as evidence only if the risk can be mitigated, and that is one of the key issues considered by the review.

As an intelligence tool, interception is already extremely valuable in helping to disrupt terrorism and organised crime. It also helps the agencies concerned to gather evidence to support the arrests and convictions of those involved in serious crime and/or terrorism. However, there are important issues—I am not suggesting that hon. Members are not mindful of them—about the risk of jeopardising the effectiveness of this intelligence tool, which is one of the most effective weapons in the fight against organised crime and terrorism. The consequences of getting our approach wrong would therefore be extremely grave.

One of the key factors that the review has been considering, therefore, is how an evidential regime might provide safeguards to prevent the disclosure of particularly sensitive techniques—an issue touched on by the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve). A huge amount of work has been done on developing a legal model that might allow us to use intercept as evidence while protecting those techniques. One of the main difficulties with that work has been the need to future-proof that legal model to take account of major changes in communications technology, now and over the next few years. I am afraid that the new clause provides no such protection for today or the future. It would not only give the prosecution discretion to use intercepts, but inevitably lead to the defence gaining access to any such material through the use of disclosure requests. As I said, the review has been considering that.

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

The Minister is very generously giving way again, but may I pin her down on the date for publication of the review? I am not asking her to name the day on which it will be published, but she said that it would appear shortly. Will she give us a commitment—I think that we have a right to ask for one—that it will be available before Report?

Caroline Flint (Labour, Don Valley)

All I can do at this stage is to repeat my original answer: the review conclusion will be reported shortly.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

As I said earlier, it is fairly common knowledge, although we know this only anecdotally, that the Special Immigration Appeals Commission decision on the detention of the Belmarsh detainees appears to have been based on a mixture of things; some may have been overseas intelligence sources, but there is a suggestion that much of the decision was based on intercepted communications. I am sure that the Minister can see that, in those circumstances, there really is a degree of urgency about these issues. If we are, indeed, basing detention on the scrutiny in secret of intercepted evidence—I suspect that we are—and that the evidence could be used in a court of law if we could find a way through the difficulties, it is imperative to come to a speedy conclusion. How are Members of Parliament to be kept informed about the review and the issues that it identifies in a way that provides us with proper information, rather than our being left in the dark?

Caroline Flint (Labour, Don Valley)

I agree that following the Law Lords' announcement we must consider the hon. Gentleman's first point as a matter of urgency. The Home Secretary made that clear in his first week in post; it is important. Intercept evidence is not necessarily the key to the successful prosecution of serious or terrorist cases. If there is sufficient admissible evidence to enable any detainee to be prosecuted, it will be acted on. Indeed, two individuals have been convicted of criminal offences following their initial certification and detention.

However, the evidence held in relation to the detainees comes from a variety of sources. While some is technically admissible, it could be problematic: it affects national security; it would damage our intelligence-gathering capability; or it might put the lives of third parties at risk. I know that the hon. Gentleman would agree that to deal with the terrorist threat a balance has to be found. Where we can, we will pursue successful prosecutions, while being mindful of other parties and of threats to our ability to gather intelligence. Like so many of the matters that we have discussed, this is complex. SIAC does not deal with criminal proceedings, so the model of closed proceedings that it uses could not be adopted for criminal trials. I am sure that hon. Members are aware of that.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

The Minister has been extremely helpful in setting out the position, and we understand the difficulties involved. Is it the Government's view that the Bill is a suitable legislative vehicle for any change, provided that it is possible to derive a satisfactory formulation? Will SOCA be used to bring forward changes in legislation if it is the Government's intention to do so?

Caroline Flint (Labour, Don Valley)

In a roundabout way, the hon. Gentleman is asking me to pre-empt the outcome of the review. I shall not be drawn down that path, no matter how charmingly he does it. There will be an announcement shortly about review, and I do not want to pursue his point.

In addition to some of the general arguments on the use of intercepted evidence that I have outlined, there are particular issues in relation to new clause 12. The new clause would limit the use of intercepted evidence to prosecutions under SOCA. It could be argued that there is no obvious justification for giving such special treatment to SOCA prosecutions and not to all criminal prosecutions. Indeed, it would be strange if terrorist offences could not be prosecuted using intercept evidence, but SOCA offences could be. Furthermore, the relevant offences listed in section 18(12), which are exempt from the section 17 prohibition on evidential intercept use, are all similar in that they are offences in which interception plays a crucial part, such as offences under interception of communications legislation and the Official Secrets Act.

It is likely that if intercept material were not admissible in relation to such offences, then no prosecution could be brought. That would seriously undermine the criminal law in areas of important public policy. The offences that SOCA will investigate will not necessarily be in that category. In fact, as I have already said, the use of intercept material to assist law enforcement has produced some good and positive results in terms not only of seizures and disruption, but of arrests of serious criminals.

I hope I have been able to outline to hon. Members how seriously we take the issue. I also hope that I have reassured them that the review has been considering the detail in a host of areas about the use of intercept and what happens overseas, and has been tackling the issues that hon. Members have outlined today.

In response to the question asked by the hon. Member for Beaconsfield, I can say that we will give as much information as possible where it is safe to do so. The Home Secretary will want to share the report with the Intelligence and Security Committee, but it will not be published, as it is a classified document. However, we will look at how we can share information in a secure environment while protecting security issues and the safety of those involved.

I hope that the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield will withdraw the new clause on the basis of what I have said. It has been useful to have this debate, and it is useful to keep in context the fact that intercept, although it is not admissible in court in the way that hon. Members might like it to be, is a valuable tool that is used to its utmost to tackle terrorism and serious crime.

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

This has been an interesting debate; I will give the Minister that. I am afraid that it leaves me unsatisfied, however, with the position that the Government have outlined. Before I explain why, I should perhaps say that I meant no disrespect to the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome in selecting the new clause that he had not signed rather than all my other amendments, which he had. Throughout the course of the Bill, it has been clear that he and I have often been of one mind in our critique of the Government's legislation. In these days of newsworthy events, I want him to know that I have in my pocket an application for him to join the Conservative party should he be minded to follow the logic of my earlier remarks, but I meant no disrespect to him. The new clause was narrowly drawn in order to deal with aspects of the Bill, and I hope that I have made it clear that the case I sought to put was far wider than the new clause and dealt with the more general issue of intercept evidence.

The hon. Gentleman said that material derived properly in court under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act should be used, and I agree. The hon. and learned Member for Redcar made an enormously compelling contribution, saying that the confusion in the matter is of real detriment to good justice, pointing out the illogicality of the Government's position and, from her direct experience in the courts, using evidence of the value of intercept evidence in court. She gave her opinion that in the case she referred to conviction might not have been secured without the Dutch intercept. The Government would do well to listen to her.

My hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield zeroed in, as the excellent lawyer that he is, on court procedure, which I brushed lightly over for two reasons. First, the use of intercept is an issue for SOCA and for the prosecuting authority. They will use it under our subvention if they think that it is appropriate and wish to do so. They will not be compelled to do so. That is a fundamental weakness in the Minister's case. As my hon. Friend pointed out, there are ways in which court procedures have been dealt with around the world, such as in America and Australia. There are issues to do with public immunity certificates, or possibly of a non-trial judge being involved. The hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead also made a cautious and telling intervention in support of our argument.

Vera Baird (Labour, Redcar)

Let me raise an issue about the hon. Gentleman's reference to this power as permissive power and the implication that that shows a weakness in the Minister's argument. I am not sure that it does. In the context of adversarial court proceedings, if it is once disclosed that there might be intercepts, the defence will make inquiries and compel the information's disclosure, if it is there.

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

The main argument is that our security services have a technical superiority that will be brought into the public domain if intercept evidence is used in court. That is the point I seek to debunk. The idea that serious, organised international criminals in Britain are shielded from knowledge because we do not use intercepts in court, is ludicrous. It is used elsewhere in the world, and the suggestion that somehow the barrier of the Atlantic or the English channel stops them from having knowledge of technological advances made in that area is ludicrous.

I mean no disrespect to the Minister by making the following point but—if I may use a cricketing metaphor—she has been sent to the wicket today and, standing there with her bat, has blocked the very reasonable points made all around the Committee. The Minister's arguments have been all the arguments made before the Newton and Lloyd reports: the ludicrous one about technical superiority, for example. They are the same old points that the Home Office has relied on in not addressing the damning conclusions of very senior committees, and I have given those of Lord Lloyd's committee in full this morning.

A number of colleagues on both sides of the House have mentioned what I call the Belmarsh issue. It is very important to bring the people at Belmarsh back into the judicial system if we can. I say that as one who supports the Government's policy in dealing with such difficult issues, on which we all must search our consciences to work out whether the balance between protecting the rights of the individual and protecting our constituents and society has been met. More often than not, I have concluded that the Government have been right to take draconian powers. We all know, however, that those people should, if possible, be brought back within the judicial system. Allowing the use of intercepts in British courts would be one way to do that.

Tony McWalter (Labour/Co-operative, Hemel Hempstead)

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that while his general approach is indeed commendable, his technical amendment is perhaps inadequate to that particular cause? I hope that he sees it more as a probing amendment than as something to be pressed. Surely he takes some satisfaction from the Minister's decision to treat his representations as urgent, which is actually beneficial?

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

On the second point, I would take more comfort from the Minister seeing these representations as urgent if it were not for my early remarks this morning. I took the Committee through the continuous way in which targets of reporting set by the Government have not been met. In the case of the Newton committee, the Government's commitment to come back by the middle of last year may be recalled, and the White Paper on this Bill gave another commitment. What the Minister has said today means that we must be getting nearer the conclusion, but my view is that it would be better to produce it on Report. I would have preferred the Minister to give a commitment to that effect.

I do not intend to press the new clause to a vote. As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, it is intended to probe, as the Opposition often do on issues on which we want to understand the Government's thinking. We are a listening Opposition who listen carefully to what the Minister and her colleagues say. The new clause is a probing one, to which we will return in due course. As with the first substantive issue we discussed on this Bill last week, the Minister should be in no doubt that if she thinks that the current position—her place at the wicket—will withstand the views of hon. Members on both sides of the House on Report, let alone in the other place, she is very much mistaken.

I am disappointed that the Minister stuck to the pre-Newton, pre-Lloyd arguments. Having produced those heavyweight reports, the Government are mistreating members of the Committee and hon. Members on both sides of the House by not responding in a timely way, or at all. I seek a commitment from the Minister that between now and Report, or on Report, she will give a definite date when we will hear the Government's conclusions on these important matters. Nothing has been said in the debate to gainsay the lucid arguments proposed not by my hon. Friends and me but by Lord Newton, Lord Lloyd, the Minister's right hon. Friends the Members for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Joyce Quin) and for Islington, South and Finsbury, as well as Mr. Terry Davis, formerly the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, and her noble Friend Baroness Hayman. They are senior figures whose arguments have not been addressed. I hope that the Minister will return on Report, first, with a definitive response to those arguments and, secondly, with a detailed answer from the Government on the use of intercepts in British courts.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

I beg to move amendment No. 302, in clause 101, page 67, leave out lines 15 to 17.

Bill O'Brien (Labour, Normanton)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment No. 303, in clause 101, page 67, leave out lines 18 to 22.

Amendment No. 146, in clause 101, page 67, leave out lines 23 to 26.

Amendment No. 218, in clause 101, page 67, line 24, after 'if', insert—

'(a) the offence is an arrestable offence punishable by more than 5 years imprisonment, or

(b)'.

Amendment No. 296, in clause 101, page 67, line 24, after 'if', insert—

'(a) the offence is an arrestable offence, or

(b)'.

Amendment No. 219, in clause 101, page 67, line 43, leave out from beginning to end of line 2 on page 68.

Amendment No. 166, in clause 101, page 68, leave out lines 6 to 28.

Amendment No. 295, in clause 101, page 68, line 17, at end insert—

'(za) the offence is an arrestable offence,'.

Government amendment No. 255.

Clause stand part.

Clause 102 stand part.

Amendment No. 220, in schedule 7, page 164, leave out lines 3 to 13.

Amendment No. 185, in schedule 7, page 164, leave out lines 8 to 13.

Amendment No. 221, in schedule 7, page 164, line 30, leave out from beginning to end of line 38 on page 168.

Schedule 7 be the Seventh schedule to the Bill.

New clause 13—Powers of arrest (No. 2)—

'In section 24 of PACE (arrest without warrant for arrestable offences), leave out subsection (1)(b) and insert—

''(b) to offences which the Secretary of State may by order prescribe;''.'.

New clause 14— Powers of arrest (No. 3)—

'In section 24 of PACE (arrest without warrant for arrestable offences), leave out subsection (1)(b) and insert—

''(b) to offences other than those which the Secretary of State may by order prescribe;''.'.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

We come to an important part of the Bill relating to police powers and the powers of arrest for citizens.

I apologise to the Committee. I concluded from the plethora of amendments tabled to the clause that there had perhaps been a little overegging of the pudding. The proposals are not mutually inconsistent, but many would do roughly the same thing; others are purely probing amendments. There is a cornucopia from which to choose. With your leave, Mr. O'Brien, and with the agreement of the Committee, the sensible thing would be to make the debate effectively be a stand part debate, and as we will go through the clause with a fine-tooth comb, we may avoid the necessity for a clause stand part debate at the end.

The clause falls into three distinct sections. First, what power of arrest should be given to police officers? Secondly—the part of clause 101 that relates to the amendment of section 24A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984—what powers of arrest should be given to those who are not police officers? I believe that the intention is to facilitate the action of community support officers, a matter to which I shall return in a moment, but it goes much wider than that because it extends to the public in general. Thirdly—last, but by no means least—there is the Government's intention as a result of their general overview to abolish the common law rules conferring powers of arrest.

I hope I may be forgiven for going a little bit back to basics. This country has shown a marked reluctance to allow the police to arrest people for any criminal offence or matter. The distinction between felonies and misdemeanours lies in the distant past. In our law, there has always been the principle that if someone committed a felony—what is now described as an offence punishable by more than five years' imprisonment—it was immediately arrestable, with no further ado. However, if it was punishable by less than five years' imprisonment, the general rule was that it was not an arrestable offence and that the process that had to be brought to bear on an individual whom one wanted to prosecute was to issue them with a summons to bring them to court.

Perhaps inevitably, those distinctions have become blurred over the years. To begin with, there has always been the power to arrest someone to prevent a breach of the peace. As I have always understood it, that means that we all have a power of arrest over an individual who is caught in flagrante delicto—actually carrying out a criminal offence—and whom it is necessary to restrain to prevent a breach of the peace. On April fool's day last year, for example, I found myself confronting an individual just outside Green Park station who was busy smashing a bus shelter with a pole. There are interesting distinctions between different categories of criminal damage offences, but I concluded that he was committing a breach of the peace and that it was arrestable, so I sought to arrest him. We then had an extremely entertaining chase around the nicer parts of Mayfair, before the police turned up about 10 minutes later. That illustrated to me that one has to think before one suddenly decides that one can go and arrest someone. On top of that, of course, many offences on statute are arrestable of themselves; they include a wholes series involving entering certain premises, and there is quite a long list in schedule 7, which deals with some of the matters that the Government seek to repeal.

Superficially, it is attractive to say, ''Why don't we just simplify everything and let the police arrest anybody for any offence?'' That, of course, is what the Government are seeking to do in respect of police officers in the new powers of arrest in clause 101. In fairness to the Government, however, they are sufficiently aware of the civil liberties issues involved to have set out a number of criteria and tests, which ought to govern the exercise by the police of the discretion to arrest or not. On the one hand, therefore, the Government seek to give the police complete powers to arrest anybody for anything that is a criminal offence; on the other, in new section 24(5), they lay down a hierarchy of tests that the police must carry out. The reasons set out there are designed to influence a police officer's actions and, in many cases, one would infer, to lead him to decide that there is no need to arrest the person at all. In fact, in most cases, it looks as if the police officer will simply take the individual's name and address.

''a high level of satisfaction with the framework of arrest powers, but there are concerns that it is too complicated.''

It appeared to ask for simplification, not for existing distinctions to be done away with entirely.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

My hon. Friend has clearly studied the matter in detail. Is he saying that, as far as the powers of arrest are concerned, members of the public such as those whom he has described, committing the types of offence that he has mentioned, will stand in the same relationship to police officers exercising the power of arrest as burglars or bank robbers, subject to the provisions of new section 24(5)?

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

Yes indeed—that is precisely what is going to happen. Going by the sorts of things about which people come to complain to me, it is easy to anticipate the types of situation that might arise. For instance, if a police officer stops a car driver because one of the car's rear lights is not working, that is not an arrestable offence. Because it is during the morning school run, the driver is, perhaps, less co-operative than he should be over such a trivial offence. Instead of the matter being resolved by the issue of a form HORT1 to produce the driving licence and other details at a police station at a later date, the police officer ends up arresting the individual.

If that sort of situation is likely to arise, the damage to police-citizen relations will be phenomenal. Because we are all human and fallible, police officers have off days, as do generally law-abiding citizens. My concern is that the power is constructed in a way that will make it enormously tempting to officers to short-cut; going by the list in sub-section (5), they will have ample grounds on which to do so. The result will be that Members of Parliament will be bombarded with complaints. In the process, policing by consent, which underpins the way in which policing works in this country, will be damaged or endangered. Arrest is a draconian matter. Even a short period under arrest is a major interference with the liberty of the citizen.

The powers will extend to everything—not only road traffic matters but, potentially, the amazing plethora of minor regulatory offences that usually lead to no action at all or to a summons through the post. I am concerned about that and think that the Government should justify the measure in detail. I look to the Minister to do so. Police officers go through rigorous training, and I have never come across one who did not know what was arrestable and what was not. The lists might be long, but they are not so long that a person is incapable of having that knowledge. The fact that some offences are not arrestable is an important fetter. It prevents the state from engaging in trivia. If we all started to engage in trivia, we would seriously jeopardise the respect for the law that exists in this country.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative, Cotswold)

My hon. Friend makes a cogent case. The purport of what he is saying is that there will be more arrests for trivial offences. Will the likely result of that not be a huge increase in police time spent on the extra paperwork involved, which will lead to even fewer police on our streets?

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

Potentially, yes. It could be argued that that may be the one thing that fetters the police from using this power too often, but it could lead to a great increase in bureaucracy because if the police arrest somebody, they have to process them as an arrested person.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

I am following my hon. Friend's argument closely, and it has so far been predicated on the assumption that a trivial offence that is not presently arrestable has been committed. As he said, such offences can be committed by otherwise law-abiding people. Is it not also the case that somebody who has not committed any offence at all could be arrested? For example, if an officer has

''reasonable grounds for suspecting that an offence has been committed'',

and he questions the person concerned, that person may be liable to be arrested under new section 25(5)(a) if he refuses to give his name and address.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

Absolutely. Taking the analogy of the rear light on one's motor car, it is not only a question of the police constable seeing the rear light and stopping someone; the police constable could approach them and say, ''Somebody has told me that the rear light on your motor car was not functioning. Unless you answer my questions, I am going to arrest you.''

The Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety (Ms Hazel Blears) indicated assent.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

I see the Minister nod with a certain degree of delight at that prospect, although I must not pre-empt her views. However, the prospect fills me with considerable gloom. Frankly, the power is onerous, unnecessary and a step too far.

The next area is arrest without warrant for other persons. On this matter, the Government are plain bonkers. I think that the intention behind the powers is to facilitate the activities of CSOs, but they would extend to everybody in the land, because a CSO has no particular status as a constable. New section 24A would give any citizen the power of summary arrest on

''anyone who is in the act of committing an offence'',

''anyone whom he has reasonable grounds for suspecting to be committing an offence''.

If an offence has been committed, it would allow a citizen to arrest

''anyone who is guilty of the offence'',

''anyone whom he has reasonable grounds for suspecting to be guilty of it.''

The key phrase is that someone is entitled to exercise this summary power of arrest if they have

''reasonable grounds for believing that for any of the reasons mentioned in subsection (4) it is necessary to arrest the person in question . . . and it appears to the person making the arrest that it is not reasonably practicable for a constable to make it instead.''

I do not have too much problem with the first three of those reasons in new subsection (4), which are:

''(a) causing physical injury to himself or any other person;

(b) suffering physical injury;

(c) causing loss of or damage to property''

because they fall within the existing breach of the peace provisions. But the last one is:

''(d) making off before a constable can assume responsibility for him.''

Let us return to the red light on the back of the car. I see an individual whom I do not know parking his car outside my house, whose rear light is not working. I go outside and, under the powers conferred under new section 24A, I arrest him. I say ''I am going to arrest you, until such time as the local police officer—I am just now dialling 999—comes along to take responsibility for you''. Now, I know that MPs have high and mighty views of their own status, but I think that a bigger recipe for getting biffed in the face by an irate driver could not be found. Yet that is what the Bill will bring about.

We had this problem when we were dealing with previous legislation and extended the power of arrest in the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 to common assault. I said that I hoped that the general public did not discover that we were extending that power to common assault, because everybody would go around arresting everybody else. I seem to remember the then Minister saying to us that it was not really a problem, because the public would not know about it. Well, I think the public is going to get to know about new section 24A and, when they do, every officious little inter-meddler in the land is going to have a blank charter to go around detaining other people, particularly people unknown to them, since if they know them it becomes a bit harder as they could simply make a complaint, then summon a police officer to their assistance.

Now, we all know the reality, certainly in my own constituency, which is that if we summon the police because our house has been burgled, we will be visited by a scene of crime officer, if lucky, between 72 hours and five days later. That is the current position. The idea that police officers, thin on the ground, are suddenly going to materialise as people ring in on their mobile telephones to say that they are currently apprehending somebody who, say, has not got a rear light on his motor-vehicle, is a picture of a fantasy world that I think we can well do without. I am open to persuasion on the first part of clause 101 about constables' powers, but when we come to the power of arrest for other persons—the Minister knows that I made this comment to the then Home Secretary on Second Reading—I just do not see how this section is curable by judicious amendment. The only way in which it could be done is by removing

''(d) making off before a constable can assume responsibility for him''.

Of course, the irony is that that brings us back to the Government's desire to get rid of the power of arrest for breach of the peace, which appears at the end:

''Any rule of common law conferring power to arrest a person without a warrant is abolished.''

I think the old breach of the peace provision worked rather well. Yet, they are what we are going to get rid of. Unless the Government have changed their mind, the wording of the Bill says that is what they are going to do. If they have changed their mind, I await the Minister's explanation with interest and fascination. It was, however, their original thought, and they put it in the statute. It is a big mistake.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative, Cotswold)

Is not the real problem in giving the ordinary citizen a general power of arrest—particularly where someone is only suspected of being about to commit an offence—that under the old rules a constable or more senior police officer had the training and experience to know whether a crime was about to be committed, whereas the ordinary citizen might think, on first sight, that a crime was about to be committed by someone who was going about their business perfectly lawfully, and might try to arrest them?

As my hon. Friend has said, a breach of the peace or something worse is more likely, not less likely, in that case. The power is a very general one, which is likely to cause all sorts of problems, particularly where the police are thin on the ground, such as in rural areas, where, in the middle of the night, they take an inordinately long time to get to any suspected crime. Someone holding a person whom they suspected of committing a crime could be holding that person for a long time before a constable could come to supervise.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

I agree. In fairness, there is a distinction between the constable's powers and those of the ordinary mortal; I think that the power of arrest granted to the citizen does not extend to arresting someone whom they think is about to commit an offence. It exists only when someone is committing an offence or has committed an offence. That distinction does not, however, detract from what I think are legitimate anxieties. I fear that we are encouraging a free-for-all.

There are of course instances in which it is proper that citizens should intervene to carry out arrests. I hope that what I did outside Green Park station was proper, because I did not consider that what happened was trivial, in view of the individual's behaviour. However, there are many instances in which we should not set one citizen on another to enforce the law in such a fashion. It will lead, I think, to endless problems and headaches for the police. That sort of thing has a tendency to bring the law into disrepute.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

The hon. Member for Beaconsfield has already had a good canter around the course and he will know that I also expressed concerns about clause 101 on Second Reading. He is right. What we are discussing is due to the fact that there is no distinction in this country between a felony and a misdemeanour. I understand the difficulties that police officers have in determining whether an offence is arrestable, given the profusion of offences on the statute book. Most offences in recent years have been made arrestable, irrespective of their triviality, but that is a side issue. The question of what comprises an arrestable offence—when the threshold is reached—clearly tests a police officer's powers of recollection, if nothing else.

I have two problems with the clause, and what is proposed for police officers. First, I do not think that the clause greatly improves the lot of the constable. He is asked to substitute one threshold, which he has to determine, for another, which is a determination of necessity, effectively—and one, incidentally, that I am sure astute defence lawyers will use in court to determine whether an arrest has been properly made. The arresting constable will have to satisfy the court that there was necessity in the making of the arrest, and I do not think that that is to the advantage of our legal system.

The second major concern is not the expectation that police officers will use the power conferred on them to harass the citizen or to arrest for trivial offences, but the fact that the power of arrest does not sit alone in the system. From the definition of an arrestable offence come all sorts of other powers, which are more intrusive, and of greater concern, and which are conferred, for instance, by the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Perversely, once the statute is in place in its current form, with those corollaries, it will make the Identity Card Bill even more redundant than it would otherwise be, as a police officer will be able to stop anyone on suspicion of having committed an offence and, on the basis of the legislation, to ask that person to provide fingerprints and DNA evidence, submit to drug-testing, and undergo all the other things that are conferred by the power of an arrestable offence. That is a worrying development.

I understand the wish to revisit the power of arrest for constables. Indeed, there has been a review of PACE, and, as the hon. Member for Beaconsfield said, there has been a clear recommendation as to how to proceed. The Minister has three clear options. One is to confer the power of arrest for all offences. The second is to provide a new and better list of offences that are arrestable. Thirdly, if that proves too difficult, a list could instead be provided of those offences so trivial as not to warrant arrest. That might be easier, both for the Home Office and for the police officer on the street who has to use the powers. I put down New Clauses 13 and 14 simply as a way of getting the Minister to tell us why the Home Office has decided as it has, because the other two options have considerable merit. I also want to consider whether there is a necessary adjunct to the wider power of arrest, which is to restrict some of the knock-on powers that come with the arrestable offence.

When it comes to citizen's arrest—an arrest by another person—I entirely agree with the points made by the hon. Member for Beaconsfield. Citizen's arrest allows anybody to arrest anybody else under the most extraordinary circumstances, and that surely cannot be the Minister's intention. Even if one were to remove subsection 4(d),

''making off before a constable can assume responsibility for him'',

there are parts of my constituency where one can wait a mighty long time for a constable to take responsibility for a person who has been arrested for a trivial offence. Detention for a week without trial, waiting for a police officer to arrive and take custody of someone who has contravened a minor traffic regulation, is not an entirely proportionate response to the offence in question.

Even if subsection 4(d) were deleted, even if that were not the motivation, the hon. Gentleman's faulty rear light would fall into paragraph (a). A broken stop light is a good reason to arrest someone, as they are likely to cause physical injury to themselves or some other person, which is presumably why we have the traffic regulation requiring a stop light to be in working order, so the test has been satisfied. The arrest is perfectly in order as far as the law is concerned. It cannot be disputed in a court of law that that person is exercising an entirely proper power of arrest. I do not believe that is a sensible way to make arrangements for arrest in this country.

The powers of CSOs are a separate argument. The Minister knows we have always supported the concept of CSOs, but been careful to differentiate their role from that of a police officer. Further muddying of that distinction is not in anybody's interest. If CSOs are given more and more of the powers of police constables, they will be used as police constables, albeit inadequately trained and resourced ones. That will mean that CSOs will not be available to do the job that we want them to do, which is to provide a visible presence on the streets and to work in conjunction with the police service, providing its eyes and ears. In the interests of CSOs, police constables and the public, who need to be served well by both categories of officer, it does not make sense to extend the powers of CSOs so that there is an elision or confusion of the two roles, except for specific purposes.

My final point is about the rule of common law. The Under-Secretary has helpfully added her name to amendment No. 255, which the hon. Member for Beaconsfield tabled. I hope that that is a happy realisation that the proposed removal of the power to arrest for a breach of the peace was rather foolish, and I am sure that her colleague, the Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety, will be able explain how that realisation came about. It would wrong to dwell on the matter too long, but we should be happy that the Under-Secretary has recognised that it would have been a mistake to lose that power.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

I suspect that the reason for doing that was not so much concerns about the role of the individual citizen as the useful power of the police to intervene in situations where no criminal offence has been committed but where public disorder is quite likely unless somebody intervenes.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

Indeed, and often in circumstances in which we very much hope that police officers will intervene in order to prevent more serious consequences. I am perfectly content for a police officer to intervene under such circumstances, provided that he or she is satisfied that there is a genuine need to do so.

The power of arrest is a serious power and not to be conferred lightly. It is the power to remove the liberty of another citizen. We must ensure that the power is predicated on the right terms and that the person who is doing the arresting understands those terms, the limits on him or her and what his or her responsibilities are. That is why, in general terms, it is better for a properly trained police officer to do the arresting and why it is better for an offence of sufficient seriousness to trigger that power rather than a triviality. If the offence is a triviality, the capacity for abuse, as well as the knock-on effects on other intrusive powers that obtain as a result of the power of arrest, will increase, very much to the detriment of the liberty of the citizen.

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

As I was listening to the interesting speech that my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield gave, I wondered what was behind the Government's thinking and was left thinking that there is a lack of Government policy. The proposals to allow a constable to arrest on suspicion of any offence and to allow the arrest without warrant of anyone who is guilty of an offence or suspected or being guilty are radical and are, as my hon. Friend said, a departure from how things have worked in this country.

We said earlier that, except in limited circumstances such as the imminent risk of injury or if addresses are suspected to be false, the present serious requirement for arrest builds a degree of proportionality into the arrest decision. The Law Society considered that with the proposed wider discretion and necessity test there would be more human rights-based court challenges to arrest.

Have the Government consulted with ethnic groups? Minorities may feel even more subject to discriminatory and disproportionate exercise of police powers with the numbers of possible arrests going up. The Minister may wish to comment. People arrested for minor offences that would not be arrestable at present would also become subject to a host of other related police powers, such as samples being taken and DNA being added to the database. The 2002 joint Home Office and Cabinet Office PACE review recommended producing a definitive list of powers to arrest and to enhance training, rather than removing the distinction between arrestable offences and others. Could the Minister give reasons why the change has taken place?

I want to end by going back to the policy issue. The changes could be used to lay a new framework for a zero-tolerance policy of New York-style policing, where we go around arresting everyone for everything. Minor offences become the important offences, because if one cracks down on petty vandalism and yobbish behaviour, the other more serious offences do not happen. There are cogent arguments for that approach, which the Government have not made and will have to make if those are the reasons why they are putting the proposals in place.

Have the Government discussed the proposals with the police? I would be interested to hear the Minister's views. I know that in recent times the police have been not so interested in smaller crimes, but have stayed in their police cars and headed out to deal with the big crimes. However, we have had a move away from that and back towards community policing in recent years. Is that move part of the Government policy behind the proposals? Has the Home Office carried out research into the matter?

The Minister needs to explain why the changes are required.

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

I support my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield on the amendments. I can be very brief because there are aspects of the Bill on which we know why the Government are doing what they are doing, and we disagree with them. We have had a number of examples of that. We agree with the Government on other aspects, but think that there may be a better way of expressing the aim in legislation or a better way of achieving it. This clause, and the powers that it deals with, come into a third category, which my hon. Friend lucidly branded as those things that we think are bonkers, and he set out the reasons why.

The Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety, for very good reasons, was not here when we discussed the nature of those who work for SOCA about a week ago. I am sure that she has read Hansard, and she will have seen that the Opposition are very exercised about the powers of arrest and the powers of a constable and whether those should be handed out willy-nilly. We are at something of a loss about what is proposed in this clause, which partly explains the wide number of probing amendments seeking to flesh out what the Government are trying to do.

Policing in this country has always been characterised as policing by consent. There is the traditional nature of the police constable and relations with the public stem from that and are extremely important. It is hard to see how the clause could possibly help to develop any of that. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome asked whether such a clause would help police constables in their role. Our submission is that it will not. Will the Minister explain why the recommendations in the Home Office and Cabinet review of PACE, which, as I understand it, suggested that the workings on arrest were satisfactory by rather complex, were not accepted?

My hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield, with extraordinary percipience, used the example of the school run and the rear light and how a set of circumstances that could be perfectly easily dealt with under a constable's discretion could become something very different, with a mother or father becoming alienated from the police and the justice system. I had an almost identical experience when doing the school run not so long ago. The way that my hon. Friend has zeroed in on that example is extremely helpful. My own experience suggests that he is right, and the experience of my constituents in Sutton Coldfield, who are law abiding and robust, certainly suggests that his point is enormously important. This would be unwarranted interference in the liberty of the citizen and could well lead to extremely unsatisfactory circumstances.

Vera Baird (Labour, Redcar)

Would not a person who was stopped on the school run give their name and address and thereby prevent the situation from escalating?

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

I do not know whether the hon. and learned Lady has had the same experience as I have had. I have frequent discussions with the police in Sutton Coldfield. On a number of occasions on which I have probed the police response, a wry smile has come over the face of the police officer, who has said, ''Your constituent failed the attitude test.'' That is what my hon. Friend is describing. It is an unwarranted and unnecessary situation. Of course the hon. and learned Lady would give her name and address and move on. But, what if the police constable had had a bad day and did not handle the situation in precisely the way that, on reflection, he would have wished? It is easy to see the human circumstances that my hon. Friend described causing those problems.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

The hon. and learned Member for Redcar is right up to a point in her example, but under new subsection (5), does not any one of the conditions need to be satisfied? So if the officer takes the view that the arrest is needed

''to allow the prompt and effective investigation of the offence''

that will trigger the power of arrest too. Besides, is there not an even greater problem where these powers are purported to be exercised by members of the public?

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. His final words should give the Minister even more pause for rapid writing and reflection.

Vera Baird (Labour, Redcar)

I am sorry to use the hon. Gentleman as a go-between but the tests that have to be gone through to see whether it is necessary to make an arrest obviously include trying to get the name and address. Unless there is some imminent danger, as under paragraph (c), in every situation, if the name and address is given, none of the tests will be made out except, arguably, the test in paragraph (e) which he perspicaciously homed in on. I should have thought that it was a good idea to be able to detain someone so that if the situation can immediately be investigated and it can be known whether he has committed a crime, it can be dealt with. That is in his interest. If that provision were not available, someone could be arrested and taken away, and they would not have the opportunity to ascertain whether there were any witnesses in the immediate vicinity who could say, ''No, he didn't do that, you have got the wrong chap.'' I therefore think that it is a good idea.

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

I find myself in the position of standing, as it were, in a game of ping-pong, between two distinguished and eminent lawyers. As a non-lawyer myself—a point that I have been keen to emphasise to the Committee on numerous occasions—I would like to point to the good sense of the proposition that my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield put to the Committee about the way in which human circumstances can operate in the situation that he described.

Moving on to the powers of arrest by non-police constables, my hon. Friend described the matter perfectly. One can imagine the difficulties for those of us who bicycle around London if we were thought likely to commit an offence and became the subject of an altercation with members of the public. It is what I refer to as the ''spitting out of chewing gum clause.'' It is extremely dangerous and removes from our system the good sense and light-handed approach that have traditionally characterised British policing and the nature of the relationship between the British public and the police. The Opposition seek to do the Government a good turn by giving them an opportunity to get off a hook that they have systematically created for themselves but that will cause them immense trouble if they are unwise enough to pursue the provisions in the clause.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I am delighted, Mr. O'Brien, to have the opportunity for the first time to respond to the points that have been made on the Bill and also welcome the opportunity to serve under your chairmanship.

I hope that I shall be able to enlighten hon. Members from both Opposition parties about the reasons behind the Government's approach. I hope that, after some discussion, we will reach some degree of consensus. I note, from being in the Committee last week, that there has been wide consensus on many of provisions. In this area, many of the amendments are probing, and I hope we may be able to satisfy some of the genuine and realistic concerns raised.

Perhaps it would be helpful if I dealt with the position generally, before I come to the specific amendments. I shall then speak to the Government amendment to subsection (4).

The hon. Member for Beaconsfield set out his concerns in three areas. I shall first discuss the general approach—the move from the current framework for arrest powers based on seriousness to the framework that we want, which is based on necessity. That appears to be a big shift, but it may appear smaller to hon. Members when I go through some of the detail. It is, however, a matter of principle, and it is therefore right that we should explore it. Secondly, I shall deal with issues related to citizen's arrest and will take on board some of the interesting points made by hon. Members, and then I will deal with issues related to breach of the peace.

Arrest is a serious matter. I take this area very seriously indeed and have explored it at great length with my officials. Arrest is one of the most intrusive powers that the police have and therefore needs to be exercised within a careful, measured, constructive and rigorous framework.

PACE, which has been in place for some 20 years, established a fairly structured system of arrest powers from what had been a very incoherent system. PACE recognised that constables should have the power to arrest for arrestable offences—offences carrying a term of imprisonment of five years or more and for serious arrestable offences—and for specified offences such as murder, manslaughter and rape. However, even PACE, recognised that a constable should have the power of arrest, if considered necessary, for all offences. No one in the Committee has referred to section 25 of PACE, which states that there are arrestable offences, serious arrestable offences, and general arrest conditions. It states:

''Where a constable has reasonable grounds for suspecting that any offence which is not an arrestable offence has been committed or attempted . . . he may arrest the relevant person if . . . any of the general arrest conditions are satisfied.''

Those conditions are set out in section 25(3); they cover situations in which the person's name and address are unknown, the constable has grounds for doubting that he has been given the correct name and address, or an arrest is necessary—we duplicate these provisions in new section 24(5)(c)—to prevent physical injury, or loss or damage to property.

So, to a large extent, we have transposed the general arrest conditions in section 25 to the Bill, although there is one significant addition, with which I shall deal in a moment. Although that is a fundamental change, I am seeking to establish for hon. Members that the concept is not entirely new. This is not a new set of provisions; they already exist as general arrest conditions in section 25 of PACE.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

The Minister has invited the Committee to have regard to section 25 of PACE, but I cannot find it in the bundle of provisions that the Government have given us relating to the Bill. Given that we are approaching the luncheon Adjournment, could the Minister obtain copies of section 25 and circulate them to members of the Committee?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I shall be delighted to do that, because I found it extremely useful to go back to the source material that we are talking about; sometimes, the issues are not that apparent from the Bill, and I shall be delighted to obtain that material during the lunch break so that we can discuss them. The point is important, and I am trying to establish that we are dealing not with a new set of criteria, but with criteria that have existed for 20 years, which have been tested through time and found to be extremely worth while.

At the moment, there is a range of arrestable and serious arrestable offences, for which the power of arrest is automatic, so the constable does not necessarily have to think about whether it is right to make an arrest. We want to move to a position in which all offences are arrestable, but the constable must then clearly go through a consideration process to determine whether it is necessary to execute an arrest in the circumstances of the offence.

Rather than lowering the threshold for accountability, we are almost raising it; we are saying that the constable must think carefully, exercising his or her professional discretion, training and skills to reach a decision in the particular circumstances. They will not simply have the automatic power of arrest and be able to arrest someone without thinking about it; they will have to go through the necessity test because it will be looked at in court and perhaps by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which will have judicial oversight. Having to go through that process places quite a rigorous burden on the constable, given that he or she does not have to go through it at the moment.

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

To be absolutely clear, is the Minister saying that, under her proposal, if two identical offences are committed on the same day outside my office in the high street in Sutton Coldfield, one prospective offender could be arrested and taken away, while the other might not be? Is that, in effect, what will happen under the proposal?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

That is very much the case now. I would expect—in fact, I would require—police officers to exercise their judgment as to whether it was necessary to effect an arrest in those circumstances. One person might give their name and address and could properly be dealt with by a summons, so that the police officer did not need to execute an arrest, which would take him off the streets. Somebody else might refuse to give their name and address, or might give a false name and address, and the constable would have to move to arrest to take the matter further.

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

To be absolutely clear, is the Minister seeking to extend and increase the level of discretion that would apply in the circumstances that I described?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I am seeking to establish a new framework for the powers of arrest—

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

Yes or no?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

The hon. Gentleman knows that these matters rarely have a yes or no answer. I am seeking to establish a new framework; the present framework is entirely dependent on the seriousness of the offence, and once that condition is satisfied, the power of arrest is automatic. I am trying to establish a system under which seriousness is still a factor, but not the only factor in deciding whether to exercise the power of arrest. The situation will be clearer for the police, the public and the criminal justice system, because all offences will be arrestable—

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 D

Clause 101 - Powers of arrest

Marion Roe (Conservative, Broxbourne)

I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following: Amendment No. 303, in clause 101, page 67, leave out lines 18 to 22.

Amendment No. 146, in clause 101, page 67, leave out lines 23 to 26.

Amendment No. 218, in clause 101, page 67, line 24, after 'if', insert—

'(a) the offence is an arrestable offence punishable by more than 5 years imprisonment, or

(b)'.

Amendment No. 296, in clause 101, page 67, line 24, after 'if', insert—

'(a) the offence is an arrestable offence, or

(b)'.

Amendment No. 165, in clause 101, page 67, line 27, leave out from beginning to end of line 5 on page 68.

Amendment No. 219, in clause 101, page 67, line 43, leave out from beginning to end of line 2 on page 68.

Amendment No. 166, in clause 101, page 68, leave out lines 6 to 28.

Amendment No. 295, in clause 101, page 68, line 17, at end insert—

'(za) the offence is an arrestable offence,'.

Government amendment No. 255.

Clause stand part.

Clause 102 stand part.

Amendment No. 220, in schedule 7, page 164, leave out lines 3 to 13.

Amendment No. 185, in schedule 7, page 164, leave out lines 8 to 13.

Amendment No. 221, in schedule 7, page 164, line 30, leave out from beginning to end of line 38 on page 168.

Schedule 7 be the Seventh schedule to the Bill.

New clause 13—Powers of arrest (No. 2)—

'In section 24 of PACE (arrest without warrant for arrestable offences), leave out subsection (1)(b) and insert—

''(b) to offences which the Secretary of State may by order prescribe;''.'.

New clause 14—Powers of arrest (No. 3)—

'In section 24 of PACE (arrest without warrant for arrestable offences), leave out subsection (1)(b) and insert—

''(b) to offences other than those which the Secretary of State may by order prescribe;''.'.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Marion.

Before lunch, I explained that we are moving from a framework in which the seriousness of the offence is the defining character to one that involves the test of necessity. That is the fundamental point.

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

I apologise to the Minister if the passing of time has dulled my memory, but I think that she said earlier the opposite of what she is saying now. Can she confirm that she said that seriousness will stay part of the overall reasonableness test, which will therefore become stronger?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I am delighted to confirm that seriousness will remain one of the factors to be used in deciding whether it is necessary to exercise the power. It is an important factor and it will remain a central consideration, because we do not want to deny the basis on which Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 provisions have developed. However, a number of other matters will also be taken into account, and that will strengthen the test.

The hon. Members for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) and for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Mitchell) emphasised the nature of policing in this country, that it is policing by consent. The nature of the encounter between the police officer and the citizen is therefore critical if that relationship is to be maintained. By introducing the test of necessity, we raise the threshold at which police officers can exercise their judgment. That strengthens the relationship at the time of the encounter; it is policing not only by consent, but with the active co-operation of communities. That takes us further in developing neighbourhood policing models.

I hope that the Committee will accept my reassurance that the changes are designed to strengthen the relationship between citizens and the police rather than to weaken it.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

I apologise for my late arrival.

I have had an opportunity to consider what the Minister said before lunch, and I appreciate that the first part of the clause, which deals with constables' powers, repeats many but not all the PACE provisions. It gets rid, however, of the distinction between arrestable and non-arrestable offences. That leaves me with an anxiety that the provision sends out a signal to the police about the use or extension of their powers that might work against the sensitive exercise of those powers. I do not know to what extent she intends to touch on that issue, but I hope that we can examine it.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I am keen to dispel any message of the sort to which the hon. Gentleman refers. Perhaps I can help him by saying that seriousness remains one of the factors. We also want to consider the effect on the victim and the way in which we can ensure that the powers are used both to investigate crime and to secure convictions, and we intend to develop a code of practice on the way in which the powers will be used. That will happen after consultation not only with the limited range of stakeholders specified in PACE, but much more widely, to ensure that the messages we send out in relation to the framework reinforce the points that I have made about community policing and maintaining the good relationship between citizens and the police service.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

The Minister has said several times that the test of seriousness remains, but I am at a loss to understand how. The test of necessity provision is, as she correctly says, largely lifted from the previous general arrest conditions for minor offences that did not come under the category of arrestable offences or serious arrestable offences. I see no other condition on the arrest that applies to the seriousness of the offence. Will she explain why she believes that the test of seriousness persists?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

If the hon. Gentleman compares section 25 of PACE with the necessity provisions in subsection (1), he will see that proposed subsection (5)(e) makes a key addition. There are currently no necessity provisions for the general power of arrest, but paragraph (e) will allow the prompt and effective investigation of the offence or the conduct of the person in question. That relates to whether one is looking at a serious offence and whether, in a complex investigation, one needs to make an arrest in order to take the matter forward. As I say, we do not specify seriousness as a particular factor, but when a constable is considering whether to exercise the power, that judgment will, under the code of practice to be worked up under PACE, clearly include consideration of the nature of the offence that has been committed.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I am sorry to test the Minister further on this issue; I am not trying to be clever. The reasons listed in subsection (5) are alternatives; they are options or palette of reasons from which the officer can choose. Adding an additional reason to enable the investigation of the offence will not provide an additional test, because it will not qualify the others. Good arguments may be advanced for doing exactly as she says, but the suggestion that the provisions maintain a seriousness test is not one of them. It flies in the face of the logic of the clause as presently constructed.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I am sorry, but I think that the hon. Gentleman fails to appreciate the problem. It is not his fault; it may be mine in terms of communication. We are asking constables to take a more holistic view of the circumstances that face them. At the moment, they have to decide only whether something is covered by the PACE list, but that is an arbitrary way of deciding whether or not to arrest. Under that arrangement, the constable can simply say, ''If it is in the list, I can do it, so let's get on with it.'' We are asking the constable to take a view on the nature of the offence, the conduct of the person in question and the seriousness of the situation, including whether there is physical injury or loss or damage to property, or whether can he get an address. A range of issues are involved, and the constable has to be satisfied that it is right to exercise the power in those circumstances.

I have given the hon. Gentleman the assurance that, when we work up the code of practice, the nature of the offence will clearly be a consideration. However, the current system, with an arbitrary list saying when one can arrest irrespective of the need to exercise that power, is not the right place to be. We have tried to move on from that framework, but to retain some of the concepts relating to necessity that are to be found in the general powers of arrest. That is why we have transposed them into the new provision. We are retaining some of the concepts, but we seek a gateway of necessity rather than the arbitrary gateway of seriousness.

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

The question for the Minister is clear. She seeks to blunt the argument of those on the Opposition Benches and to beguile us with her promised code of practice. What does she mean? She says that she will consult, but will the matter be the subject of debate in the House? Will it be the subject of any form of secondary legislation? Whom does she envisage consulting? To what extent should she be able to blunt our arguments by the promise of a code of practice? Will she reassure us on that point?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I shall be delighted to do so. The preparation and promulgation of codes of practice is a long-established means of putting flesh on the bones of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. There is a series of statutory codes, and the proposed code would be another such code. There will be formal consultation. I understand that we are statutorily bound to consult a limited number of stakeholders, including various police organisations. In this case, we intend to consult not only those bodies, but organisations such as Liberty. Members have raised the question of disproportionality, particularly for people from black and minority ethnic communities, so we intend also to consult them about the implications of the code. The code will be subject to an affirmative resolution in both Houses, following not only the consultation but consideration by the Select Committee on Home Affairs. The consultation is a fairly formal procedure.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

The Minister persuades me that, in respect of what were previously arrestable offences, the mechanisms provided for in the first part of clause 101 could well be described as an improvement because they provide for a greater degree of flexibility, albeit—I suspect that she would agree—that the police already exercise some flexibility even over arrestable offences. My anxiety arises in respect of the general powers of arrest for offences previously provided for under section 25 of PACE. Although the criteria may have been more prescriptive in section 25, I am left with the slightly uneasy feeling that the consequence is that more of those who have committed minor offences or who are alleged to have done so—this will be an allegation, not a proven fact—will end up being arrested unnecessarily under her proposals.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

It is difficult for any of us to look into a crystal ball, see the future and predict the effects. The aim is to achieve the opposite to what the hon. Gentleman set out. That perhaps includes seeing fewer arrests, as people will be able to exercise a better degree of discretion and professionalism about whether an arrest is necessary. At the moment, it is tempting for a constable simply to think, ''This offence is in the list and I can arrest, so I will exercise my power.'' We are trying to ensure that the constable does not automatically go down the route of making an arrest, but says at certain points, ''Is it necessary for me to do this?'' If the hon. Gentleman thinks about some of the tools that we brought in, such as fixed penalty notices and other tools to tackle offences, he will see that our whole direction is towards reducing arrest, as we want to reduce the time that constables spend processing people through the custody suite so they can spend more time out on the streets fighting crime.

Tony McWalter (Labour/Co-operative, Hemel Hempstead)

I hope that my hon. Friend will not go too far down the road that it has been suggested we should take, particularly by the Liberal Democrats. For instance, many police officers are currently unclear about whether they can make an arrest if they are sworn at. In one sense, we can say, ''It's only a word, and it's common'', but on the other hand, swearing often displays extreme disrespect to the police and makes it difficult for them to do their job, unless they know that they have the power to arrest in that situation. That is the sort of circumstance in which it is right that a police officer can arrest with a strong feeling that he is enabled by that power to police more effectively.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

My hon. Friend makes an important point about the police being able to do their job more effectively. That is the purpose of the provisions—to ensure that the police have sufficient powers and that the system is rebalanced so that we do not look at seriousness in isolation, but consider the effect on the victim and the conduct of the offence. In particular, I highlighted the need to allow prompt and effective investigation, which is an important addition. We are talking about exercising powers with a view to securing not only an arrest where an offence has been committed, but a good investigation and a conviction. That is how we can make people confident in the criminal justice system, so that they are more likely to come forward with the community intelligence that is fundamental to our neighbourhood policing. The change that we are introducing is about trying to see the situation not from the offender's perspective, but from that of the citizen and the victim.

The hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) raised the issue of zero-tolerance policing, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. McWalter). There is no policy shift to zero tolerance in any circumstance. We are seeking to provide the police with a range of tools to have at their disposal, so that when they come across a situation, they can decide the appropriate way to deal with it in the interests of justice and of getting good convictions and detections. That is why we have introduced fixed penalty notices, dispersal orders and all the antisocial behaviour tools. The provisions before us have the same policy context. They are about saying that we want to be effective on the streets, and sending a message to offenders that we are going to give the police the powers to get them off the streets.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

I am grateful to the Minister for supplying us with copies of section 25 of the old PACE provisions, which has been helpful. As she said, subsection (5)(e) is the important addition in the clause. Can she confirm that paragraph (e), to which she has referred at length, will be of use to the police only in cases of the less serious offences, which are not arrestable? As matters stand under PACE, a police officer has the right to arrest someone for an arrestable offence. The provision can be used only for the less serious type of offences.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

Clearly, the purpose of the amendments that we are making is to introduce a framework in which any offence is arrestable, from the most to the least serious. The clause sets out qualifying factors to decide whether or not arrest is necessary in those circumstances. The phrase

''to allow the prompt and effective investigation of the offence''

would apply to the whole range of offences, and the police officer would need to think about that.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

The point that I am making to the Minister is that the police already have such a power in the case of an arrestable offence, because the police officer can simply arrest somebody. The provision before us will apply only in the case of less serious offences. If there is a test of seriousness, it applies to less serious offences, as the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome has been saying.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I accept that we already have a position in which people would be able to arrest for serious offences. I entirely accept that. We are seeking to introduce a new framework. If we move to the new tests, it is important that we have such a framework.

Vera Baird (Labour, Redcar)

As I understand it, contrary to what the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) implied, section 24 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 will be repealed, so there will be no general power to arrest at all, except the one before us. [Interruption.] I hope that that is clear. I am sorry; I thought that he had not taken it into account.

My concern runs contrary to the one that is being raised now and to the one I thought I had, which was too many arrests, and I think that it troubles some of the police representatives who are here this morning. My hon. Friend the Minister says that paragraph (e) is a sort of proxy for seriousness, but I cannot make that connection myself. I do not understand why a grave offence is likely to require more prompt investigation than a weak one. Consequently, I cannot see why the gravity of an offence would automatically bring an arrest justifiable under paragraph (e). The concern is that, when there has been a really serious offence, if the officer makes the error of thinking it should fall under paragraph (e) or cannot find a subsection to put it under, he might have made a false arrest. That would mean that all the evidence recovered thereafter would not be admissible. That is a problem, as one can see when coming at the issue from the opposite point of view, and I invite the Minister to consider it.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I understand the point that my hon. and learned Friend is making. I do not entirely accept it, because there could be circumstances in which a serious offence would need prompt investigation. There may be a need to preserve evidence or immediately to question somebody for serious matters, so I do not accept that paragraph (e) relates only to more trivial offences. It could relate to trivial and serious offences. If she looks at paragraph (f), she will find that it ensures that prosecutions are not hindered by the disappearance of the person in question. Again, if a serious offence has been committed, the likelihood that someone will seek to escape from the scene may be greater, as the more serious the offence, the more serious the consequences. I do not accept that the issues are exclusive, but I take her point that the provision could apply to both serious and less serious offences.

Vera Baird (Labour, Redcar)

What I am really saying is that neither paragraph (e) nor paragraph (f) will automatically apply to a serious offence. The matter will not necessarily lie with the gravity of the offence. Officers who understandably want to arrest for a serious offence and who might think about bail being permissible but only under strict conditions in due course might not have a ground to arrest. The true position with this new model, whose purpose I understand, is that the gravity of the offence has disappeared completely as a criterion.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I do not accept my hon. and learned Friend's contention. Some of the responses to our consultation expressed entirely the opposite view. In fact, the nature of the provisions means that they are so catch-all that they are not a serious filter in terms of narrowing the issues that can be taken into account. We have received criticism from both sides. There have been suggestions that there are no circumstances in which the necessity test could not be passed, let alone circumstances in which other matters might escape. That is why it is important that, when we prepare the code of practice, we give as much guidance as we can about the nature of the holistic decision that we are asking officers to take in relation to the circumstances that face them.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

I thank the Minister for giving way, as she is doing so in the best spirit of Committee debate.

I understand the point made by the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird). Curiously, I approached it from the other angle, and I do not think that the two positions are incompatible. She has highlighted the fact that, with the lack of a seriousness test, an officer might feel disadvantaged in taking the decision. Equally, I think that there appears to be an open door to an officer to arrest on fairly trivial grounds, because

''to allow the prompt and effective investigation of the offence''

appears to be a bit of a catch-all provision.

We are narrowing down our discussion to the nub of the anxiety. It may well be that the guidelines can cure it, but the alternative approach might be to have a seriousness test or possibly a seriousness test and paragraph (e).

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

We have just seen an illustration of the way in which the provision can be approached from both sides. We can make the criticism that it is a catch-all measure that does not allow anything through and that arrests will take place for the more trivial offences. Equally, we have the concerns expressed by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar. I can do no more at this stage than try to reassure the Committee that we will endeavour to ensure that the issues raised by hon. Members will be addressed in the code of practice.

I want to deal with the more general question that has been raised, particularly in the Liberal Democrat amendments, about why we have not gone for the original PACE review recommendation that we should simply come up with a prescribed list of offences. The review recommended creating a definitive list complemented by information on how the offences could be applied, but said that more radical ideas about expanding the scope to arrest required further consultation. The review said that the prescribed list was a starting point, but called for more fundamental change.

That is why we have tried to incorporate the necessity test and to get away from the arbitrary issue of the seriousness of the offence. It is important for me to tell the Committee that the proposal has not simply been promoted by the Home Office. We had the PACE review and then the consultation, and that is why we have ended up opposing the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome. We do not believe that a prescriptive list is enough, and we think that the approach that we are taking is a better one.

Vera Baird (Labour, Redcar)

I, too, am trying to improve things or to give the Minister food for thought; that is all. Of course, if the grounds of arrest set in statute are not sufficient to cover any particular situation, whatever the code of practice says will not alter that. The grounds of arrest have to be in the statute. If there is anything in either of the concerns that have been expressed today, an amendment should be tabled later on, rather than the code of practice relied on. As I say, if the grounds are not in the statute, one cannot put them there through a code of practice.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I think that I have shown that I have heard what hon. Members have to say. At the moment, I am in a position to go no further than the code of practice, but I have clearly heard the remarks of those on both sides of the argument.

Secondly, I recognise the concerns raised by the hon. Gentleman, despite his personal bravery in tackling criminals, about the possibility of citizen's arrests being used for trivial offences. Citizens have a difficulty now in knowing what is an arrestable offence, a serious arrestable offence or a general power of arrest, and how they might act. If we are to have a new amended form of citizen's arrest, we need much more communication with the public about where it might fall. I am happy to say to him that I will consider the matter seriously before Report to see whether I can meet the genuine concerns that have been expressed in the Committee about narrowing down even further the circumstances in which a citizen's arrest can take place. I understand the concerns that have been raised.

I suppose that it is a peculiar feature of British law that the constable is the citizen in uniform and that we all have the ability to arrest. It is right that that should be set at an appropriate level, but also communicated to the public so that they know the circumstances in which they might operate. I hope, on that basis, that the hon. Gentleman is reassured.

Finally, I want to deal with breach of the peace and Government amendment No. 255. We originally proposed to abolish the breach of the peace power; in a way, I was trying to strike a balance with civil liberties. I wondered whether we needed such a catch-all power if we were bringing in a power to make every criminal offence arrestable. Was not that a belt-and-braces job, giving the police more powers than they should really have? That was a strange position to find myself in as Minister with responsibility for policing.

In the consultation, however, the Police Federation highlighted two examples of where the power is used pre-emptively, and that was quite persuasive. One example is cases of domestic violence in which there is no complaint from the person who is being assaulted or who is likely to be assaulted, and the power has been very useful there. The other example involves people with mental health problems who are held informally, as using the power in such cases can help to contain a situation while the formal legal processes are conducted. Those are just two examples of situations in which the Police Federation said that it is extremely useful to have the power.

I urge hon. Members to support amendment No. 255 and to oppose the Conservative amendments, which would reinstate the seriousness test in place of the necessity test, and the Liberal Democrat amendments, which seek to introduce a prescriptive list of offences, rather than the necessity test.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I welcome you to the Committee, Dame Marion.

I am grateful to the Minister for the time and care that she has taken in responding to the debate; she has moved us further forward in a number of ways. I have no idea what the hon. Member for Beaconsfield intends to do about the amendments standing in his name, but I take some comfort from the Minister's comments about the PACE codes of conduct. She has given us assurances about those codes of conduct, which are critical to the operation of PACE; they are not a trivial matter or some guidance in the ether, and they will have a real effect on the operation of the power before us. None the less, I hope that she will consider further qualifying the initial power of arrest to reflect the seriousness test, which she wants to be implicit, but which, at the moment, is not. If she looks carefully at what has been said, she will recognise that that is the case.

On the power of citizen's arrest, however, I still think that the provision in the Bill is completely mad. It is not even qualified by PACE; it provides for a general power of arrest, for anybody, for anything.

The Minister spoke to my new clauses and explained why the Government have taken the avenue that they have in redefining the power of arrest, but she did not say whether there is any way of qualifying the powers in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and other legislation that flow from the term ''arrestable offence'' to ensure that they are used only in cases in which the seriousness of the offence merits their application. Whenever Committees have considered new powers of this kind, Ministers have been quick to assure us that they will apply only to arrestable and therefore more serious offences. Now that we are making every offence arrestable, all those assurances are worthless. That is a genuine concern for many of us.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

Perhaps I can give the hon. Gentleman some assurance; I apologise for not dealing with the matter in my original remarks. I refer him to schedule 7. The trigger powers—powers to search and set up road blocks, and all the powers that emanate—will relate to offences that are triable either way or only on indictment, not to offences that are triable summarily only. We have tried to set a higher threshold. I take the hon. Gentleman's point about that. With the abolition of the concept of arrestable and serious arrestable offences, the setting of a threshold at the level of indictable offences should reassure the hon. Gentleman that the powers will not be exercised in an arbitrary fashion. Some of them are quite intrusive, and they should require a higher threshold.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

That is very helpful, and if the Minister had made those comments earlier I might not have spoken again, so I hope that she will forgive me. Although she has gone some way towards reassuring me, I still have concerns about various aspects of the clause and continue to believe that the provision on powers of citizens' arrest is unsupportable in its present form.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

I repeat my gratitude to the Minister for the way in which she has handled the debate, and enabled us to engage in proper Committee debating, with an exchange of views rather than just formal set speeches.

To deal first with the question of the arrest without warrant by a constable, I am still concerned about how the provision will work in practice. I am sure that the Minister appreciates that it is difficult for we parliamentarians to pass legislation that is to rely on codes of practice—on a wing and a prayer, to some extent. I share the view of the hon. and learned Member for Redcar that it is possible to improve the relevant provisions and I am pleased that the Minister has agreed to think further about it. I continue to be concerned that the power could bite two ways: it could leave an officer unclear as to how seriousness had a bearing on whether he could intervene in any offence; and proposed new section 24(5)(e) of PACE could be used as a catch-all excuse for an officer who wanted to exercise his powers to justify arresting someone. Those are specific concerns.

That said, I am not minded to press to the vote any of the amendments that I tabled as probing amendments to proposed new subsections (1) to (6). I shall wait to see what the Minister has to say. Perhaps she will write to Committee members before Report, explaining the Government's approach and their response to the debate, which that would be helpful. If not, I suspect that we shall return to the issue on Report in some form or other, when I have had time to think further about the implications

As for arrest without warrant by other persons, I am pleased that the Minister is to think again about that as well. I had the impression from her words that she will think again about that in perhaps a slightly more fundamental way than she will about the first part of the clause. There remains, I believe, a big problem. I am a great believer in citizens feeling empowered to enforce the law—indeed, I think one of the real problems in this country today is that people feel disempowered to intervene, even when they could probably do so quite safely. I am not suggesting that people should expose themselves to risk, although some may choose to do so, but in some instances there is no prospect at all of restoring order and reducing disorder unless citizens are prepared to intervene proactively.

I do not want to deter citizens from such action, but I am bound to say the provisions that we are considering will allow every officious little intermeddler to have a field day. Neighbours will arrest each other. I foresee the most dreadful complications as the police are constantly summoned to take over the custody of the person arrested when they are not in a position to respond.

The Minister faces a problem, because removing the distinction between an arrestable and a non-arrestable offence, which I suppose is implicit, if not explicit, in the first part of the clause, raises the difficult question of what criteria should be satisfied for somebody to be allowed to conduct a citizen's arrest. If the Minister moves away from the established principle, under which the arrestable offence should be punishable by five years' imprisonment, she will have to produce a definitive list and ensure that trivia are kept out of that list. I refer in particular to most, though not all, road traffic matters. If someone is blind drunk and sitting at the steering wheel of car about to drive off, that would be a justifiable reason for conducting a citizen's arrest. However, the Minister will have to consider that list carefully. Furthermore, once we move down that route, it will be the Government's responsibility to provide in a brochure a bit of publicity about what people can and cannot do. I would certainly support the Minister in that.

I am pleased that the Minister has agreed to retain the power of arrest for breach of the peace. She cited two good examples and I can think of a number of others. On Thursday we shall consider incitement to religious hatred, about which I have serious reservations, as the Minister knows. However, I have always been of the view that if somebody stands on a street corner and starts uttering inflammatory language that causes a crowd to gather and threaten to start a riot, the power to remove the person who is causing that serious irritation and is about to precipitate a serious breach of the peace is one that the police should feel ready to exercise—and, in my experience, they have done so. That power is an important moderating feature. The police can go up to somebody and say, ''Look, if you carry on like this, we will have to arrest you for breach of the peace. Go home.'' That can be a useful tool in sensible policing, so I am pleased that it is to be retained, just as I am pleased that it is available in the context of domestic violence and the other matters that the Minister mentioned.

I do not wish to press most of my amendments in the group, but, taking the matter in the round, I shall press amendment No. 166, which would delete the provisions on citizen's arrest. I wish to encourage the Minister, but I cannot let provisions that are in such a dreadful state pass without registering a protest. On the assumption that that is possible, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 6, Noes 9.

Clause 103 - Power to direct a person to leave a place

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I beg to move amendment No. 186, in clause 103, page 69, line 10, after 'offence', insert

'or in the case of an order made by virtue of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004, following the person's conviction or acquittal of an offence,'.

I am happy to acknowledge the Conservatives' support for the amendment. Its aim is to correct an unintentional omission by the Government. The clause deals with the power to direct a person to leave a place, and it says that

''A constable may direct a person to leave a place if he believes, on reasonable grounds, that the person is in the place at a time when he would be prohibited from entering it by virtue of . . . an order to which subsection (2) applies, or . . . a condition to which subsection (3) applies.''

Subsection (2) deals with orders that are made by virtue of any enactment following a person's conviction of an offence—that is the qualifying feature. It is obviously intended to apply to any restraining order applied by a court for an offence that prevents a person from entering a particular vicinity, and it provides for the constable to order the person to leave. However, as those of us who, only a few months ago, spent many happy hours disagreeing with what is now the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 know, the Government introduced in that Act a new power-making capacity that allows for restraining orders on acquittal. That is important, because it allows a criminal court to find a person not guilty of an offence, but for the material that was before that court to be used in evidence for the making of a restraining order, essentially on a civil court basis, preventing that person from harassing another individual under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

We agreed with the Government that it was a necessary addition to the order-making powers, to provide for circumstances in which somebody who clearly had been involved in domestic violence had been found not guilty of a specific offence, but there was a reasonable likelihood of some form of harassment against the spouse of the accused or another individual. It is clear that that order, which was to be made on acquittal rather than on conviction, would not be covered by the provisions of clause 103(2)(a), which refers to ''following the person's conviction'' of an offence. Therefore, if we want to give police officers the power to move somebody who, following acquittal, is in breach of a restraining order under that legislation, we need to extend the provision. That is the purpose of the amendment. I hope that it is self-explanatory, that I do not need to expand further on what I have said, and that the Minister will either accept it or undertake to bring it back in an amended form that will achieve the same objective.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

The hon. Gentleman's amendment seems to be making a good point. I would certainly expect that the orders made on acquittal under the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act, which we considered only recently, ought to be included in the power under clause 103. No doubt, if we have got it wrong, the Minister will tell us. If we have got it right, then she might be happy to accept the amendment.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

There is little between us in terms of the mischief that we are able to resolve. I am sorry to tell both hon. Gentlemen, however, than the amendment is unnecessary in technical terms. It is also technically defective, but the important point is that it is unnecessary. It appears to be intended to extend the scope of proposed new powers to restraining and non-molestation orders. The purpose of clause 103 is to plug a gap that does not exist in relation to non-molestation and restraining orders.

We are trialling satellite tracking technology, particularly for sex offenders. Such people may be excluded from going near a primary school or the scene of previous offences. As we track them through that technology, if they go into that exclusion zone we can ask them to leave, but we do not have any power of arrest if they refuse to do so. In the case of non-molestation and restraining orders that are made on acquittal, as the hon. Gentlemen said, they attract a power of arrest, so there is no gap for non-molestation orders and restraining orders. The gap that we are specifically trying to plug is in relation to breaches of community orders, suspended sentences or licence conditions where there are other enforcement provisions in place. That is why we are now seeking to take the power of arrest when somebody fails to obey a police instruction to leave the exclusion zone. At the moment, police have the power of arrest only if they feel that somebody is about to commit another offence in that exclusion zone.

If that explanation is not sufficient, I might add some more information, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that the Government are just as keen as they are to ensure that if somebody has been issued with a non-molestation or restraining order and they breach it, swift action can be taken by the police in terms of arrest. The current law allows for that, and therefore there is no need for the amendment.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

Clearly, there is nothing between us in terms of our intention. The Minister tells me that my amendment is unnecessary and of course I accept her advice. I do not see the specific power within the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act, which suggests that it must be either in other general legislation, or within the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. If she could either let me know by intervention or writing, so that I can check that the matter is covered, I shall be delighted. I certainly do not wish to trouble the Committee further if I am trying to correct a mischief which does not exist.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

As I understand it, the provisions on the non-molestation orders are in the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, which the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act amends. That is the reason why his amendment is technically defective, because he is seeking to amend legislation which does not contain the primary power in terms of the non-molestation and restraining orders. It is also why he cannot find the substantive provisions in the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

Although I did not advertise the deficiencies in my amendment when moving it, it did occur to me that it needed to be an amendment to the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 rather than what I had suggested.

Tony McWalter (Labour/Co-operative, Hemel Hempstead)

I am deeply perplexed by what the Minister has just said. Clause 101 says that an arrest can be made to protect a child or other vulnerable person from the individual in question. If someone wearing a tag goes into a certain area when they have an order not to do so, I cannot for the life of me see why they cannot be arrested. The whole of clause 103 therefore seems unnecessary.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

The hon. Gentleman raises a question that the Minister will have to answer. Given his comments in Committee, his general position appears to be that everybody should be arrested in all circumstances. The Minister does not seem to share that intention, as she has been at pains to assure us.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 103 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 104 - Search warrants: premises

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

I beg to move amendment No. 287, in clause 104, page 69, line 40, leave out subsections (2) to (4) and insert—

'(1A) After section 8 (power of justice of the peace to authorise entry and search of premises), insert—

''8A Specific premises and all premises warrants

(1) If on an application made by a constable a judge of the High Court or a Circuit judge is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing—

(a) that a serious arrestable offence has been committed; and

(b) (i) that there is material on one or more premises specified in the application which is likely to be of substantial value (whether by itself or together with other material) to the investigation of the offence (in which case the application is for a specific premises warrant); or

(ii) that there is material on any premises occupied or controlled by a person specified in the application, including such sets of premises as are so specified) which is likely to be of substantial value (whether by itself or together with other material) to the investigations of the offence (in which case the application is for an all premises warrant); and

(c) that the material is likely to be relevant evidence; and

(d) that it does not consist of or include items subject to legal privilege, excluded material or special procedure material; and

(e) that any of the conditions specified in subsection (3) below applies,

he may issue a warrant authorising a constable to enter and search the premises.

(2) Without prejudice to the satisfaction of the requirements set out in subsection (1), no application for an all premises warrant under subsection (1) is to be granted unless a judge of the High Court or a Circuit judge is further satisfied that—

(a) there are reasonable grounds for believing that it is necessary to search premises occupied or controlled by the person in question which are not specified in the application in order to find the material; and

(b) it is not reasonably practicable to specify in the application all the premises which he occupies or controls and which might need to be searched.''.'.

Marion Roe (Conservative, Broxbourne)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 147, in clause 104, page 70, line 11, after 'premises', insert 'reasonably believed to be'.

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

Amendment No. 287 would require a specific-premises warrant and an all-premises search warrant to be issued by a High Court judge or a circuit judge, as opposed to a justice of the peace. Amendment No. 147 deals with the danger of searches being unlawful unless the amendment is included in the Bill.

It has been a principle of English common law for hundreds of years that an individual's privacy in his premises can be invaded only where a warrant to enter and search has been judicially sanctioned. For that reason, the warrant must be crystal clear about the extent of the invasion that is permitted to take place. The all-premises warrant, in particular, represents a significant erosion of that principle, because the identity of the premises to be searched will be not be specified.

At present, it is not uncommon for the police to enter and search premises belonging to a target and to discover from material found there that the target occupies or controls other residential or commercial premises where further valuable material could be stored. Typically in that situation, they return to court and obtain a warrant to enable them to enter and search the new premises. The need to obtain a new warrant creates further paperwork and delays the investigation, affording the target the opportunity of removing material from the new premises before an additional search warrant has been granted. The ability to obtain an all-premises warrant would obviate the need for the police to return to a justice of the peace in such circumstances. However, because of the enhanced invasion of privacy involved in an all-premises warrant, it should, at the very least, be scrutinised most carefully by a senior judge, such as a High Court judge or a circuit judge, before it is granted. That is the key purpose of the amendment, which operates by inserting a new clause into PACE. The Government's proposal to amend the existing section 8 will work only if justices of the peace are to grant the new species of warrant.

With our probing amendment we wish to ensure the correct safeguards for the privacy of our constituents. We are wary of a Government who have allowed a number of intrusive powers, particularly in Companies (Audit, Investigations and Community Enterprise) Act 2004, which we considered in towards the end of the last Session. We want the Minister to reassure us that our fears are unwarranted.

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

By its very nature, the all-premises warrant will be open to interpretation, to the extent that the certainty that attaches to a single-premises warrant will be lacking. Subsection (14), which would become new section 8A(2) under the amendment, says that the judge may not issue such an all-premises warrant unless he is satisfied that

''that there are reasonable grounds for believing that it is necessary to search premises''.

What does ''reasonable'' mean in that context? There may be a difference between what a judge finds reasonable when a warrant is issued in the courtroom and what the police think is reasonable when an incident takes place and they feel that a premises needs to be searched; that disparity could lead to court cases. We are talking about a new type of order, so the potential for disputes about what is considered reasonable in those different circumstances is accentuated. Do the Government intend to issue guidance on such matters?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I shall deal with amendment No. 147 before amendment No. 287. The exercise of the power of entry on to premises is, like the power of arrest, a serious power that the police exercise. The exercise of that power is an intrusion into people's rights, so it is important that hon. Members have raised such issues. It is appropriate that there should be proper safeguards in the exercise and granting of such powers.

Amendment No. 147 proposes that when an all-premises warrant has been issued, a constable can apply to an officer of the rank of inspector or above to enter premises that he reasonably believes are occupied or controlled by the person specified in the application. Amendment No. 147, tabled by the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield, would lower the threshold for the safeguard, because the premises would only have to be ''reasonably believed'' to be occupied or controlled by the person specified in that application.

In the way in which we framed the legislation, we are saying that the magistrate must be satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing that material that is likely to be of substantial value to the investigation of an indictable offence is on the premises occupied or controlled by the specified person. Under the safeguards in the Bill, if the premises are not specified in the warrant, because it was not possible to do so when it is issued, the prior written authority of an officer of the rank of inspector or above is needed when the warrant is used. The constable must satisfy the inspector that the premises that he wants to enter and search are occupied or controlled. Amendment No. 147 would lower that high threshold, so that the constable would only have to reasonably believe that the premises were occupied and controlled by the person specified, rather than satisfy the inspector that the premises were in fact occupied and controlled by that person. I ask the hon. Gentleman to consider that important issue.

Amendment No. 287, on the other hand, seeks to limit multi-premises and all-premises warrants to an application to the High Court or a circuit judge. Granting warrants has always been a matter for magistrates and justices of the peace. We need appropriate safeguards, but I do not accept that in such circumstances the matter should be for the High Court or a circuit judge only to decide. Magistrates are perfectly capable of exercising their power in a proper way, being fully cognisant of the rights of other parties.

Subsection (7), which would insert new subsection (2A) into section 15 of PACE, deals with an issue that was of concern to me. I did not want the police simply to apply for warrants in a completely open fashion, saying that they needed different premises included automatically. Under proposed new subsection (2A)(b) officers must still, even when multi-premises warrants are applied for, specify as many sets of premises as is reasonably practicable. We are bearing down on them and telling them that they cannot simply go on a fishing expedition for a set of multi-premises warrants, on the basis of a vague idea that there might be some goods worth having a look at in those premises. We are saying that where they can they must specify the premises, and that they must seek multi-premises warrants only if it is not possible to specify the premises at that time.

I think that the safeguards in the Bill are appropriate, and I see no reason why a magistrate should be considered unsuitable to authorise a multi-premises warrant when, in fact, the magistrate would simply authorise one warrant for four premises rather than have to authorise the searching of each set of premises separately. Such a view is not necessarily casting aspersions on magistrates—I am sure that the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield does not mean to do that—but I do not think that it is necessary for someone of the calibre of a High Court or circuit judge to conduct the process.

The process is about going on a fishing expedition looking for warrants. The police need to specify premises wherever possible, but sometimes modern criminals move their goods around from place to place and in those circumstances, if the police are to be effective and efficient, they need warrants that extend to more than one premises at once. It is on those grounds that I ask the Committee to reject the amendment. I do not think that the provisions extend the powers of the police to the point of infringing people's proper right to occupy their premises peacefully, and they are effective and proportionate powers to enable the police to fight the kind of criminal activity that goes on too often.

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

On amendment No. 147 the Minister has made a very reasonable case, and I am happy not to press it.

As for amendment No. 287, the Committee is right to ask questions, because the power is more important. If we are to strive, as ever, for the proper balance between the power of the state and the power of our constituents as individuals, the permitting of the extra warrant and its associated additional powers gives rise to a need for adequate safeguards. That is why Her Majesty's Opposition decided to test the issue by suggesting that a higher level of warrant should be dealt with by a higher level of court. The Minister has, however, beguiled me with her very reasonable response, and we shall consider the point that she so reasonably made, and return to it, if necessary, on Report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 104 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 105 - Search warrants: other amendments

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

I beg to move amendment No. 289, in clause 105, page 72, line 1,

leave out subsection (2) and insert—

'(1A) After section 8 (power of justice of the peace to authorise entry and search of premises), insert—

''8B Search warrants and multiple entries

(1) Any warrant granted under section 8 or section 8A may authorize entry to and search of premises on more than one occasion if, on the application, a judge of the High Court or a Circuit judge is satisfied that it is necessary to authorize multiple entries in order to achieve the purpose for which he issues the warrant.

(2) No warrant issued under section 8B(1) may specify more than three entries to the same premises under a period of 28 days.

(3) Where a warrant authorizes multiple entries, the number of entries must be limited to a maximum of two further entries to the same premises within a period of 28 calendar days from the date when the first entry took place.''.'.

I notice that the amendment is listed in the amendment paper as having been tabled by a Mr. Andrew McKenzie. I could develop a bit of a complex, although I am resisting it, because a speech that I made in Westminster Hall last week, when the Minister responded for the Government, did not even appear in Hansard the following day, as I saw when I turned somewhat nervously to read it.

I can speak to the amendment quickly, because much of my point has already been made. It is similar to amendment No. 287. I do not need to labour the point; we are anxious to protect our constituents with the necessary privacy and safeguards. The amendment deals with the permission granted to the police in clause 105 to re-enter premises after a search warrant has been executed. There are good reasons in practice for permitting multiple entries under the same search warrant, but as with clause 104, the provisions represent a significant further increase in the invasive powers of the police. For that reason, we wanted to test whether a higher court should make the necessary judgment. The number of multiple entries under the same search warrant needs to be restricted to a maximum of two further entries during 28 days from the date of entry. Can the Minister satisfy me on this clause as she did on the last?

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

I should like briefly to add to what my hon. Friend has said. The amendment also needs to be looked at in the context of subsection (8), which extends the period for execution of the warrant from one month to three months. To the extent that an all-premises warrant will be wider than a specific premises warrant, there is accordingly a greater chance of the circumstances changing before the warrant expires. Will the Minister address the reasons for the extension of the warrant?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I dealt with the issue of the level of judge in my previous comments. I, too, hope that I can beguile the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield with regard to his amendment. It has been properly tabled, in that it probes the safeguards of the new power. That power is indeed intrusive: it extends the period of the search warrant from one month to three months, and provides that there can be a series of multiple entries to the premises concerned. A similar series of safeguards relates to the exercise of this power to those regarding multi-premises search warrants. Again, the magistrate has to be satisfied, and where the officer wants to exercise the warrant on a number of separate occasions, they have to satisfy a superior officer of at least the rank of inspector to enable permission to be granted. That is a sufficient safeguard in justifying their actions at every stage of the process. We have to reach a balance between safeguarding people's privacy and proper concerns and giving police officers the tools to get on and do their job.

I say to the hon. Member for Huntingdon that criminals these days are sophisticated enough to move their property around and seek to hide it from legitimate searches. They can not only move their property around from premises to premises, but temporarily take it away and then return it to the same premises, in which case it would be necessary to allow multiple entry on the same set of warrants. A 28-day limit on the warrant would mean the police had to go back to court time and again. It is a matter of striking the balance as to whether we feel that a month is the absolute maximum we could allow for a warrant, or whether we are prepared, in circumstances subject to judicial and administrative oversight, to be more flexible.

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

While criminals may have become more sophisticated, so has technology for prosecutors and the police. There should be no more difficulty in getting to the magistrate, who it appears will deal with the matter, than in the past.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman makes. He made a similar point in speaking to the previous amendment, when he asked what would happen if circumstances changed. It is a genuine and legitimate point. If an officer applies to court for a warrant based on a certain set of circumstances and the circumstances change, the officer will need to go back to the court. The warrant could be challenged if the circumstances were sufficiently different, as it could be claimed that it was obtained on evidence that had subsequently changed fundamentally.

We seek a degree of flexibility, but we do not want to go beyond the boundaries that would make it necessary to renew the authority for granting the warrant. We are keen to specify the need as tightly as we can, as it will give us the legitimacy to ask for a wider degree of flexibility. Provided that we meet our obligations as far as we can, it is perfectly proper to allow the police to ask for some flexibility. It is not proper to take a free-for-all, broad-brush position, and that is not what we seek to do. We think that we have the balance right; the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield will have to consider whether he wishes to press the amendment to a Division if he feels that we have not done so. With that in mind, I have tried to give the Committee as many reassurances as I can.

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

I have listened with care to the Minister. She makes the same points that she made on clause 104. We had to consider the matter because it is an extension from one month to three months. On balance, however, I am happy to let it stand. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 105 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 106 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 107 - Photographing of suspects etc.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I beg to move amendment No. 256, in clause 107, page 73, line 33, leave out

'provided in subsections (2) and (3)'

and insert 'follows'.

Marion Roe (Conservative, Broxbourne)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment No. 298, in clause 107, page 73, line 34, leave out 'and (3)' and insert 'to (4)'.

Government amendment No. 257.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

The Government amendments are designed to assist in the enforcement of court orders, and particularly the collection of fines. One of the Government's key priorities in the criminal justice system is to improve the enforcement of criminal penalties. Fines are a priority. The Carter review said that fines have the potential to be a low-cost but highly effective form of punishment and recommended that they should be used more often. It is fair to say that fines have fallen into disrepute in recent years because of the lack of enforcement, and as a result, courts have been less likely to use fines as a penalty. Making enforcement more rigorous is therefore important, because we know that fines will be used more only if the judiciary, the public and offenders believe that they are a credible punishment.

The credibility of fines depends on effective enforcement. Magistrates and judges will use fines only if they are confident that they will be paid. The amendments are part of an ongoing programme to drive up the rate of payment and improve fine collection. We have been successful in the past 12 to 18 months in driving up the level of payment, which has risen from about 65 per cent. to almost 80 per cent.

That is good, but more can obviously be done. Last year, the Government introduced measures in the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 to give enforcement teams in magistrates courts power to enter and search premises; to request data from individuals and organisations to help trace offenders; and to transfer community penalty breach warrants out of their area for enforcement purposes.

The amendments will allow the photograph that the courts are already entitled to request from the police for in-court purposes to be used for the purposes of enforcement. The police can already supply a photograph to the courts for the purposes of prosecution, so that the court knows that the person in the dock is the offender. The amendments would allow a copy of that photograph to be requested for use by the court's enforcement team, after a sentence has been passed, to help ensure that the sentence is carried out.

The provision will be hugely welcomed by enforcement teams. At the moment, when an enforcement team knocks on the door of a fine defaulter and asks to speak to John Smith, if John Smith answers the door but chooses to deny his identity, it cannot be sure that the man before them is the one who should be paying the fine. Having access to a photograph will be extremely helpful. In a number of cases—between 5 per cent. and 15 per cent. each year—offenders who have defaulted on fines dispute their identity. That happens in as many as 13,500 cases, and the courts could lose between £600,000 and £1.8 million each year in uncollected fines as a result of not being able to identify the person who is being traced.

At the moment, enforcement teams have to go through the process of calling a police officer to help identify fine defaulters. If they have a photograph, disputes about identity can easily be resolved. The amendments are common sense, and they will help us to make fines a much more credible punishment for the courts to use and enforce in future.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I wish simply to say that I accept entirely the common sense of the Minister's proposal. The only reason that I have risen to speak is that my amendment No. 298, which is a drafting amendment, is in this group. I do not feel disposed to say a great deal about it at this point.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

I agree entirely with what the Government are seeking to do in this aspect of the clause, although some other aspects cause me concern. However, we will examine those in a moment. The principle that the Minister has laid out is one that I wholly endorse.

Amendment agreed to.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I beg to move amendment No. 187, in clause 107, page 73, line 39, leave out from beginning to end of line 2 on page 74.

I am pleased to see that the amendment is supported by the Conservative members of the Committee. I rather hoped that the Minister would put her name to it as well. I drew attention to the matter on Second Reading. This part of the clause is extraordinarily curiously worded—perhaps I am missing a self-evident point, but I have read and re-read it and cannot for the life of me see why it is worded in such a way. It reads:

''A person falling within subsection (1B) below may, on the occasion of the relevant event referred to in subsection (1B), be photographed elsewhere than at a police station''

That would be all right up to that point, but then it says

''(a) with the appropriate consent; or'',

(b) if the appropriate consent is withheld or it is not practicable to obtain it, without it.''

I can understand having a provision for taking a photograph with consent and I can understand a provision for taking it without consent. However, to set out both options seems to be entirely redundant. As I say, I might have missed a self-evident truth and the Minister may be able to enlighten me about what circumstances do not fall into one of the two categories of ''with consent'' or ''without consent'', but I am at a loss to understand what further category she might envisage. She will have to explain it to me in words that I can understand.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

I share the hon. Gentleman's puzzlement. The only conclusion that I could possibly draw when I looked at the clause was that one had to ask first; but if, having asked, one was told that there was no consent, one could go ahead anyway. However, I agree that it is curiously worded.

I would be grateful to hear a little more from the Minister about the fact that the clause involves photographing somebody elsewhere than at a police station. That raises slight anxieties in my mind about how that will be carried out in practice. I realise that a surreptitious photograph of somebody can be taken elsewhere than at a police station, but a police station is a controlled environment where there is a system for photographing somebody and for putting a crime number under his name if he has been arrested. To do all that in the street is rather more complicated. Furthermore, one also has to bear in mind that the police do not have a right to humiliate people in public, and photographing a person in a coercive environment elsewhere than at a police station could be precisely that. I have a wider concern about how the measure will operate in practice.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

Perhaps I can deal with the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome first. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield is absolutely right; it is a matter of asking first. That is why the provision is drafted as it is. I understand that it is virtually identical to other provisions in PACE relating to identification. It is therefore a repetition of an established form of drafting.

I asked whether it was a completely rhetorical position to be in. We have had a discussion about policing by consent, which is the basis on which we operate in this country, and the relationship between a citizen and the police officer is at the heart of the effectiveness of our policing. Therefore, the Bill provides that our first recourse is always to ask ''Can we do this with your consent?'' and if that consent is not forthcoming, we can go onto to the next stage and do it without consent. It is important to us, however, that that question is asked. The Committee have talked about the messages we send out in the way in which we draft our legislation, and this is an important message: when are dealing with the public, one should always ask first and, hopefully, ask nicely; only then should one use the more coercive powers, if they are necessary. So it is therefore important that we resist the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome's amendment. Although I am grateful to him; on Second Reading, he referred to it as

''a quintessential piece of Home Office drafting''—[Official Report, 7 December 2004; Vol. 428, c.1069.]

which gave me advance notice to take the matter up with my officials.

The hon. Member for Beaconsfield makes the perfectly reasonable point that that we do not want to see people being humiliated in the street. There is no question of covert filming under the clause; it deals with the overt taking of photographs. These days, with the available technology, there is no reason why that cannot be done perfectly properly. The provision is part of a move towards doing more and more things outside the police station, whether that is granting street bail, issuing fixed penalty notices or taking photographs. We have some other provisions later on about fingerprints. Our aim is to ensure that police officers are not tied up for hours on end having to take people back to the station and spending two or three hours there, but can spend their time on front-line policing duties, which is what the police want to do. This is all of a piece, and coherent with our general thrust of being able to do things outwith the police station that, in the past, have been done in a fairly bureaucratic organisational way. I hope that move has the support of all parties, so that we can get our police doing the work that the public want them to do. I therefore ask the Committee to resist the amendment.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

Why not go the whole hog and say ''with the appropriate consent asked for in the appropriate way,'' or, ''the constable will be polite in doing so''? We expect certain standards of our constables, and where they are not forthcoming, such things can sometimes be put in the PACE guidance and codes of conduct which, as we have discussed, have an enormous effect on the application of PACE. There is, therefore, provision for ensuring that a constable asks for consent in the appropriate terms. Nothing is added to the power—that is my point: it is redundant in terms of the power. It could just as easily be said that photographing may happen without the appropriate consent, just as fingerprinting is under the subsequent clause. The police invite consent, which the Minister is absolutely right to draw attention to, and we are at one on that. It could be a subject for guidance under the code of conduct.

I do not resile for one moment from my view that this is a rather silly way of putting the provision into statute when it could achieved other means, but if the Minister is attached to the wording, who am I to stand in her way? I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment made: No. 257, page 74, line 22, at end insert—

'( ) In subsection (4)(a), after ''prosecution'' insert, ''or to the enforcement of a sentence''.

( ) In subsection (5), after paragraph (b) insert ''; and

(c) ''sentence'' includes any order made by a court in England and Wales when dealing with an offender in respect of his offence.''.'.—[Ms Blears.]

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I beg to move amendment No. 297, in clause 107, page 74, line 25, at end insert—

'(4) After subsection (6A) (inserted by subsection (3) of this section) insert—

''(6B) This section does not apply to—

(a) a person aged under 17, or

(b) a member of any group which is defined in a code of practice issued under this Act as a vulnerable group.''.'.

Marion Roe (Conservative, Broxbourne)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 299, in clause 108, page 74, line 29, leave out '(4)' and insert '(4A)'.

No. 300, in clause 108, page 75, line 6, at end insert—

'(4A) In subsection (9), at the end insert—

''or

(c) applies to—

(i) a person aged under 17, or

(ii) a member of any group which is defined in a code of practice issued under this Act as a vulnerable group.''.'.

No. 301, in clause 109, page 76, line 28, at end insert—

'(9) When the person is—

(a) aged under 17, or

(b) a member of any group which is defined in a code of practice issued under this Act as a vulnerable group.

no impression of the person's footwear may be taken except in the presence of an appropriate adult (as defined in a code of practice issued under this Act.'.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I hope that amendment No. 298, which was placed in an earlier group, might be taken into account.

These are probing amendments. I do not intend to put them to a vote, but I would like the Minister's advice. These are serious issues that are a matter of some concern to various groups outside the House that deal with children. As the Minister may be aware, the amendments were suggested by the Standing Committee for Youth Justice. It has a clear point of concern. Under the present PACE codes, additional safeguards should be in place when young or vulnerable people are required to undergo any intrusive act at the request of a constable; usually the requirement is that an appropriate adult is with them if an young or vulnerable person is taken to a police station for those activities to be undertaken. The concern has been expressed that those protections appear to go out of the window under the new provisions, unless there is an express provision within this part of the Bill to bring back the requirements under the PACE codes, thereby ensuring that the Government meet their obligations under the United Nations convention on the rights of the child.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I shall deal with the amendments relating to photographs, then fingerprints and then the footwear impressions. Clearly the amendments have the same objective, which is the protection of juveniles and people with mental health problems who could be vulnerable. Amendments Nos. 297 and 298 would prevent the taking of photographs of juveniles and other vulnerable persons. The police should be able to retain accurate records and take photographs of those who come into contact with the criminal justice system. Regrettably, juveniles are responsible for a significant proportion of the crime in this country, so the police should be able to take photographs. I understand the point about having an appropriate adult present, but taking photographs is one way to ascertain identity which the police should be able to do.

The same argument applies to the amendments to clause 108 on fingerprints. The clause is about taking fingerprints away from the police station in a way that helps us to ascertain people's identity. If they could not check the identity of people under 17, the police would be prevented from dealing with a whole range of juvenile crime and inhibit their operational effectiveness. One of the amendments is worded in such a way that it would prevent the police from taking fingerprints from juveniles and people with mental health problems in any of the circumstances currently covered by section 61 of PACE, even in a police station. The amendment goes too far—further than the hon. Gentleman intends. I know that the Committee would not want to support that position.

The law allows officers to take fingerprints and a non-intimate sample from persons aged under 17 who have been arrested, charged or convicted for a recordable offence without an appropriate adult necessarily being present. I emphasise the word necessarily. The power is there, but I know that officers can and do exercise their discretion. In such circumstances, they might well decide to wait until an adult is present before exercising those powers. It is for the officer to decide in each case.

The power to take fingerprints somewhere other than at the station will be welcomed by police officers, and I should not like to see it limited in the way proposed by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome. The powers should be available universally for persons of all ages, because the police can use their discretion. It weighs heavily with me that if the police do not have access to such powers for photographs, prints and footwear impressions, more people might be arrested, because some of the powers are designed to ascertain identity on the spot. If somebody's identity can be proven and he can be shown not to have been involved in an offence, he can be free to go. Now, people sometimes have to wait for three or four hours before their identity can be properly ascertained. They are dragged into a police station, and it is as much of an imposition on them as it is on the police officers involved.

I understand the hon. Gentleman's intention to protect the rights of juveniles and those who are vulnerable because of their mental health problems, but it is necessary for the police to have the powers. The matters are covered by the statutory codes under PACE and those codes are the appropriate vehicle through which to ensure that the police have appropriate guidance.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

Can the Minister say whether the PACE codes of conduct and the guidance therein apply not only to constables in the execution of their powers, but to the various other persons who will be permitted to take photographs, such as a CSO who is issuing a fixed penalty notice and the accredited persons from a local authority in the case of a penalty notice for truancy. Somebody who has been asked to wait by a CSO will not necessarily have committed a crime, yet there is provision for photographs to be taken for identification purposes. I want to be sure that the codes of conduct to which the Minister referred apply to the range of people who are now to be empowered to take such actions.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. The PACE provisions relating to constables also apply to the other people who exercise such powers. It is the power being exercised that is important, not the individual doing it; therefore the safeguards and provisions in PACE and its codes of practice apply to the range of individuals who might exercise the powers in order to ascertain a person's identity.

Having given the hon. Gentleman the reassurance that the provisions will be considered fully in the codes of practice, I ask him to consider withdrawing the amendment.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I am grateful for the Minister's response on the codes of conduct. That is absolutely crucial. One of the matters raised by the groups who expressed concerns was the incompatibility, as they saw it, of the new arrangements with existing codes of conduct under PACE. I shall look carefully at what the Minister has said, and wait with anticipation for any revision to the codes.

I am happy to withdraw the amendment; it was never my intention to press it to a Division. I understand the Minister's argument that it would undermine a wider provision than one on the specific area that I have sought to probe. As she understands, that was not my intention. I hope that we shall return to the matter at a later stage, possibly in another place. The organisations that contacted me on the subject will look carefully at what the Minister has said. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

I thank the Minister for sending members of the Committee a letter about a demonstration of the technology involved. In the letter, she states:

''I should however like to stress that fingerprints taken using the new equipment will not be retained or added to NAFIS if they are not already on the system.''

Briefly, how will that work in practice?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

First, I apologise to the Committee for sending such a late invitation to the demonstration from the Police Information Technology Organisation of the system of which it is so proud. If hon. Members would find it useful, I am more than happy to organise another demonstration at some point when they may be able to attend.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

Perhaps on an occasion when we are not discussing the Constitutional Reform Bill on the Floor of the House.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I entirely accept that point. It seems that hon. Members involved in home affairs and constitutional matters are never out of either the Chamber or the Committee Room.

I have seen a demonstration of the equipment. It is a tremendous technological advance and will be hugely useful to the police, particularly when used in conjunction with automatic number plate recognition, which can trigger an investigation. Fingerprints can be taken and matched on a database. I am told that information on fingerprints can be sent back within about four or five minutes from a mobile unit inside a police vehicle, and that will save an enormous amount of police officers' time.

The reason why we do not propose to retain fingerprints in those circumstances is because they are taken pre-arrest and are intended to help make a quick identification on the street and determine whether the matter needs to be taken further. Fingerprints taken post-arrest are retained, but that is further up the chain. The balance of civil liberties means that we should not retain them when they are taken pre-arrest.

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

I appreciate that the fingerprints are not meant to be retained, but my question was how will the person from whom they are taken know that they have been destroyed?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I do not have a complete answer to that to hand. I asked whether a record will be made of the fact that fingerprints had been taken, and I understand that such a record will be made but prints will not be retained. I am happy to find further information for the hon. Gentleman about whether a person will be given a receipt or whether a ticket will be written out saying that fingerprints have been taken, but I am not sure of the practicalities. I have no doubt that my officials will provide me with further information and I will write to the hon. Gentleman with those details.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

On a point of order, Dame Marion. Which clause are we discussing? We are under the impression that we are discussing clause 108 stand part, but we have not yet considered the amendments to that clause.

Marion Roe (Conservative, Broxbourne)

We are debating clause 107, as amended.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

I am grateful, Dame Marion. We can now have a repeat performance of the same debate on the next clause.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 107, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 108 - Fingerprints

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I beg to move amendment No. 188, in clause 108, page 74, line 31, after 'fingerprints', insert

'for the purpose of establishing identity'.

Marion Roe (Conservative, Broxbourne)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 304, in clause 108, page 75, leave out lines 3 and 4.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I am not sure whether I am supposed to pretend I did not hear the previous debate. I cannot do so, as the premature interjection by the hon. Member for Huntingdon means that we have already had some helpful assurances from the Minister.

The purpose of my amendment is to make the clause read:

''a constable may take a person's fingerprints''

for the purpose of establishing identity

''without the appropriate consent'',

and so on. The only reason for doing so, which might be self-evident, is to establish the purpose referred to later, in subsection (7), which says

''fingerprints taken from a person by virtue of section 61(6A) above must be destroyed as soon as they have fulfilled the purpose for which they were taken''.

The amendment is a safeguard to ensure that the purpose for which they are taken is immediate identification of that person, and not in order to create a databank of fingerprints or for any other purpose. The event that will trigger the fingerprints' destruction is the identification having been made, so there will be no question of establishing a back-door fingerprint bank of people who have not been convicted of any offence, or even charged with one.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

I take the view that the hon. Gentleman's amendment might be otiose, because new subsection (6C) makes pretty clear the purposes for which the fingerprints may be taken. The reason for my probing amendment was that I wanted to know a bit more about the system for taking a fingerprint other than at the police station. I, too, was involved with the Constitutional Reform Bill yesterday and had no opportunity of viewing the technology, so I note the Minister's reassurance on that point.

There is something slightly odd about the provision. I can never remember who served on which Committee, so the Minister might not recollect that some time ago we departed from the old rule that one's fingerprint could be retained for police identification purposes only if one had been convicted of an offence. We changed, for reasons that have always caused me some slight concern, to the principle that if one were arrested and fingerprinted at a police station and charged, one's fingerprints could be retained even if one was subsequently acquitted or the proceedings were discontinued. The current position is, I think, that they can be retained if one is arrested and taken to a police station.

That is gradually contributing towards the state building up a databank of fingerprints that will include the prints of individuals who have never been convicted of any criminal offence. What strikes me as quite surprising, in view of the Government's past record in this matter, is that, having made provision for fingerprints being taken for identification purposes at a place other than a police station and without arrest taking place, the Minister has felt sufficiently squeamish to say that fingerprints thus taken will not be retained. I said to whichever Minister it was who took through the last Bill in respect of which we considered fingerprints—the Criminal Justice Act 2003, I think—that the arbitrary nature of fingerprint-taking had got to such a point that there ought to be a special ceremony at the age of 16 where one had to present oneself at a police station and hand over one's fingerprints and DNA for the common good.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative, Cotswold)

Precisely what my hon. Friend is now railing against is being introduced in the Committee next door: it is called an national identity card. Not only fingerprints, but biometric details will be stored on a central register held by the state.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

My hon. Friend is, of course, quite right. That is why I highlight the slight oddity of a circumstance in which the state lays its hands on one's fingerprints by the roadside when checking your identity, but the Government, in their wisdom, have decided that those fingerprints should not be retained. I find that quite surprising. I suppose I should welcome it, because I do not want the powers of the state to be extended further, but I am interested in ascertaining the Government's reasoning on the issue.

Tony McWalter (Labour/Co-operative, Hemel Hempstead)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

However, before I find out the Minister's reasoning, I will find out the reasoning of the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead.

Tony McWalter (Labour/Co-operative, Hemel Hempstead)

In the absence of the universal taking of fingerprints, retaining prints is particularly odious and invidious when people have been falsely accused. That happened to one of my constituents, who suffered the trauma of being arrested, followed only later by a letter of apology from the bonkers lady who had made the accusation. My constituent's prints remain on file. She would not mind if everyone's prints were on file, but she objects very strongly to her prints being a record of that terrible and traumatic event. Perhaps we should think about what we should do in the next phase of the process.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's remarks. I hope that he will not take it amiss if I say that I am all the more grateful because I have not previously received much support from Labour Members when I have made such representations. The Government's approach has been that it is right to expand the national database, that that database helps in the prevention of crime and that it is therefore appropriate to retain the fingerprints of those who have not been convicted. That view causes me considerable anxiety. I suspect that there is quite a large and growing number of cases such as the hon. Gentleman cited. The victims of the process—that is what they are—will feel very unhappy that they are being treated as second-class citizens without justification.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman: if the necessity for such a system is so great, it would be better—without necessarily introducing identity cards, about which I have some serious reservations—to be honest and say that everyone has to supply their fingerprints so that they can be checked in the event of their being suspected of having committed a criminal offence. I am not sure that I would be happy with that situation, but I would be more comfortable with it than I am with the current one. I am fascinated to hear the hon. Gentleman's story, because it chimes exactly with other stories that I have heard about people who feel that they have been victimised by the process. That is why, as I said at the start, I am interested to hear the Minister's reasons why if people are stopped at the roadside and the opportunity arises to get their prints, their prints will be excluded from the process. Why should they be treated differently from someone who is arrested but never charged?

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative, Cotswold)

I am sorry that we are re-rehearsing all these arguments, but it has given the Minister time to think and obtain all the answers. In that sense, the Committee will benefit from the rehearsal of the arguments and the debate.

The amendment relates to the need to restrict CSOs in their ability to take fingerprints and impressions of footwear. Such restrictions should be applied on civil liberty grounds and on the ground that a CSO is less experienced to make judgements when taking fingerprints and impressions of footwear, which could provoke offence from the innocent victim, especially when the CSO is dealing with people from ethnic minorities, children or other vulnerable sensitive groups. Such criticism and related damage to police-community relations could increase if CSOs used the powers in an unreasonable fashion. Perhaps the Minister can give us some answers as to how she expects the powers to be used, particularly in relation to CSOs.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

The primary purpose of clause 108 is to try to provide a quick way to help the police to establish a suspect's identity, but amendment No. 188 would restrict the use of fingerprints taken away from a police station, and the police would lose the chance of detecting more crime. When the technology is fully developed, when the police go into the NAFIS—national automated fingerprint identification system—database, any new fingerprints will be subject to a speculative search against the database of fingerprint information recovered from crime scenes. We are not at that stage yet, but we envisage that that could be done in future. Where a match is found it might lead to a suspect being arrested for another, earlier offence that might not otherwise have been detected.

The aim is to ensure that we get the balance right between giving the police the power to take fingerprints using technology, trying to match those fingerprints to enable them to detect as much crime as they can and taking account of concern about protecting the civil liberties of the individuals involved, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Beaconsfield.

I was asked about an apparent inconsistency. When people who are arrested, taken to a police station and charged with an offence are subsequently acquitted, their fingerprints are retained. He wanted to know why we do not propose to retain the fingerprints acquired in relation to the provisions before us. The answer is that we have exercised a judgment; fingerprints will be taken earlier in the criminal chain of events, when the constable has reasonable grounds for suspecting that someone might be involved in an offence. On that basis, we made the fine judgment that we would not seek to retain the fingerprints because the intervention comes earlier than if the power of arrest had been exercised, the person taken to a police station and charged and the charge proceeded with.

Tony McWalter (Labour/Co-operative, Hemel Hempstead)

As we are all concerned about those who are victims of malicious and nefarious practices, I wish to emphasise to my hon. Friend that false accusation is one of the most maleficent ways of destroying someone's life. It is vital that a false accusation is put clearly into the system as such, and that all trace of such an accusation is withdrawn. In the case I mentioned to the hon. Member for Beaconsfield, I naturally sought from the area commander of police an apology for my constituent's wrongful arrest, but the fingerprint still lies on file for far too long as a register of what was a very traumatic event for my constituent. I urge my hon. Friend to give proper weight in her deliberations to false accusation.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I understand the important issue that my hon. Friend raises. I have absolutely no doubt that the matter to which he refers caused a huge amount of anguish and distress to his constituent. I am aware of similar cases, and I am also aware that the fingerprints are retained at the chief constable's discretion. Therefore, there is the possibility that my hon. Friend's constituent, no doubt ably assisted by him, could make representations to the chief constable that in the circumstances, it is appropriate that the fingerprints be disposed of.

There are many cases in which people who are acquitted go on to commit further crimes. It is a matter of getting the balance right. There are a number of examples of people in such circumstances who have had their fingerprints taken to try to identify them, and when those fingerprints have been compared with the NAFIS database, crime of the most serious kind has been solved. For example, a man arrested for a relatively minor assault in Lewisham gave false particulars. His fingerprints were taken at the police station using live scan technology, which showed that he was wanted in connection with an incident in Brixton in which a young woman was enticed into a crack den and subjected to a multiple gang rape. The crime was solved as a result of using the identification evidence.

There are other similar cases. Someone arrested for aggravated burglary was found to be one of three suspects wanted in connection with an operation on a major gun crime in which someone had been shot in the neck and was subsequently in a coma for four months. These are serious matters, and yet again, I do not underestimate the need to get the balance right to ensure that police can use identification evidence to enable them to detect and solve more crime. We currently have 900,000 unmatched items of scenes of crime identification. We could solve an awful lot of those crimes if we tried to carry out identification. The Committee should not support the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome, which would limit our ability to use the technology and fingerprints in that way and restrict the ability of the police to take the action that I have outlined.

The hon. Member for Beaconsfield spoke to amendment No. 304, which would remove the requirement for a constable who takes fingerprints away from the police station to inform the suspect that his fingerprints will be subject to a speculative search and to make a record that the suspect has been informed. The amendment would not remove that obligation when fingerprints were taken at the station, and we feel that the same requirements should apply when a constable exercises those powers in the street.

The provisions do not impose an unduly bureaucratic burden. I understand that people may feel concerned about officers having to record things, but an officer would make a record in his pocket book in any event, and it is perfectly proper that someone should have the safeguard of being informed that it is likely that their records will be used in the way specified. I ask the Committee, for the reasons that I have given, to resist the amendments. I think that the clause is entirely sensible.

The hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) asked whether CSOs would be able to take fingerprints. The answer is no. I reassure him that we consider the power to be of a status that should be limited to police constables.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

Generally in the course of the Committee's consideration of the Bill, I have been encouraged by what the Minister has said. I have no fundamental disagreement with her on the provision, but she has caused me some concern simply by her reasons for rejecting my amendment. Had she simply said that the words were otiose, as the hon. Member for Beaconsfield suggested, I should have been perfectly happy and said, ''Well, I knew that really, but it was an opportunity to get the debate on to the grounds that I wanted.''

The Minister said, however, that the amendment would unnecessarily restrict the use of fingerprints; that the prints could be used for purposes other than establishing identity; and that one of the prime functions of the power would be for a speculative trawling of the scenes of crime database to see whether the person involved had committed an offence of which they would not, by definition, be suspected by the arresting officer.

Although I can understand that that is a good idea in investigatory terms, it is effectively prohibited by the clause. Subsection (7) provides, through proposed new subsection (1BA), that the prints

''must be destroyed as soon as they have fulfilled the purpose for which they were taken.''

The purpose for which they would be taken would not be a speculative trawl of the database of scenes of crime, but establishing the identity of a person reasonably suspected of committing or attempting to commit an offence. Thus, they could not be used to establish the identity of someone who had committed an offence for which there were no reasonable grounds for suspicion. It would pay to revisit the clause if the Minister's intention is what she said it was.

We have had a useful debate about the national database of various forms of identification material. I very much agree with what the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead says on the matter—and I do not have many occasions to say that in this Committee. He is right: we have either national databases or databases that are firmly founded on the principle that someone has been convicted of an offence. We do not choose the people for whom there will be a database, and set up a partial database founded on the simple fact that they have been accused of something that has not resulted in a charge.

That is a matter for serious concern.I was interested in the exchange about ID cards between the hon. Members for Cotswold and for Beaconsfield. I feel that there is a fifth column in the Conservative party against the party's position on identity cards, which was perhaps evidenced by the fact that, before Christmas, less than half the Opposition came out to vote as their leader required on the subject. Nevertheless, the party's position is clear: it supports identity cards, but there are we are.

What the Minister said raises more questions than it answers, despite the fact that we might have had a satisfactory reply in the pre-emptive debate occasioned by the untimely intervention of the hon. Member for Huntingdon. I will read what the Minister said carefully. We may have entered into a slightly more confusing area of intention and confusion than she suspects, but for now I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 108 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 109 and 110 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 111 - Staff custody officers: designation

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I beg to move amendment No. 189, in clause 111, page 78, line 31, at end add—

'(5) No person shall be designated as a custody officer under this section unless he has previously been a police officer of at least the rank of sergeant.'.

We now come to one of the more controversial elements of the Bill—the Government's proposal for it to be permissible for civilians to act in the capacity of custody officers for the purposes of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. The Minister will know that the proposal has occasioned considerable upset among the ranks of serving police officers, whose concerns are shared by a number of legal authorities. The Law Society has expressed its concerns, and some well-placed commentators on the systems that apply for custody have indicated how unhappy they are. I preface my further remarks by saying that I want a lot more custody suites—an issue that we have debated previously. One of the difficulties for the police service, particularly in rural areas, is that insufficient custody suites are in operation.

The effect of not having custody suites is twofold. If a police officer wishes to arrest someone and take them to a custody suite, they are often required to take that person a considerable distance. That is irksome in itself, but more importantly, it takes the police officer, who will be on duty, out of area for a significant period. For those of us who represent rural constituencies, the effect cannot be underestimated. Literally half a duty period can be taken up in transporting an arrested person to a custody suite, doing the necessary paperwork and then, hopefully, returning.

That is a bad thing in itself in terms of police officers' abilities to do what we want them to do in the local community. However, it has a further malign effect, which is that a conscientious police officer, knowing that to be the case, will have to judge between making the arrest and thereby leaving the area for which they are responsible unprotected or not making the arrest and finding another form of disposal. There is therefore a perverse incentive not to make the arrest.

Why do we not have enough custody suites? The reason is partly that they are expensive, which we understand. As fewer police stations are in operation and as police stations are smaller affairs than they used to be, so there are fewer custody suites. Moreover, it is often difficult to find the resources to provide the specialist custody officers who allow for the custody suite to be operational even if it exists. That is the situation in my own force area at present. There is a perfectly good custody suite in Frome police station that is not available for use because it has no custody sergeant, as the marginal capacity of the policing district to provide for a custody sergeant is not there in terms of the personnel available. The result is that a person arrested in Frome on a Friday or Saturday night has to be taken up to Bath or down to Yeovil, either of which takes an hour and a half to three hours out of a police officer's day. I understand that that is a significant argument in support of the Government's wish to revisit the whole subject of custody officers.

I am not persuaded, however, that the Government have the right answer. The difficulty is that the custody sergeant, within the architecture of PACE, has a significant role to play. The custody officer is not simply the person who holds the key to the cell; they have to be responsible for the health and safety of the people who are detained in the cells, to know about the protection of evidence and all that goes with that, and most importantly, to make an assessment of the terms under which an arrest has been made, on the basis of their experience. On occasions, the custody officer will have to tell a colleague police officer that they do not have grounds for detaining a particular person in the cell and that that person must be released. Sometimes that colleague police officer may not be a rookie constable who has come in with someone whom they have arrested on flimsy grounds, but a detective chief inspector who is very keen for that person to be arrested, although there are no legal grounds for that to happen.

It is therefore desperately important that the person that makes that decision has not only the knowledge base and experience to enable them to make an appropriate decision, but the authority to stand up for the decision that he or she has taken. That is why it is important that we have a clear idea of the sort of person who can perform the duties of a custody sergeant. Let us recall that that matter was expressly examined by the Runciman royal commission on criminal justice in 1993. I have with me an article by Professor Michael Zander, QC, who was a member of that commission. He quotes what the commission said in paragraphs 25 to 26 of its inquiry report:

''It is in any case important that the police should take full responsibility for the integrity of the evidence gathered, during the interview process as in other ways. This will only happen if they remain accountable for ensuring that such evidence is reliable because everything possible has been done to prevent the suspect from coming under unfair pressure. To make another body responsible for the custody officer role would mean a serious risk that the police would no longer regard the responsibility for ensuring fair treatment of suspects as being theirs. In our view, therefore, everything possible should be done to develop and strengthen the performance by the police of the custody officer role. We recommend accordingly that the custody officer should continue to be a police officer of at least the rank of sergeant.''

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

I agree with what the hon. Gentleman says. He might also agree—I think that we discussed this matter when considering the Criminal Justice Bill—that the custody sergeant has an important role to play in taking exhibit evidence and ensuring that it is properly labelled, identified, listed and retained.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

The hon. Gentleman is correct. I have mentioned that issue in passing as part of the role of the custody sergeant.

I would need a high level of persuasion from the Minister to believe that someone without police experience would be able to exercise that authority and make such assessments. I am not saying that that is impossible; clearly, that is not the case, because somebody may have been trained and have achieved the same level of seniority. However, it is difficult to believe that a person could make the judgment without the genuine experience of having worked as a constable or sergeant in the police force. More important, it is even more difficult to believe that other police officers would think that a civilian taking on that role had the necessary authority and experience. That is a crucial element of the equation.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative, Cotswold)

It seems to me that two aspects need to be considered. If civilian employees with less training are asked to do the job of those who have received considerable training, there are two possibilities. First, people might be held in custody longer than they should be. Secondly, and perhaps more seriously, people might be acquitted because incorrect procedures were applied during custody. After all, the notes, evidence and procedures involved in incarceration and custody are important evidence at trial. If that procedure is wrong, criminals may get off who should not otherwise do so.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

That certainly has to be taken into account. However, one can overstate that part of the argument. For instance, it may be the Government's intention to employ eminent QCs in criminal practice as custody officers, as they would have a clear idea of what was required in evidential terms, but I doubt it. I suspect that that is not the Government's intention, but I am not sure what their intentions are. Do they wish to meet a demand for custody officers that would otherwise not be met? Or do they wish to make custody officers cheaper by saying that they no longer need to be police officers, at least not in the rank of sergeant? If that is the intention, it is not a particularly noble one, although it is perhaps understandable that the Government may want to spread resources more thinly and more widely. Either way, we cannot avoid the fact that it is difficult to envisage someone without appropriate training or experience working in that role—a role that is crucial to the operation of PACE.

The amendment is modest. It would provide for civilians employed in that capacity to have been police officers of at least the rank of sergeant. Some might say that that would reduce the Government's position to the absurd, and I happily accept that the pool of qualified people who might be relied upon to perform the role, were the amendment to be accepted, would be extremely limited, and that it would not make a great difference. However, it would have the great merit that those working in the custody suite would know what they were doing.

Why do the Government think that the clause as it stands is a good idea? Extending civilianisation for the sake of it is not a good enough argument. There are strong grounds for having civilian elements in the police services and for relieving custody sergeants of some of their more routine tasks through the addition of civilian support, but theirs is a specific role, laid down in statute, and it has a high level of responsibility. Custody sergeants have performed their role in an exemplary way since the post was created. All the evidence is that they have done an extremely good job, and they are rarely challenged in the courts about the execution of their duties.

The onus is on the Minister. First, she should explain why the measure is felt necessary beyond the fact that it is possible. Secondly, how does she believe that the real concerns of those who look at the system from the outside and believe that essential and intrinsic safeguards need to be maintained will be met? Thirdly, how does she believe that a custody sergeant with no experience in the police force will have the confidence of colleagues who have to have a working relationship with that person in the custody suite? I think that it would be almost impossible for a civilian to establish that confidence. If the Minister can satisfy me on all those grounds, I might be persuaded that it is a sensible way forward. However, I think that she will have some difficulty.

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

On this amendment and clause, no matter how beguiling the Minister is, we will have to differ. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome has done the Committee and the House a service in tabling his amendment. I hope it may be agreeable if I make what might be called a clause stand part contribution to the debate in the interests of the efficient use of our time.

My suspicions about the Government's approach to the matter were first raised during the wind-up speech by the Under-Secretary on Second Reading. The hon. Lady said:

''Questions were raised about custody officers and I have to say that the Northumbria pilot scheme found that custody sergeants were champing at the bit to get out of the stations and be with the public. It has been greatly welcomed, and I see no reason why properly trained police staff cannot undertake the role to the same standard as police officers—a view shared by ACPO.''—[Official Report, 7 December 2004; Vol. 428, c. 1135.]

Leaving aside the last point, it seems that that was an extremely misleading comment, which displayed a lacuna in the Under-Secretary's understanding of the role and the experiment. The Northumbrian experiment is not about releasing custody sergeants to front-line policing. When I looked into that, I was advised that the experiment seeks to replace police officers who assist the custody sergeant in a number of roles—custody assistants, in other words—with civilian staff. The role of custody officer in Northumbria, as in the rest of the country, remains that dictated by PACE: the custody officer can only be a substantive police sergeant.

It is not particularly surprising that we should approach the whole episode and issue with a degree of caution, a point made by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome. The Conservative party agrees in principle that some police roles can and should be civilianised. In a range of areas, police officers can and do work extremely well with civilian staff. It might well be said that the control room is a good example of what one might call the mixed economy, where civilian staff work alongside police officers.

Jailers in custody suites, those who take statements for minor offences, those in control of dogs, parking enforcers, scene of crime investigators, those who deal with forensics, vehicle examiners and accident investigators are examples of roles for which it may not be necessary to hold the office of constable. However, we absolutely disagree with the Government's proposals to civilianise the role of custody sergeant. That is a step too far. It is the exception that proves the rule in the process of civilianisation, which in other respects we support, and which, indeed, we started to intensify under the last Conservative Government.

Custody is a core policing function. Before taking responsibility for a custody suite, sergeants accumulate several years experience of the custody environment, at the very least. That knowledge is invaluable in such a challenging and demand-led environment. One can give training to a civilian member of staff, but one cannot, by dint of a training course, give people the years of experience gained. Custody officers determine whether arrested persons should be detained or are free to go. They make quasi-judicial decisions as to whether or not arrests are lawful. Only police officers have the authority and accountability to perform such a role, and only those working in custody suites have the expert experience.

We agree with the Government's statement in the consultation paper that the custody officer has ''a crucial role''. That role is crucial to the well-being and safety of those in custody, as well as being the guarantor of their rights. It is crucial in ensuring that the investigation of those in custody does not overstep the boundaries laid down by Parliament, the preservation of which is the custody officer's specified statutory duty and responsibility. Among others, I am advised that Liberty, the Bar Council, the Law Society and Justice have serious concerns in this regard. Each organisation draws attention to the fact that custody officers are experienced individuals who safeguard the civil rights and well-being of those in custody. Liberty states:

''The custody officer is the custodian of PACE. They are responsible for the well-being of those under arrest, and must ensure adherence to PACE requirements. The function is invariably carried out by an experienced police sergeant . . . It is easy to imagine a situation where a civilian officer could be placed under pressure to overlook breaches of PACE by senior CID officers.''

The present system ensures that custody sergeants are sufficiently experienced, and of sufficient seniority to be able to command respect for their decisions. The Home Office consultation paper ''Policing: Modernising Police Power to Meet Community Needs'' describes the role of custody officer as

''largely administrative and process driven''.

That Home Office view is not accepted by the Police Federation or the Bar Council, and it seems to me somewhat simplistic. Custody officers will work independently from investigating officers. They will make important decisions under pressure—for example, when to call in the force medical examiner, whether a suspect should hospitalised, or whether to put a suspect on suicide watch. Decisions will also be made that affect the course of the investigation—for example, whether a suspect should be interviewed, held, charged or released on bail. A custody officer needs the personal authority to overrule an investigating officer and the experience to make accurate decisions quickly. The Government's argument that the role is largely administrative does little justice, therefore, to the scope and importance of the custody officer's role. There is no substitute for experience to give authority to those people who make important judgments and decisions in these circumstances.

What is really happening is that the Government are looking at ways to save money. On Second Reading, the Minister's predecessor, the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), who has held the role of Minister for Police, commented:

''While we shall make many economic gains by using civilian staff in a general role in custody suites, is my right hon. Friend absolutely certain that now is the time to extend that role to cover the duties of the custody sergeant?''—[Official Report, December 7 2004; Vol. 428, c.1052.]

That is a very important question. The custody officer is vital in the judicial process and works to ensure that the law is exercised with care and respect for the rights of a suspect at all times. That is a core police responsibility, and the Government should think again about this measure.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

I do not want simply to repeat what has been said, but I speak, if only to give my own angle on this, because for some six years before I was elected to Parliament—from 1990 to 1996—I was a lay visitor to police stations in Hammersmith and Fulham. In that capacity, I made regular visits to the local stations, of which there were three within the borough, to visit the custody area and see those who had been arrested and detained. I have absolutely no doubt about the crucial nature of the custody sergeant's role. Various points have been made to the effect that it is a demanding job in terms of understanding the rules and priorities, and the need to take personal responsibility for those detained. On top of that, however, it is a job that demands status, which does not necessarily come from being a senior officer in the hierarchy of the police force.

My police station visits never left me in any doubt that the custody sergeant was the man in control of the custody area. It was a control that he exercised not only towards the police constables bringing in detainees whom they had arrested—both in terms of vetting that detention to ensure it was justified and in ensuring that proper procedures were observed—but towards more senior police officers. That was authority that a proper custody sergeant could exercise towards those responsible for carrying out investigation into the person under arrest. One would see senior officers in charge of such investigations deferring to the custody sergeant in relation to any matter concerning the welfare of the detained person.

I simply do not see how that status, acquired as one of the great fruits of the 1980s and expanded over the years, will be preserved if we move to civilianise those in charge of the custody area. I am sympathetic to there being many functions in respect to the care of those detained at police stations that can properly be given to civilians to carry out. Heaven knows, the old matron who used to be in charge of female detainees in the past was not a police officer. But the task of being in overall control should remain with a police officer of sufficient standing and, above all, status within the hierarchy to discharge properly the quite onerous responsibilities placed on him.

The fact is that the system has worked extremely well. The Minister may correct me, but I am aware of very few complaints nowadays about the manner of detaining individuals in police stations or the way in which they are investigated once at police stations. That is in large measure because of the custody sergeant's presence and to his having an established role within the police.

I am wholly unconvinced by the proposals. I will listen carefully to what the Minister has to say, but my own view is to vote against the clause. If we do not succeed, I shall return to the matter on Report, and I understand that the other place will be exercised about the point when the Bill eventually reaches it. Whichever way one looks at it, I hope the Government will think again, for sympathetic as I am to the idea of using civilian staff in the custody area to free other officers, the custody sergeant should stay.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative, Cotswold)

I am not surprised that such august bodies as Liberty, the Law Society and the Bar Council have concerns about this matter. My hon. Friends, and indeed the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome, were absolutely right to express reservations. I begin to feel that the Bill is, in parts, trying to give us policing and criminal justice on the cheap. I am concerned about that, because something serious will go wrong and everyone will turn round and say, ''Ah yes, but these civilian custody officers''—or whatever they will be called—''only received minimal training.'' At the very least, we need to know from the Minister how much training officers are expected to get before they will be put in charge. Like the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome, I would have no problem with a high-powered criminal barrister—or, indeed, a well qualified solicitor— fulfilling these roles. However, I would have a problem with someone relatively intelligent but who had had very little training.

Section 38 (8) of the Police Reform Act 2002, which we are amending much of in this Bill, gives an idea of the circumstances that custody sergeants may face. They could be faced with people who are in an emotional state, or who may be drunk or high on drugs. Sometimes, custody sergeants face very difficult situations. Subsection (8) gives a clue to that, because it states:

''Where any power exercisable by any person in reliance on his designation under this section is a power which, in the case of its exercise by a constable, includes or is supplemented by a power to use reasonable force, any person exercising that power in reliance on that designation shall have the same entitlement as a constable to use reasonable force.''

We are starting to talk about having to use reasonable force. For example, if there is a fight or if somebody is about to injure themselves because they are high on drugs, swift intervention is needed. It will take only one case in which somebody is seriously injured or, God forbid, kills themselves or is killed by somebody else, and there will be a huge clamour to go back to having custody sergeants and for people to be properly trained to do the job.

I reiterate the point made by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome about the need for more custody suites. In the Cotswolds, only one squad car is available at night for 300 sq miles—half the Metropolitan police area. God knows how many police officers are in the Metropolitan police area, but it runs into many thousands each night of the week. The other day, when somebody was found dead on the road, the one squad car was taking somebody to a custody suite in Stroud, 30 miles away. It took the officers 20 minutes to get back and sort out the dead body on the road. That is what is happening in our rural areas because of the scarcity of police officers.

I have serious reservations, and the Government should think very carefully before they introduce the provision in the Bill. I hope that they will drop the proposal, because the citizens of this country do not want their criminal justice and policing to be done on the cheap. They want it done by proper police officers with, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield rightly said, the appropriate experience and training, who know what to do when difficult cases arise. I am not trying to get at the Minister, but I urge her to give a second thought to the matter, and I hope that my hon. Friends will vote against the clause.

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

The interesting thing about the clause is that almost everyone disagrees with the Government's position. The Law Society has said:

''Decisions on suspects' civil rights made by custody officers are too important to be carried out by a civilian.''

Liberty and the Police Federation are equally opposed, and one wonders why the Government are ignoring the consensus.

Would a civilian custody officer have the authority and experience to cope with a scenario such as a detective superintendent seeking inappropriate access to an arrested person? I give that example because a retired senior police officer told me that the police often wanted to question suspects held in custody in a way that was incompatible with PACE—sometimes only slightly incompatible—but the sergeant, as custody officer running the police station, would put a stop to it because they had the authority to do so. They occupied the police station in the same way as they now say that one needs tanks to occupy towns after one has taken them. The retired officer said that they were a solid force, equivalent to the old matrons in the NHS who knew intimately what was going on around them and took responsibility for their surroundings. The Government are being unwise to get rid of this important role, and police stations and individuals detained in them could be worse for it.

Vera Baird (Labour, Redcar)

I, too, am concerned about the proposal, on the basis of my court experience over the years, and for the same reasons as Conservative Members. We should make some strong points, however.

The proposal has nothing to do with expense. Because we have rightly and properly recruited large numbers of police out on the streets, there is an urgent need for supervisory officers out on the streets to supervise them. I can see the need for that.

The burden of deciding on charging, and so on, has been hugely relieved by the fact that the CPS is now in police stations. That has taken the top slice of responsibility off custody officers. I can see why there appears to be an opportunity here, but my concerns are best summarised in the following way: it would be difficult to train into someone the experience needed to be able to decide whether to accept a charge; whether someone has used their reasonable suspicion appropriately; whether they have arrested someone properly and told them why they are being arrested; whether the case will survive; to decide, right at the beginning of the case, whether someone is entitled to an appropriate adult when interviewed; to provide protection against senior detectives who may feel that they urgently need access to someone when the duty of the custody officer is only to allow regular and noted access; and for decisions about bail, visiting and access to legal advice to be taken. It would be hard to train someone to take decisions of that kind. They are, it seems to me, decisions best taken on the back of having some experience of policing. I do not see it in quite the same way as the other civilianisation programmes related to the police.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative, Cotswold)

The hon. and learned Lady is doing the Committee a service from her experience, reiterating the PACE requirements. Would she not agree that if it is clear to a Crown Prosecution Service officer when he or she receives a file that there is a defect in the way the PACE requirements were carried out while someone was in custody, they will have to recommend that the case does not proceed? One requirement for the CPS is the likelihood of a prosecution being successful. Clearly, if procedures are not being followed correctly, that cannot be the case, and we will reach a situation where, if mistakes are made—they are likely to be made, with less experienced and less well trained people doing the job—guilty people will escape conviction.

Vera Baird (Labour, Redcar)

I do not know whether the CPS would take decisions such as that at an early stage. It may be that cases would fail later on, because serious challenges were made to the procedures. There are twin dangers of having someone who is insufficiently trained in the role: first, the civil liberties of the person in detention will not be protected, and secondly, the evidence will be contaminated because procedures have not been carried out. Both are equally damaging. I am worried that it is not possible to train someone up to do this job, unless they have the experience of being a police officer in the first place. It is probably a jump too far.

James Clappison (Conservative, Hertsmere)

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. and learned Lady on this occasion. All the points she made were important, but the final one will take some answering from the Minister. Whatever training civilian custody officers receive, they will not have the practical experience that a police officer can bring to the role, particularly a police officer of status.

I share the concerns expressed across the Committee. I have some sympathy with the Government's objectives of trying to make the best possible use of the police and bring in civilianisation wherever proper and appropriate, but the Minister has some important questions to answer as to whether or not the clause is the right way to do so.

I hark back to PACE itself. Much what we are doing challenges the structure of that Act, not least with regard to custody officers. Great attention is paid in that Act to their role, such as who will be a custody officer and what happens if one is not available. Custody officers are given important decisions to take, many of which they still take, not least decisions about bail, which the hon. and learned Lady just mentioned. That is extremely important from the point of view of civil liberties. Decisions on bail have to be taken properly and the rights of an individual being brought to a police station must be properly protected. Those are important issues, and the Minister has to answer this debate with some care.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

That is precisely what I intend to do in answering a good debate on a significant and important matter. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome for saying that his mind remained open a chink and that if I addressed some of the issues relating to independence, integrity, training, supervision and experience, he might just support us. I will do my utmost to widen that chink so that he will feel a little more comfortable. Unfortunately the mind of the hon. Member for Beaconsfield appears to be made up. Whatever I might be able to say to him today, he seems fairly implacably opposed to the provisions.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

Pretty implacably.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

Not entirely implacably, so perhaps there is a chink of light there too.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

My placability is limited.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

We are going to get into relative implacability shortly, which would be a fantastic debate.

Obviously, I understand the concerns expressed by the hon. Members for Sutton Coldfield, for Cotswold and for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) and by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar. I feel very strongly about this provision, partly because it is a difficult one. It is easy to promote the things in the Bill that are straightforward and gain a degree of consensus. This is one of the provisions on which people genuinely have some pretty trenchant views and opinions. Hon. Members have cited the Law Society, Liberty and other organisations. Equally I can say that in response to the consultation we received support from ACPO, Unison and, perhaps not unexpectedly, a whole range of police forces. They thought that the provisions could be implemented. I would not pretend that the weight is entirely balanced. Clearly there is a range of views about the provisions.

I feel strongly about the provision because it is symptomatic of the fundamental change that we are seeking in our police service. Several hon. Members have helpfully said that they support the move towards increased civilianisation and that there should be a move to modernise the work force, to flexibility and to people taking on roles that they have perhaps never taken on before. We are increasingly seeing escort officers, custody officers, detention officers and investigating officers, which we would not have seen four or five years ago in the police service. All those roles would have been carried out by fully warranted police officers in the service.

In the past few years, we have made an incremental shift towards convincing people that it is possible for people other than fully attested warranted officers to carry out some of the functions that are important in our police service. That is the important point for me. We have to examine the function and see what we can put in place to ensure that it is properly carried out. That is why I was grateful to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar for amplifying the responsibilities of the custody officer under PACE.

I asked for some fairly extensive details about that. The role of the custody officer is perhaps on a different level from some of the other roles that we have civilianised. Many of the things that the custody officer has to determine are matters of judgment. They relate to charging, establishing whether people are fit to be detained, access to legal advice, access to medical attention and looking at whether detention should be extended. These are important matters requiring experience and judgment.

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

That is what we said.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

Indeed, and I seek to explore the areas of agreement before I delineate the areas in which we can take those steps. Let me assure the Committee that I do not consider that the role of custody officer covers simply administration and process. It involves significant matters of judgment and serious decisions. It is not our intention to dilute either that key role or the ability of the custody officer to act independently of the investigative process.

Several hon. Members have talked about the need for the custody officer—the custody sergeant as it is now—to be independent, to have status and to be able to question the decisions of officers who turn up with people whom they have arrested, whether or not the charge is correct. That is right; the authority comes from legislation—the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, which provides that the custody officer has the right to question such decisions and to have that independence, integrity and status. It also provides that, if the custody sergeant's decision is questioned, he or she can immediately refer the matter to a superintendent. The power will remain exactly the same for civilian custody staff officers. Under the terms of the legislation, if their decisions are questioned or there is any question of their integrity or independence being compromised, they will be able to refer to a superintendent. That is an important consideration.

It has been argued that the Government are pursuing the role as a way of providing policing on the cheap—I think that that was the phrase that the hon. Member for Cotswold used. Let me dispel that impression at the outset. This is not about policing on the cheap; it is about identifying the functions that need to be carried out and the most appropriate people to do that, and about giving chief officers the flexibility to deploy their resources in the most effective and efficient way. I make no apology for that. We spend a lot of money—more than £10 billion—on the police force, and I am determined to get best value out of that investment. That means giving chief officers the ability to say, ''These are our resources, and these are the tasks that face us. How do we put the right people with the right skills in the right place at the right time?''

There are parallels to be drawn with some of the work force modernisation that has occurred in the health service, through which we have sought to change people's roles and jobs. Now people in the health service are doing things that they would never have dreamed of doing five years ago, never mind 10 years ago. Similarly, across the public services, as part of our reform programme, we are trying to create flexibility in the work force, and I hope that hon. Member for Cotswold would support that as a way of getting maximum value out of the investment that we make.

That is a very important role for the police service. Tackling change is important. It is always comfortable and attractive to cleave to the things that we know, to carry on doing them in a traditional way because it has worked well and to feel that we cannot make any improvements. I understand that position. However, sometimes it is necessary to think ahead, to be more innovative and to find new ways of doing things that benefit the service as a whole.

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

I am sorry to inject a harsh note, but the Minister is patronising the Committee and, indeed, the many bodies outside this House that understand that it is comfortable not to have change, but think that this particular change is wrong. That is the burden on the Opposition Benches. We are not frightened of change—we want to see a lot of change in the police service—but this is a mistake. The judgment is wrong, and the Government should think again.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I do not accept that. I do not think that the judgment is wrong, and it is important to set the changes in a wider context as well as dealing with the specific issues that have been raised, as I shall now do. I do not intend for a moment to patronise either the outside bodies or the Committee, as I think that the issues are important.

Training is a key issue. People need to be reassured that those who will undertake the role will be properly trained and will have the right skills to do the job. National occupational standards are being developed by Skills for Justice. They will form the basis of an integrated competency framework. I know that that is a bit of jargon, but it is an established way of making sure that we can tell which skills are required for the job and how they relate to the tasks that have to be performed. Centrex, the national centre for policing excellence, which developed a doctrine of good practice, is currently developing guidance that will set out how the national occupational standards are to be achieved. It will establish standards not only for the new civilian custody officers, but for existing police custody officers. That will enhance the training that is available to them.

I can understand hon. Members' concerns, which is one of the reasons why, if we proceed down the proposed route, I believe that it is important to undertake a number of pilots to see how the staff custody officer role might work. I am keen for the training to relate not just to theory but to practice. I take on board the points that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar made about experience and knowledge, understanding how such decisions arise and the ability to react to them. I envisage the pilots involving not only theoretical training, but the shadowing of experienced officers, learning about judgment and getting a feel for the job.

There is no shortage of volunteers for the pilot projects. Police forces are incredibly keen to take advantage of the opportunity to release some of their custody sergeants from the roles that they now fill.

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

The Minister says that police forces are incredibly keen, but will she say who, where, why and what? My understanding is that the Police Federation, which represents enormous numbers of a policemen and women, is adamantly opposed.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

In the consultation, the Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Avon and Somerset, Hertfordshire and Hampshire constabularies and North Yorkshire police and Surrey police were all keen to support the changes. Surrey police is one of the forces undertaking a major work force modernisation pilot, redesigning its basic command unit and considering different people doing different jobs in different places with different skills.

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

The Minister listed less than 20 per cent. of the police forces in the country; she got seven out of 42, which might be a significant figure. It is important for the Committee to know whether she was referring to the senior management of those police forces in close liaison with the Home Office or whether the main bodies of those forces were consulted. They will have to implement the decision if Parliament gives her the powers that she seeks.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I understand that the hon. Gentleman will seek to press the matter. I am also aware of the Police Federation's representations to many Members of Parliament communicating its concerns, which are serious. I hope that the Police Federation will take my comments as a general reassurance that I recognise the importance of the role in question, and the need for independence, integrity and status. The job does not simply involve process. Officers need to be properly trained. Part of that training will involve on-the-job experience and learning from experienced officers. I hope that that will reassure the Police Federation, which has genuine concerns about this matter.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Conservative, Cotswold)

I think that the Minister is genuinely trying to address the Committee's concerns. Will she expand her comments on the training? How long do the qualifications take to obtain and for how long does she envisage that the shadowing role will take place? However much training somebody receives, it is not until they have experienced a difficult situation in the cells that they can prove whether they are up to the job.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I understand the point entirely. The amount of training to be given for roles in the police service is a matter for chief constables because it is an operational matter. The purpose of developing the national occupational standards, the framework and the pilots is to explore the issues that have been highlighted. Until we are absolutely reassured that the job can be done properly and in accordance with the legislation, I do not want to take the necessary step. The hon. Gentleman himself said that if the duties are not carried out properly, there will be a defective case file and an ineffective trial. That is not something that the Government want ever to happen. The length of time involved would be an operational matter for the chief constable. The role in question is a serious one that requires proper training and we do not want policing on the cheap. I am not sure what the pay rates will be, but I would imagine that the job will be complex and not likely to be done for a small amount of money.

I can inform hon. Members that 10 forces have volunteered for the pilot study and that two others are in discussions, so a fair range of forces would like to take part.

Vera Baird (Labour, Redcar)

Is my hon. Friend saying that, because of the law in PACE, none of the pilots could be undertaken without changing the law? That seems a realistic approach, in fact.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

Yes, indeed. The hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield mentioned the remarks that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary made in winding up the Second Reading debate about the Northumbria police work force modernisation pilot. That is an extensive pilot, involving £4.5 million over the next four years. The hon. Gentleman is right; that is a matter of extending the roles of other custody officers within the custody setting. It does not get to the heart of the custody sergeant's role, because until we change the law that must still be carried out by a police officer.

The Northumbria pilot has covered everything but the bit that can no longer be done. That has released 91 full-time equivalent police officers to the front line, getting them out of the custody setting. That has been welcomed by not just the officers, but the people of Northumbria, who have more officers on patrol.

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

I am grateful to the Minister for correcting the record, because I am sure that if she looks carefully at what I said and what Hansard records, she will see that a misleading impression was given to the House of what was happening. I am glad that she has now taken the opportunity to correct that.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I do not think that that needs a response.

There has been a massive increase in the number of police officers. I think that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar made that point. It is the biggest ever increase; there have been an extra 12,000 officers in recent years, and because of that, there have been strains and stresses connected with the need for front-line supervision. The service needs to get some sergeants out into the community, supervising the neighbourhood teams, which are an increasing part of the way in which we organise our police service.

Many sergeants whom I have met have told me that one of the least attractive roles is that of custody officer, because it means being stuck inside and not doing the work in which people want to be involved. Getting those officers out is not simply expedience; it is a matter of playing to their strengths. Many of those sergeants do not want to be in the custody office day in, day out. They joined the police to be out on the beat fighting crime and bringing criminals to justice. That is another reason for the process that we have begun.

I hope that with my undertakings to pilot the system, conduct proper training and invest properly, and my recognition of the difficult judgments that people in the role need to make, hon. Members will have a little courage and take a view that accepts that things can be different. We do not have to do things as we have always done them. We can make improvements by doing things differently. I accept the point made by the hon. Member for Beaconsfield; as an independent lay custody visitor—a hugely important role carried out by members of the public—he will have seen some of the difficult decisions that are made.

One of the most important things that we can do to free up our front-line police officers is to redesign the custody process. We have said that, on average, police officers spend about 64 per cent. of their time on front-line duties. In the next three years we want to drive that figure up to something like 73 or 74 per cent. That would release the equivalent of 12,000 extra police officers to look after communities. That is why measures such as the one that I am outlining are important to us. Officers say that one of the most frustrating things to them is the time that they spend in custody. They arrest someone and take them to the custody centre, where it takes for ever to get through. Redesigning the custody process is very important.

I have one final comment to make. I am surprised when Opposition Members ask me who is in favour of the change and say that every sane person is against it. I have looked at the report of the Second Reading debate, in which the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) said:

''The Bill outlines plans for civilian staff to be designated as staff custody officers for the purposes of PACE. Subject to the obvious practical concerns about training and supervision, some of which the Home Secretary dealt with in his speech, I support the proposal. We need more police on the streets and less paperwork, and I believe that it will help to achieve that.''—[Official Report, 7 December 2004; Vol. 428, c. 1065.]

I could not have put it better myself. In addition to the Association of Chief Police Officers, Unison and a range of police services, the shadow Home Secretary supports the proposal. I am amazed at the implacable opposition from Conservative Members in the Committee today. I know that they have difficulties with the Identity Cards Bill—they cannot decide whether they are in favour of it or against it—but I thought that we were fairly sure about where the Opposition stood on the Bill that we are considering. I should welcome some clarification. Perhaps hon. Members would like to consult the shadow Home Secretary on the matter.

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

The Minister is sullying her otherwise excellent reputation for taking Opposition points about the Bill seriously. My right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary is right to say that it is a top priority for the Conservative party to stop the way in which the police are drowning in paperwork as a result of the micro-managing efforts of the Home Office and the Minister in directing what happens at a local level. He made the point that we are determined to achieve that.

Having examined this issue carefully and talked to the people who deal with the role of custody sergeant, however, we have decided that this provision is a mistake. We are in favour of civilianisation, but this provision, as I said earlier, is a civilianisation too far. That is why we are opposed to it.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

I am grateful for that semi-clarification. I would have thought that the words of the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden were fairly clear.

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

My right hon. Friend said ''Subject to.''

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

Indeed. He said:

''Subject to the obvious practical concerns about training and supervision''. —[Official Report, 7 December 2004; Vol. 428, c. 1065.]

That seemed fairly clear to me. I do not want to trespass on private matters—[Interruption.] I am sure that Opposition Members can resolve that matter for themselves.

The amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome would restrict custody sergeants to being retired or former police sergeants. That would be a very limited pool to draw from, and it would make things difficult. The key issue is not what a person is or was, but whether that person is suitable, competent, properly trained and experienced to carry out that role. Some police sergeants might not have had the necessary training in the specific role of being a custody officer. His amendment would therefore not necessarily serve the purpose for which he tabled it. The decision on custody officers needs to be an operational one to make our police services more efficient and effective; his amendment would not help to take that issue forward, and I ask members of the Committee to resist it.

Vera Baird (Labour, Redcar)

I raised this matter on Second Reading; indeed, I seem to remember being the only Member who did so. I am therefore quite surprised at the overwhelming opposition that has suddenly come from the Opposition Benches today.

Would my hon. Friend the Minister say that since the change in clause 112 provides that no one can be appointed a custody officer unless they are either a staff custody officer or a sergeant, we can afford to change the law to permit the pilots? If the pilots turn out badly, as would happen if cases had to be abandoned or a great many detainees complained that they had not been supervised properly, one could fall back on the fact that even in the new law the role of custody sergeant is retained. If, after the pilots, staff officers prove not to be viable, no harm has been done, because one can fall back on custody officers. Is that right?

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

We want to encourage the implementation of the provision because it has a whole range of advantages for the effectiveness of the police service. Clearly, it allows for either a police officer or a staff custody officer, so a police officer could continue in the role if necessary.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I am grateful to the Minister for her comprehensive reply. I understand her intentions and the fact that she believes that the change should not occasion the alarm that it causes to some. However, she has not yet persuaded me, and I shall amplify a little the reasons why.

The Minister mentioned some of the members of ACPO and some of the forces that have expressed an interest. She will readily acknowledge, however, that other chief constables have said ''Over my dead body will I have this happening in my force at this time,'' because they do not believe that it is the right way forward. Those chief constables are not necessarily against the principle of civilianisation. I place on record again the fact that I am not against a critical examination of the roles of police officers or of a finding that a task could be performed by civilians in a way that released police officers to quintessential policing duties. That is not a problem. Indeed, when I was involved with a police authority, we took the lead in many such areas, including the civilianisation of the work of scenes of crime officers, who do not need to be serving police officers in order to perform their functions. In fact, the civilianised SOCOs were largely retired police officers with the training, confidence and experience to do the job. That brings me back to the amendment.

I want to say a few words in response to the debate. We underestimate and undervalue the rank of sergeant in the police force. One thing that we could do to greatly increase the effectiveness of the police is understand the role that sergeants can play and cherish it. Too often, it is seen as a rank that people pass through on the way to greater things, but I deplore that attitude, because officers who are prepared to work in that area and use their experience in the front line—an expression that is often used—are crucial to the success of the police service. The role is seen as crucial to other organisations, but it is particularly so to uniformed bodies.

I part company with the Minister on one thing: I believe that the custody sergeant is, crucially, a front-line role. I did not have a problem with the Northumbria pilot scheme because it dealt with those in ancillary roles, and I have no difficulty today with her statement that she is going to roll out the Northumbria pilot across the country to see whether it is possible to take out some police officers working in subordinate roles to the custody sergeant, because those roles could be performed instead by civilians.

I come back to the point that the custody sergeant's specific role, as set out in legislation, requires particular authority. The Minister said that that authority comes from legislation. I disagree entirely. It does not come from legislation; the powers—the duties and responsibilities—come from legislation, but the authority comes from having worked for 20 years in the roles of constable and sergeant and from the experience that comes from having worked in those roles. That is the authority that matters.

I want the Minister to understand that I do not doubt her good intentions. I have said it before, but I share many of her aspirations for the police service, and I recognise many of the problems. The danger is, first, that the Government sometimes give the impression that they are not wedded to the office of constable and would be happy to see that role diminished in the policing family, at least for the attested constable or officer. Secondly, they are prepared to undermine the provisions of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, which I believe has been remarkably successful and is a bulwark against which practice can be measured. Both impressions, if true, are unfortunate, and she should take great pains to resist them.

I shall not press the amendment, although I still think that it has some merit. It would at least ensure that the right people are in the right job and that they have the authority to back it up. The Minister has yet to convince me of the merits of her case, and the debate will clearly continue. As we intend to vote against the clause, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

I do not wish to prolong the debate, because there is a clear division across the Committee on the matter we are discussing. We, too, will vote against the clause.

The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome put his case extremely well. I emphasise that Conservative Members have no problem with the concept of civilianising where possible. It was given tremendous impetus under the last Conservative Government, as the Minister will be happy to make clear. However, in promoting the concept, it is important not to civilianise too far and to know when a post cannot be civilianised. As the hon. Gentleman said, in his judgment, which we share, the post in question is not one that can be civilianised, because it is an important, front-line policing post that needs experience to fulfil it. We are not persuaded by the Minister's argument.

The hon. Gentleman made another valuable point: there is too much dismissal of police experience. We spent our first sitting talking about the issue of police members of SOCA. The Government play fast and loose with the experience that police have, which enables them to fulfil these tasks as we would wish them to do. The role of custody sergeant is an important part of the criminal justice system. The Minister has not won the argument in Committee, although she may win the vote, given the Government's majority. We wish to return to the matter on Report, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield said, I have no doubt that it will attract the interest of those in another place.

Vera Baird (Labour, Redcar)

Is the hon. Gentleman persuadable, given his commitment to civilianisation when that is possible? As I said very clearly, I have serious doubts about it. The form of the proposal is such that we cannot pilot it now because of PACE. If we change the law, the office of custody officer remains; if the pilots are a disaster, no chief constable need have a civilian custody officer in charge. He can fall back on having a custody sergeant. Is it not therefore worth a try?

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

The hon. and learned Lady is very persuasive. She gave the Minister a lifeline on that point when she intervened a moment ago. My problem with that argument is that I looked into the comment made by the Under-Secretary on Second Reading, and it was exceedingly misleading. I went on a similar journey to that of the shadow Home Secretary. We started off thinking that there was a case for what is proposed, but as we talked to people who have to operate the system on both sides—those who certainly know more than I do about these matters—we became convinced that it was an error.

The Minister has not won the argument in Committee, which is why, no matter what the vote determines, we will return to it later in the parliamentary process.

Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 8, Noes 6.

Clause 113 - Powers of designated and accredited persons

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

I beg to move amendment No. 150, in clause 113, page 79, line 35, leave out subsection (3).

Marion Roe (Conservative, Broxbourne)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment No. 151, in clause 113, page 80, line 10, leave out subsections (5) and (6).

Amendment No. 152, in schedule 8, page 169, line 8, leave out paragraphs 2 and 3.

Government amendments Nos. 264 to 266.

Amendment No. 293, in schedule 8, page 169, line 28, leave out

', for a period not exceeding thirty minutes, or'

and insert

'until'.

Amendment No. 292, in schedule 8, page 169, line 28, leave out 'thirty' and insert 'fifteen'.'

Government amendment No. 267.

Government amendment No. 268.

Government amendment No. 58.

Amendment No. 153, in schedule 8, page 171, line 14, leave out paragraph 5.

Amendment No. 157, in schedule 8, page 172, line 24, at end insert—

'(3) A person shall not exercise any power under this paragraph except in the company, and under the supervision, of a constable.'.

Amendment No. 154, in schedule 8, page 172, line 25, leave out paragraphs 8 to 11.

Amendment No. 290, in schedule 8, page 173, line 29, at end insert—

'Commencement

12A Paragraphs 2 to 12 shall not come into effect until the Secretary of State has published an assessment of the cost and effectiveness of the existing system of community support officers.'.

Amendment No. 155, in schedule 8, page 173, line 34, leave out paragraph 14.

Amendment No. 156, in schedule 8, page 175, line 1, leave out paragraph 17.

Government amendment No. 59.

Government amendment No. 60.

Amendment No. 291, in schedule 9, page 178, line 24, at end add—

'Commencement

11 Paragraphs 2 to 10 shall not come into effect until the Secretary of State has published an assessment of the cost and effectiveness of the existing system of community support officers.'.

Amendment No. 294, in schedule 9, page 178, line 24, at end insert—

'Commencement

11 Paragraphs 2 to 12 shall not come into effect until the Secretary of State has implemented a programme of national standards and training for community support officers covering the new responsibilities and duties inherent in this Act.'.

Mr. Mitchell: : We come to the debate on the police community support officers and the extension of their powers. I am most grateful to those who organise these things for agreeing that we might have one big debate on the matter. I can assure the Committee that this is the last substantive issue of concern to Her Majesty's Opposition for discussion today.

It may be for the convenience of the Committee if I say a few words about our amendments before coming to the specific areas that we would like to discuss. The subsection mentioned in amendment No. 150 would allow the Secretary of State to add or remove a provision from the list of offences for which a community support officer may issue a fixed penalty notice for disorder. We seek to remove that aspect from the Bill.

Amendment No. 151 would remove subsection (5), which would amend the powers of accredited persons with regard to fixed penalty notices for disorder. The paragraphs mentioned in amendment No. 152 would give PCSOs the right to investigate licensing offences, which we want to remove.

The purpose of amendments Nos. 293 and 292 is to provide an opportunity to consider the limits to the PCSOs' powers and important practical considerations that follow. Amendment No. 153 would remove the paragraph that gives PCSOs the power to detain a beggar. Amendment No. 157 deals with a part of schedule 8 that gives the power to place traffic signs. A significant difference exists between the physical placement of signs and the decision on where to place them. Although placing a traffic sign may not appear a difficult job on the face of it, in reality it has wide implications for traffic management and road safety. We seek to probe that important and potentially significant issue.

Amendment No. 154 deals with a PCSO's power to photograph an arrested person and with powers of entry, search and seizure for designated investigation officers, which we want to remove. Amendment No. 290 would provide that a full evaluation of CSOs' effectiveness and value for money should be conducted before any additional powers are given. I will come on to the limited evaluation that has been conducted, which the Minister has helpfully made available to us.

Amendment No. 155 would remove the paragraph that gives PCSOs the power to require a name and address from a beggar. Amendment No. 156 would remove the power to photograph a person given a fixed penalty notice away from the police station. Amendments Nos. 150 to 153 and Nos. 154 to 156 deal with powers to control, direct and detain and whether those should be allocated only to fully accountable constables. Allocating yet more powers on a pick-and-mix basis raises the question of what the end game is. Are any policing powers sacrosanct, or in time will civilian personnel hold the whole panoply?

Under amendment No. 291, we want a full evaluation of CSOs' effectiveness and value for money. Under amendment No. 294, we want to ensure that adequate training is provided to PCSOs before they receive their new powers. We want to probe the Minister on those issues. She may well be able to satisfy us on some of them, but perhaps not on others; we shall see. I shall return at the end of my remarks to Government amendment No. 58, which is important.

The Minister has teased me in numerous debates about where the Conservative party stands on CSOs, so let me reassure her at the outset of the debate that we are not opposed to them in principle. However, we do not think that they are proper policemen and women. They have a role in terms of their visibility, which is reassuring and helpful in looking after our neighbourhoods, and they certainly have a role in neighbourhood policing, but we are concerned that the Government are moving too quickly, without proper evaluation of how they should develop the role of PCSOs.

Where PCSOs are the eyes and ears of the police, they do an excellent job. Twenty-three are coming to my constituency and the surrounding area, and I look forward to seeing them have precisely the impact that I have described. Indeed, bicycling the other night to where I stay when I am in London, I came across a couple of PCSOs who were walking the area and I was able to inform them of some yobbish, loutish behaviour that had been going on near there. They were extremely helpful, saying that they would report it and would be back the following night, as I believe they were. So I am in no doubt that in the limited way that I have described, PCSOs can play a helpful role in neighbourhood policing.

That said, several concerns are evident from our amendments. I shall raise first what I call function creep. When PCSOs were originally proposed, in the Police Reform Act 2002, they had a number of fairly limited roles to perform. Since their introduction, however, there has been a steady creep in the powers that they are allocated. The Bill is designed to extend their powers even further, without, as yet, any empirical evidence as to the effectiveness of the exercise of their existing powers.

In clause 113 and schedules 8 and 9, there is an effort to enable a wide range of powers to be allocated to a wide range of individuals in a wide range of circumstances. We believe that the power to control, direct and detain should be allocated only to fully accountable police constables, for all the reasons that have emerged during our debates: political independence, impartiality, training and so on. It is not efficient or effective to allocate such powers on a pick-and-mix basis. The continual need to increase powers given to PCSOs and other accredited persons under such a piecemeal approach clearly shows that insufficient consideration has been given to the provision of and dynamics of police powers to control, direct and detain. The Bill therefore represents yet another example of creeping powers for PCSOs, despite the absolute lack of clarification of their role, skills and general effectiveness.

A number of bodies, including Liberty and the Police Federation, expressed concerns that once PCSOs had been introduced, extensions of their powers would inevitably follow. Clause 113 makes it clear that those concerns were right. Under this clause, PCSOs will be able to exercise a variety of new powers, including those of search, seizure, entry and detention. I understand that the Police Federation is extremely concerned about those proposals, as are we. It will have to work with them. Certain policing powers should remain the preserve of those who have full and appropriate training.

I am sure that the Government will seek to advance the measures by giving examples of situations in which it would have been desirable for CSOs to have the powers, and we shall listen with interest if the Minister does so. However, we believe that that misses the point. CSOs should be used only in a supporting role. If there are examples of situations where the exercise of extra powers would have been of use, then this is an argument for a greater number of police officers, which is Conservative party policy, and not for an extension of the powers of CSOs. The Bar Council, in response to the Government's proposal to extend the powers, argued that on most occasions where an extension of powers is discussed, CSOs will be in front-line police work. The Police Federation have said that at a time when NCS and NCIS officers are facing a reduction in their powers to tackle serious and organised crime, bestowing CSOs with even more powers is a clear and unjustifiable contradiction.

Secondly, the powers to detain and arrest included in the Bill will inevitably lead to confrontational situations where, without the necessary training, equipment or skills, PCSOs will be putting both themselves and the public at risk. Our amendments provide an opportunity to consider the limits to the PCSOs' powers, and the important practical considerations that would follow. It is precisely because of the inherent problems that citizens have never been encouraged to make arrests themselves.

In paragraph 2 of Schedule 9, why has 30 minutes been chosen? Is that a reasonable response time for someone committing a section 3 or 4 offence in a busy urban area? What happens to the detained person when 30 or 15 minutes are up? Will there not be disputes in courts about the timing?. What is the Government's view about the difficulties inherent in that? Is it an arrest? Will the PCSO be subject to the codes of practice we discussed earlier, which govern the behaviour of policemen and women? What happens if the offender gets violent? What protection does the PCSO have against such violence? What training? What equipment? Do they have handcuffs or a truncheon? Is this not more properly police work? If the PCSOs have to be minded by policemen, is that not, of itself, a case for more police?

Giving PCSOs the power to detain will remove them from the street and take them out of the public arena, in which they were created to operate, which is a breach of my first principle of what PCSOs should be used for. The Government's regulatory impact assessment for the Bill expressly states that they do not want to do that. This is another example, I submit, of muddled thinking from this Government. The regulatory impact assessment specifies a key benefit of increased powers for PCSOs:

''Increase the capacity of PCSOs and accredited persons to deal with anti-social behaviour without eroding their high visibility role, thus helping to improve reassurances within communities.''

Giving the right to a PCSO to detain will surely remove them from the communities they are intended to serve.

The power to search and seize is dangerous, and is surrounded by complex procedure. If the person to be searched is violent, as drug-traffickers or those carrying weapons often are, what protection does the PCSO have? Is it in his training or equipment? Will the PCSO be subject to the police codes of practice? If so, they must be selected for their ability to quickly translate the action into the law's requirements. That requires the ability and training that police men and women receive, not the shorter course for PCSOs. What provisions are being made by the Government to monitor that? If these tasks are to be done, there is no substitute for their being done properly, by properly trained and equipped police officers. Police work should be done only in that way.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) made an excellent point on Second Reading. He pointed out that under the last Conservative Government, of which he and I were members, the thrust of government policy was to civilianise, to free police to go on the streets. He teased the Minister with the fact that, under Labour, we are putting civilians on the streets, so that police can spend more time filling in forms and being in the police station. It a point that the Minister should bear in mind.

There is no doubt that the exercise of the additional powers, including the powers to search and detain a person and deter begging, are likely to put PSCOs at greater personal risk. Consider what the Bar Council said regarding the power to deter begging:

''We have serious reservations about the prospect of CSOs dealing with begging. Many people involved in begging have mental health difficulties and can be extremely difficult, volatile or even dangerous. On any view this is front line policing and ought to be the preserve of the police force.''

Lack of training for PSCOs is a great concern. Currently, the Metropolitan Police Service CSOs receive only three weeks' training. If those officers are to take on extra powers, they will require far more rigorous training to ensure that they discharge their responsibilities effectively and safely. The Government's comments on the issue of PCSO training do not measure up to what is required. The regulatory impact assessment states:

''Forces will need to give some additional training to the PCSOs in order for them to exercise the (new) powers. These costs should be minimal and can be met from Police Authority budgets.''

The RIA also states:

''The training for all the new powers would probably require about one day's extra training.''

Those statements confirm not only that the Government seek to do the training on the cheap, with no extra money being provided to train PCSOs effectively, but also that they do not grasp the amount of training required to ensure that PCSOs, and the public, remain safe.

My fourth point is that there has been no independent and comprehensive evaluation of the current system of PCSOs. There is public and police concern about giving police powers to people who are not policemen and policewomen. They are not selected, trained, supervised or equipped to the same standard, and the public may only find the extension of their powers to be acceptable if they can be shown to be efficient and cost-effective. They have a short history, which ought to be evaluated before additional powers are given to them.

What is the cost to the Exchequer of CSOs compared with police officers? What training will they receive? Who will train them? If they are to be trained by the police, what is the cost of taking the trainers out of service or away from training police recruits? Who will supervise them? What will that cost? What protective equipment will they need? How much extra will that cost? What is the Minister's response to the chairman of Hampshire police authority, who said that PCSOs are not value for money?

As the chairman of the Police Federation has said,

''The role of the PCSOs must be fully clarified before a national rollout, and there must be national standards for their training which is commensurate with their responsibilities.''

Unless that happens, either police authorities will reject the use of PCSOs, and this part of the Bill will have been a complete waste of time, or the extension of powers to PCSOs will prove to be unpopular, misguided, expensive, dangerous and totally counter-productive. The Home Office interim report, the ''National Evaluation of Police Community Support Officers'', does not provide us with any confidence that the roll-out of powers has been based on any factual proof of effectiveness. The report states that there is only

''limited evidence as to whether the presence of PCSOs has an impact on crime, disorder and anti-social behaviour''.

It continues:

''Few of the force evaluations (upon which this report is based) include a rigorous analysis of crime and incident data for areas before and after the introduction of CSOs. Where this is done, it is very difficult to attribute any changes to the presence of CSOs.''

The Government should not be increasing the number of PCSOs across the country or extending the powers available to them without the knowledge that they are indeed effective, providing value for money and reducing crime. We want to hear the Government's response to all of our points before we consider which amendments we should bring to the Committee by way of a vote.

Government amendment No. 58 deals with search and seizure powers for alcohol and tobacco and powers to seize and detain controlled drugs. Will the Minister tell the Committee why the Government have introduced that important new clause now? Why was it not included in the published Bill? Why did we not have a chance to discuss it on Second Reading? There have been an extraordinarily large number of amendments tabled by the Government on the Bill, many of a technical or an uncontroversial nature.

The Government wish to build on the powers of PCSOs and designated persons under the terms of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 regarding confiscation of alcohol, in addition to the powers under the Licensing Act 2003 that allow search and confiscation. That is an expansion of the powers of the PCSO into a volatile area of policing. Alcohol consumed either in the street or on licensed premises by young or old often has the effects that we read about every day in the papers. Police officers, in dealing with such incidents, have physical protection, training, knowledge of law and experience. Giving the power to PCSOs removes them from a support role and places them in a front-line policing role. Will the PCSOs, in the Minister's opinion, have the experience and training to deal with what are often antagonistic crowd situations?

The power to search is also clearly part of the provision. If a person fails to comply with the PCSO's request to surrender alcohol and the PCSO has reasonable belief that the person has alcohol or a container for alcohol in his or her possession, the PCSO may search him for it. A police officer in similar circumstances will not have the same power: a police officer will have to act in accordance with the guidelines under code A of the PACE codes of practice. In such circumstances, the officer will have to complete a stop and search form to remain compliant with the codes, which come into operation in April. Yet under the amendment, it seems that PCSOs will not have to be similarly accountable for their suspicion. That is giving PCSOs a power not enjoyed by sworn and accountable police officers.

The most dangerous aspect of the new clause is that headed:

''Powers to seize and detain: controlled drugs''.

That presents a scenario in which the PCSO is not only dealing with a potentially violent drunkard but with an unpredictable, potentially psychotic person, who may be legitimately in possession of controlled drugs, or—more likely—in possession of them for dealing purposes or for his own use. An untrained, unequipped and inexperienced PCSO would thus be dealing with a situation with the potential for considerable violence, searching people who might be carrying some form of weaponry to protect either themselves or the drugs or cash that they were carrying. The situation might well turn violent if the suspect were threatened with arrest or the seizure of the substances that they carried.

We of course must assume that the PCSO would in the first instance have the necessary knowledge of the range of controlled drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 to form the suspicion necessary to call upon the designated powers. The PCSOs will require further training on how to search for substances while preserving their own health and safety in respect of the potential for needle-stick injuries and exposure to HIV and hepatitis. Furthermore, they will need the skills and techniques necessary to prevent the loss of evidence due to the disposal of substances through, for example, swallowing by the offender. Those are clearly front-line policing matters.

My concerns are exacerbated by the fact that the new clauses have been tabled so late and may not receive the scrutiny that they deserve. I rest the Opposition case there, but I have bowled many questions at the Minister, and I hope that she will be able to satisfy us that in at least some instances the powers will be given, through training and use, in a manner that will not place the public or PCSOs in harm's way.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

Without wishing to be in any way unkind, to the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield, this may be another matter in relation to which he is on a journey: the Conservative party's position on community support officers is changing incrementally as time goes by. As I have made plain on previous occasions, we have always felt that community support officers were a good idea. Some are now deployed in my constituency, and I am extremely pleased that they are there. I have been to see them and shaken them by the hand, and I am delighted to have them patrolling the streets of some small communities that would otherwise not see a police officer regularly, because of the paucity of officers in the rural county of Somerset.

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

Just to be clear, I assure the hon. Gentleman that I do not take his remarks as any unkindness; since the day I became the shadow police Minister I have made it clear that, in the narrow terms that I define, we welcome PCSOs. Our great concern is that the Government are moving too quickly and too fast, and giving them powers for which they are not trained. That has been the burden of my speech. They have a valuable role in policing, but it must not be overstated. That was my view on Second Reading, and I said so on the Floor of the House.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has been consistent in his personal position; I am not sure that that position has always been adopted by his colleagues in relation to previous legislation on this matter. However, he gave us an example of his work with community support officers—indeed, I am getting slightly worried about the Conservative Front Benchers, who seem to be acting as a sort of vigilante force. It is entirely commendable, but one wonders what risks they are running fighting crime in such a hands-on way.

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

I should like to make it absolutely clear to the Committee that there was no act of personal bravery on my part, as there was in the case of my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield. I merely reported matters to the PCSOs and disappeared behind my front door.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I shall not tease the hon. Gentleman further.

Many of us support the concept of CSOs and see them as a potentially valuable part of the policing family, as I believe we are supposed to call the variety of officers now available. However, we also recognise—this relates to the point made by the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield—that there is a huge danger of expecting too much of them. They have a particular role to play—a role that should perhaps be more carefully circumscribed. I can think of no purer illustration of the concerns of many than the Prime Minister's response during Prime Minister's questions a couple of weeks ago. Inadvertently, he talked about community support officers supplanting full-time police officers—we know that he meant supplementing, but he said supplanting, and it appeared in Hansard as supplanting, even though No. 10 is normally assiduous in having such misspeaks removed. That is precisely the concern that many people feel.

To return an important point that I made earlier in our consideration of the Bill, when the Minister of State was not present, there is a real fear that the role of community support officers is expanding from below, as it were—that there is an incremental approach to their powers. SOCA and the officers who will be involved with it—we are told that they are not police officers, irrespective of the fact that they are—are taking on specific roles at the top. There is a danger that the real police force, the attested officer, will become a narrowly circumscribed rump between the two—the police will become more like a gendarmerie whose primary function is the keeping of the peace instead of genuinely omnicompetent constables. The Minister must be aware of that very real fear among those who are watching what the Government are doing. That is why we need to test carefully any proposal to extend the powers of CSOs beyond what they should be. As I said earlier, they should be the eyes and ears of the police service, providing a visible presence on the streets to offer reassurance to the population and to report to and pass information on to the police service.

Inevitably, somebody who is put on the street in a blue uniform will at times face circumstances in which he wishes he had greater powers than he has been given by statute. That is not the test, however. The test is not whether it would be useful in such circumstances for a CSO to have the power; it is whether it is sensible for CSOs to be diverted from their primary function in order to exercise a power for which they have not been adequately trained or prepared. That is why we have to consider the Government's proposals critically.

I have no problem with some of the suggested powers—for example, I have argued almost from the start that community support officers should have a bigger role in traffic offence policing in villages, because it is nonsense to require the attendance of a police constable rather than use such officers to deal with minor traffic offences. I get much more twitchy when we deal with powers of search and seizure, because we are coming close to, if not exceeding, the proper powers of a police constable.

Andrew Mitchell (Conservative, Sutton Coldfield)

The point about the placing of traffic signs on which I need reassurance is this: signs placed incorrectly could confuse a motorist coming into an area, who is unused to the way in which the signs are positioned. Therefore, without people receiving the right training, such powers and responsibilities, if wrongly used, could lead to accidents and worse. I need to be satisfied that that will not be case under this creeping increase of powers, and I agree with what the hon. Gentleman has said about the inherent dangers.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I am grateful for that explanation. We are talking about supervision rather than anything else; I do not believe that someone will be recruited as a CSO who is so deficient in common sense as to not understand their basic duties. However, they put themselves at risk and there is a question about their capacity to react to unforeseen circumstances when dealing with search and seizure powers. I also have a fundamental concern about whether such powers are intrinsically linked to the attested officer, the office of constable or the equivalent in bodies such as Customs and Excise, rather than to CSOs. The Minister needs to persuade me on that.

I can understand the rationale behind the proposal, especially in the case of community support officers patrolling areas set up as alcohol-free zones by byelaw in a town centre and effectively acting as—I hope that this is not an inappropriately disparaging term—security officers. There is an argument that they should be able to deal with whatever nuisances they find in those circumstances. However, the Minister must assure the Committee about how those powers will be used, because they raise question marks about what happens not when it all goes right, but when it all goes wrong. That is my concern.

I do not want to put community support officers at risk, nor do I want them to be diverted from their principal duties. I do not want to put police officers at risk through having to put right the deficiencies of their colleagues. I want the criminal justice system to work effectively. For all of that to happen, the Home Office has to have a clear idea of where the boundaries should be set, but I have a feeling that they are shifting in the same direction and that the police service is being squeezed in the middle. I do not want that to happen.

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield and the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome have advanced a wide variety of arguments that I would have made, and I support pretty much everything that has been said so far. However, the key question that arose in the debate was at what point does an effective CSO become an untrained and cheap policeman? That point will come. Despite supporting CSOs and continuing to do so, we have grave concerns, first, that the measures proposed in the Bill will shift the balance and, secondly, that because CSOs have been in place for only a short period, it is too early to understand fully what their proper role should be and how they have settled into their role to date. The Government have not done enough research or put together enough information to explain the position of CSOs across the country and where we should go from there.

Whichever way we consider the matter, CSOs amount to policing on the cheap. We support them, mainly because we are desperate to see uniformed people in our towns and villages, but CSOs are no alternative to fully trained police officers. More to the point, CSOs do not come free from central Government. They are normally provided on a matched funding basis. There is always a cost to the local taxpayer, because central Government will never pay the whole amount. There is a good side to CSOs, in that they are not tied to central Government targets. For instance, at one point Cambridgeshire was not meeting the arrest targets set by central Government—something that the Conservatives will get rid of. The chief constable's response was to send all the local police officers into the local cities so that he could meet the then Home Secretary's targets for the year; however, the CSOs at least were not moved from the villages in which they were policing. There are therefore advantages in having CSOs, but it is still policing on the cheap.

There are risks, most of which have been set out. Those that come to mind particularly are the concerns that many have expressed about CSOs intervening in public order situations, including searching people, dealing with beggars and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield said in broadening the debate, dealing with drugs crimes. On average, CSOs will have three weeks' training. That may be enough to enable them to perform their basic tasks and to train them to use the basic equipment, such an anti-stab vest, effectively, but is three weeks enough time to train them to use a baton or CS gas? Such issues are of concern.

The discretionary exercise of CSOs' powers varies from police force to police force. Each chief constable can decide on the applicable powers that he or she feels are appropriate to his or her area. That seems right if we consider CSOs' basic powers, but as those powers grow the need for uniformity becomes more persuasive. I share the concerns that have been voiced so far in this debate and look forward to hearing what the Minister says about the monitoring of CSOs once the powers in question are given, in different ways, across the whole country.

Hazel Blears (Labour, Salford)

We have had an extremely interesting debate. I think that the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield is now in discussion with the usual channels. I was about to say he was in danger of slightly sullying his reputation, with just a little hyperbole in his contribution. I hope that my contribution will reassure him that there is method in what the Government are doing, that there is rigorous analysis of the appropriate role for community support officers, and that we are certainly not in the business of uncontrolled mission creep or function creep, which I genuinely appreciate would give rise to concerns among hon. Members.

The hon. Member for Huntingdon made a good point that as community support officers become established in the fabric of the extended police family—clearly they are to hear to stay—then there is a need to ensure some consistency around their training standards and role. We must try to balance that with the important discretion for chief constables to decide which powers are appropriate for their community support officers in the context of the local policing challenge. Our Government are committed to recruiting an extra 20,000 CSOs.

The rest of the debate is in Hansard.