Clause 3 - Conduct prohibited without a licence
Private Security Industry Bill [Lords]
12:30 pm
Mr John Bercow (Buckingham, Conservative)
Amendment No. 43 is designed to clarify the clause and to demonstrate beyond doubt that licensable conduct is conduct that is carried out in return for payment. Amendment No. 44 is a little more explicit. Both amendments concern issues that were raised in another place on 30 January by my noble Friends at columns 604-609 of the Official Report. We are anxious to probe a legitimate issue. How far down the scale is it intended that the Bill should reach in terms of licensable conduct? Obviously, it will include firms that supply security guards on contract in return for payment. We come again to the issue of whether something is permissive but broad, or explicit and limited. As the unamended clause stands, we do not know how tightly drawn the proposal is, which is why the amendments are designed to establish beyond doubt that what is involved is conduct that is carried out in return for payment.
I think that the Government are inclined to argue that that is what they have in mind, but it is not clear from the Bill that that is what is permitted. Firms that provide security guards on contract in return for payment are covered, but how far will the clause extend into the grey areas of licensable conduct? Let us consider, for example, someone who is unpaid or someone who is paid a small sum to look after the door at a local event, perhaps in extremis; in circumstances that could not have been envisaged beforehand. The sum involved might be small—£5, for example—but would such a circumstance be covered? That is not entirely clear.
How will the Bill affect people who may perform security-related activities on a one-off basis and without payment. In another place, my noble Friend Lord Cope of Berkeley cited the example of someone acting as a door supervisor at a charity jumble sale. Would such a person be caught by the provisions of the Bill? I want to establish not Ministers' personal preference as to the interpretation of the clause, but what, on legal advice and justification, they are at liberty to say that the Bill allows.
How will churchwardens and other volunteers who might have a security role be affected? It may be that, at the event in question, their exclusive duty—not even their main one—is to act in a security capacity, even though their normal role is that of churchwarden or another similar, or dissimilar, function. In such circumstances, would the exemptions in schedule 2 be sufficient to stop them being affected?
How would the provisions of schedule 2—which, clearly, is inextricably bound up with the consideration of this clause and amendments thereto—relate to someone who held his or her neighbour's house keys and otherwise looked after his or her neighbour's house while that neighbour went on holiday? Would such a person be covered by the existing wording? The answer is probably that the Government would not want that, but how can we be sure beyond doubt that the provisions of the Bill could not be so extended, for example, if the house were especially large, and the burden of responsibility were considered especially great, not least if the property in question had been subject to professional criminal invasion on previous occasions? We need to be sure that such a person would not be caught by the provision, because that person might have a primary and even exclusive responsibility for guarding that property for the period in question. Would he or she be covered? If not, how can we be certain?
I am aware that Lord Bassam of Brighton went some way towards seeking to assuage those concerns on 13 January. Will the Minister not only assure us that the Bill is not intended to catch the sorts of activities that I have described, but, as Minister of State at the Home Office, assure us unequivocally that its scope could not, under any circumstances, be so extended? It is not yet clear that we have received an assurance of that kind.
The Minister, characteristically but equally unfairly, accused me earlier of making a mountain out of a molehill. I was doing nothing of the kind; as he knows, I will never be dissuaded from exploring legitimate issues on behalf of my hon. Friends simply because of such downmarket, low, music hall abuse. However, the point can be made, and has been made, simply. I hope that the Minister can provide the reassurance sought. On the strength of that explanation, I rest content that I have made the point that I wish to make.