Clause 43 - Offences for which a person may be arrested without a warrant
Police Reform Bill [Lords]
5:30 pm
Mr John Denham (Minister of State (Police, Courts and Drugs), Home Office; Southampton, Itchen, Labour)
One hates to deal with such matters when one is up against an hon. Member who has long experience as a criminal lawyer, and who knows these aspects of the law inside out.
The specific answer to the hon. Gentleman's question is that subsection (4) makes a small amendment to section 24(3)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 to make it clear that any
arrestable offence, which is triable summarily only, is excluded from the power to arrest for an attempt to commit such an offence.
I am unsure whether the Committee wishes me to speak at length on this clause, so I will not go into great detail. It addresses three measures that create difficulties for the police in sensibly enforcing the law; introducing the power of arrest will give them a significant advantage.
I should, perhaps, have known early on in my time as a Member of Parliament that assaulting a police officer is not, directly, an arrestable offence, but I learned that that is the case after I became a Home Office Minister, and I was surprised—as have been most other people with whom I have discussed this matter. We address a lacuna in the law by making this and other changes.