Clause 3 - Closure order: enforcement
Anti-social Behaviour Bill
5:30 pm
Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)
I want briefly to explain our amendment No. 25. I understand the hon. Lady's comments about her amendments and will listen with interest to the Minister's response. Our amendment is also to probe, but I hope that the Minister will give me the helpful reply that he gave to a couple of previous groups of amendments, in which he said that he would consider them carefully to see whether the Government could come up with amendments to improve the Bill before Report. The amendment is,
again, about a debate that happens in court, and the Minister and his advisers will know that whenever police officers are required to provide information before entering premises or arresting someone, it leads to endless hours of debate and cross-examination in court.
Subsection (4) is too restrictive. At the moment, it says that a constable or authorised person must
''produce evidence of his identity and authority before entering the premises.''
I can envisage much cross-examination of police officers or other authorised persons in which they are told that they did not show the people in the premises the warrant card or authority before entering. We have seen on television, if not in real life, the police using battering rams and other such equipment to break into premises used by drug dealers, for example, so it would be more realistic for them to show any warrant ''when'' they are entering the property. Provided that police officers who are in the process of entry show that they are police officers in uniform with a warrant card, such an approach would avoid the opening of another loophole.
If we are going to have this legislation, I want it to be workable. I do not want it to present opportunities for people to challenge the enforcement of the closure order. Therefore, it seemed to me that it would be very helpful to change the word ''before'' to the word ''when''. That would lead to less of a loophole, and to fewer hours of debates in courts, analysing what has happened, and whether the police or other authorised persons have acted properly. It is a small point, but it is one that I hope the Minister will take seriously. The intention on these Benches is to improve the Bill.