Clause 16 - Extension of statutory search powers in
Crime (International Co-operation) Bill [Lords]
10:45 am
Mr Bob Ainsworth (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Coventry North East, Labour)
I will comply with that. However, if the hon. Gentleman reflects on this matter, perhaps he will recognise that a request from a joint investigation team should go back to the joint investigation team. It is for that team to continue its investigation: it is not
obliged to transmit such things to a requesting authority, as it is effectively the requesting authority itself. We can discuss that when we deal with clause 19.
I shall continue dealing with the amendments that we are discussing. On amendment No. 34, subsection (2)(b) enables constables acting as members of international joint investigation teams to apply for search warrants or production orders under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. That implements article 13(7) of the mutual legal assistance convention, which provides that members of a team should be able to request their own authorities to take such measures as they would be able to request in a domestic investigation. A UK member of a team who is a police officer would be able to apply for a search warrant or a production order for evidence in the UK in relation to an overseas investigation, without a formal request from abroad. Such a request would not be necessary—to go on to the point that the hon. Gentleman was just making—as the police officer would be able to apply for such a warrant or production order on the basis of his own knowledge of the investigation. The usual domestic safeguards set out in PACE would apply to such applications.
Amendment No. 34 seeks to ensure that the constable has personal knowledge of the investigation in question. That is unnecessary, because the constable applying for a search warrant or production order in these circumstances must be a member of the joint investigation team, and the warrant on the order must be sought for the purposes of that investigation. Officers in joint investigation teams will clearly have personal knowledge of the joint investigation, just as they would if seeking a search warrant as part of a domestic investigation.
Amendment No. 35 would impose a time limit for the transmission of seized evidence to the requesting authority, which is to be set by the Secretary of State in an order. Amendment No. 133 would delay the transmission of evidence with the effect that evidence must be held for seven days before it can be transmitted. Both amendments present problems. The imposition of a deadline would be restrictive. The UK is under no obligation to return evidence within a specific period and current legislation does not set time limits. It is a matter of good practice that evidence will generally be returned as soon as possible. Transmission will usually be immediate, but that does not mean that a specified time limit would be of benefit.
There may sometimes be good reason not to return evidence immediately. For example, a request might involve multiple searches, in which case it may be practical to wait until all the evidence has been obtained and consolidated rather than sending a stream of different items back separately. Alternatively, there might be an application for a judicial review, which needs to be resolved before the evidence is transmitted. Other cases will be straightforward and involve a single production order, and it should be possible to send the evidence
back straight away. In such cases, retaining the evidence would cause unnecessary delays.
Amendment No. 36 would impose a mandatory requirement to keep a copy of all evidence obtained in response to a mutual legal assistance request. I can tell the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) that the police are free to make such a copy if they want to and believe that it will assist them, or they need to because they want the safeguards that the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire mentioned. If a particular investigation was subsequently started in this country, we would be able to request evidence required for our own investigation to be returned under the same jurisdiction that we provided the evidence in the first place. To move from that to a requirement in statute to keep a copy of every item of evidence required is quite different.
The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome asked whether there was a problem with legally privileged material, whether an application could be made and whether there was a potential problem with the immediate transmission. I shall reflect on whether there is a real problem and return to him later. I understand his point, and we would not want to delay straightforward pieces of legislation; I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not want us to sit on information for seven days without good reason. However, there might be practical problems if people wanted to make a challenge, and we had denied them that opportunity. I shall check the procedures to see whether I can satisfy the hon. Gentleman.