Clause 1 - Extension of powers to stop and search
Criminal Justice Bill
11:15 am
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North, Labour)
The last thing that I want to do is to get involved in legalisms, especially with the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey, who has made a living out of them, but I am interested in the reference to items made for the commission of an offence. We could argue about a kitchen knife, for example.
We must be careful on this spray paint issue. The vision of young people spray-painting butterflies on the underground is a million miles from what such items can do to people. Repeated spraying is intended to break people and to prevent people from giving evidence against, say, someone else's big brother. Bricks go through greenhouse windows over and again, every time the panes are repaired, until the owner decides not to go to court.
Far be it from me to give advice to the Conservative party, but the clause is about the extension of powers to stop and search. What does that mean to ordinary people? What do they want from the law in those circumstances? Perhaps the ordinary people in the constituency of the hon. Member for Beaconsfield are different from those in mine and, I suspect, that of my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West. Our people want reassurance that we are addressing their concerns about the low-level, sustained and stressful intimidation that can take place with commonplace household objects. I hope that the hon. Member for Beaconsfield and his colleagues will start to address some of the concerns of those people as we consider the Bill, otherwise his party may appear irrelevant to the concerns of the electorate.