Mr Hilary Benn (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Leeds Central, Labour)

I shall do so in due course.

On amendment No. 2, we agree that it is important that the persons who are authorised to accompany constables behave properly, and where appropriate are subject to the same duties as those constables, as well as having the same powers. That is why we provided for supervision of such persons by a constable. Schedule 1 will amend sections 21 and 22 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 by imposing duties on the persons authorised to accompany constables in respect of such matters as access to and copying seized material. That is right and proper, but it is also right and proper that the constable will ultimately be responsible for the execution of the warrant, and that it would be unnecessary to impose certain duties on the persons who are authorised to accompany constables. That is why we cannot accept the amendment, which would impose all the duties on authorised persons, such as endorsing the warrant after it has been executed. The constable can do that, so we do not need to impose a duty on the authorised person to do the same.

We believe that we have got the list right by placing duties on the authorised person that we believe are sensible for him or her to have. If any hon. Members believe that we have not, we will be happy to consider the matter further, but amendment No. 28 is too broad in its current form.

On supervision, it is not clear that amendments Nos. 84 and 91 add anything. The civilian will need some freedom of action to be effective in participating in the process, which is the reason for the clause. At the same time, however, we recognise that the civilian will always be under the general direction of the constable, which is what the clause seeks to achieve. In so far as I understand the difference between ''direct supervision'' and ''supervision'', it would get in the way of what we are trying to achieve if the intention was that the constable should be constantly looking over the civilian's shoulder. That is why we are not inclined to accept such an amendment, which does not add anything. There may be circumstances in which members of the team are working together, but in different parts of a building, or are searching premises that have more than one building, such as a house and barn complex. In those circumstances, it would not be sensible to require the constable to be next to the authorised person at every stage, although that person is clearly under the supervision of the constable.

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