New clause 42 - Powers of authorised officers executing warrants
Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill [Lords]
11:00 am
Mr Dominic Grieve (Shadow Attorney General, Home, Constitutional & Legal Affairs; Beaconsfield, Conservative)
At a late stage, the Government have given us a massive area to consider. The Minister has properly split it into three areas. First, I shall concentrate on the powers of the authorised officers. I am broadly satisfied with his explanations on the other two matters that he raised, although I may return to one or two points of detail.
We need to go back to some basic principles, and I make no apology for doing so. Policing in the United Kingdom—and certainly in England and Wales—is, to use the right expression, carried out by consent. That means that it requires the consent of the people who are being policed and that it is an absolute and central principle that a great deal of time and effort should be expended on trying to secure consent.
The fact that there is a theoretical justification for an action does not necessarily secure consent in the real world. I spent some of my political career cutting my teeth in parts of south London and standing as a candidate for an area that included Brixton in the mid-1980s, where it was obvious what happens when the limits of consent in communities are reached in relation to policing. Successive Governments have taken those facts on board by going to considerable lengths to ensure the monitoring of the performance of the police, oversight of the manner in which they carry out their work, and—sometimes this is contrary to the wishes of other people in this country—the making of concessions with regard to what they can or cannot do in order to maintain consent.
Only last weekend, a Minister of State at the Home Office expressed concern that, although there was no suggestion that the police were doing their job improperly, the manner in which the power given to them under the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 in respect of stopping and searching at random was being carried out might lead to a progressive withdrawal of consent in certain sections of society because they feel that the actions are oppressive or onerous even though Parliament has
decreed that they are appropriate in view of the threat that we are facing. I make those preliminary remarks because we must bear such facts in mind when considering the powers that we are giving authorised officers in executing warrants.
Authorised officers are bailiffs, as has been said, although we are admittedly using different terminology and giving them a slightly different guise. On the whole, my experience with bailiffs, which comes from dealing with them in legislation and even professionally, is that many are of the utmost reputability and use considerable sensitivity in carrying out their work. None the less, we are about to give considerable powers to non-uniformed individuals—namely authorised officers of the court. We are allowing them to enter private premises, which will not necessarily be the premises of the person whom they are seeking, to carry out searches. We are allowing them the most extensive powers for the perfectly laudable reason that the Minister has given: ensuring that fines are paid and that the 76 per cent. rate goes up to 80 per cent. or 90 per cent.
I do not disagree with that objective. However, Parliament has a long history of paying considerable attention to how powers are exercised, and as there could be serious consequences for the relationship between law enforcement agencies and the wider community, I am a little surprised that we are apparently introducing such potentially draconian legislation without paying real regard to the consequences on the ground on a day-to-day basis.
When we intervened on the Minister, I would have been greatly reassured if he had said that he recognised that point, but that the Government would set up a supervisory authority to ensure the collation of statistics and the circulation of best practice, and to provide a regulatory mechanism for the informal resolution of complaints. However, we are giving powers to groups and individuals who—I do not mean this too pejoratively—carry out their operations as lone rangers. There is no central co-ordination, and I do not believe that there will be, although some professional bodies cover the organisations involved. I am anxious that we are creating the potential for the build-up of resentments that may ultimately manifest themselves in public order problems.
If the Minister is right in his intention and aim, it must follow that the powers described in the new clause will frequently be invoked, because that will be necessary if we are to raise the 76 per cent. level and meet the target. I dare say that bailiffs and enforcement officers will sometimes visit millionaires' properties, but the nature of things suggests that it will be in deprived areas that people accumulate unpaid fines, because that is the way that the world is. That means that it will mainly be in areas of deprivation that enforcement officers will carry out their perfectly commendable duties. In the process, they will be going into people's houses, knocking down their doors and doing all the other activities that the police have to do, but there will be no point of reference or contact such as the local police station or a local beat officer who can help resolve underlying tensions and disputes.
We need those mechanisms, which we have tried to introduce over a 25-year period, at a time when the country is very diverse. There are all sorts of new people in the country with new cultural norms, and those norms include views on the privacy of the home and the sanctity of the family unit. Those things have to be resolved so as to allow the smooth running of society. I have to say that I do not see any sign whatever in the legislation that those factors have been taken into account. If the legislation starts to go wrong, the first consequence will be that we will have to revisit the issues at a parliamentary level. We will have to create the necessary structures. I am a Conservative; I dislike spending money unnecessarily, and I do not particularly want further bureaucratic supervisory structures. However, for once I am not sure that there is not a necessity for one.
I want to make sure that the system works, and I am not at all convinced that the proposed structures will work. The enforcement officers will be very active in some parts of our metropolitan centres; they will be out of uniform, they will go around trying to enforce the court orders and making inquiries and they will inevitably be intrusive into property. They will be visible and may cause resentment. None of that means that we should not go ahead with this project, but we should be very careful about what we are doing.
In response to my interventions, the Minister placed great emphasis on the fact that there would be formal methods of redress. I am not interested in formal methods of redress, but in the informal methods of redress that my experience as a politician suggests are far more effective and less costly in resolving the sorts of disputes that arise even in my own constituency involving people who feel that they have been improperly stopped by the police. As I always say to my police officers, ''Forget about the formal complaints system; send somebody round to have a chat with him.'' Where would that happen in this context?
I am not against the proposals, but I do not think that the consequences of the new powers have been fully or properly thought through. If they had been, the Minister would have been able to tell us more. May I urge him to do a bit of thinking and consultation between now and Report?
I do not mean this unkindly to the Minister, who is sitting next to the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale, East (Paul Goggins), but I hope that there is enough joined-up government on this matter. This issue falls very much within the Home Office remit on community relations. I want to hear that there has been adequate Home Office input and link-up in establishing that what is proposed will work smoothly and properly, and that the glitches that I fear will be inevitable will be capable of resolution. Those are my concerns about the powers being given to authorised officers.
On the whole, we have had a very good set of rules in this country that tries, as far as is possible and compatible with proper law enforcement, to minimise the rights of the state against the individual. I accept that they have to be adjusted from time to time, and this may be the time to adjust them on enforcement. If we are to adjust them, however, we should be jolly careful that we understand the consequences and that we take steps to minimise the problems that could arise. Those are my comments on new schedule 2.
I am much more sympathetic towards the other proposals. It seems to me that the Minister has put in adequate safeguards, particularly in relation to data sharing, that reduce what is sought to a minimum, and that that is compatible with his objectives.
I wish to raise a question about the community penalties. If breaches of community penalties are not to be dealt with by the court that carried out the original sentencing, how will we ensure that the courts are seized sufficiently of the full facts that would enable them to deal with such matters properly? I accept that, even now, a person does not necessarily go back to the same court or tribunal that originally sentenced them, but I am concerned that the information should be able to pass adequately from one court to another. I am afraid that my experience as a lawyer is that information very often does not pass from one court to another, which can lead to potential injustice. With that reservation, I understand what the Minister seeks to do.