New clause 42 - Powers of authorised officers executing warrants
Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill [Lords]
11:15 am
Mr David Heath (Shadow Minister (Home Affairs), Home Affairs; Somerton and Frome, Liberal Democrat)
I share the hon. Gentleman's broad analysis. I do not have a great problem with the latter amendments, but I have very serious issues to raise about new clause 42 and new schedule 2 that go much wider than my initial and perhaps inevitable comment. After spending hour after hour, week after week and month after month discussing two major measures—the Courts Act 2003 and the Criminal Justice Act 2003—I do not understand why these provisions were not introduced in that legislation, unless it was because Ministers felt that they could not pass such contentious legislation at that time. Perhaps they felt that the softer option was to introduce it now.
No one would argue against the need for the better enforcement of fines and court sentencing. No one wants to see anyone get away with cocking a snook at the courts and not paying their due. However, that must tempered against the limits in law in this country that allow some of our citizens to do things to other citizens. We do not normally allow people to arrest other citizens, forcibly to enter their homes, cause distress by taking their property or search them. For clear reasons, however, there are certain categories of people to whom we do give that power, and they are generally people about whom we use the term ''office of constable''. I still feel that the office of constable is important. I know that the Government do not give a toss about it, but although they do not care how far they blur the edges, many people in this country, including the police themselves, feel that an important distinction must be made between those to whom we provide extensive powers and those to whom we do not.
I am worried that we are extending powers to somebody called an authorised officer. That person might work directly for the court or for a company that will presumably have been contracted on the basis of having offered the lowest tender for the provision of services to a court for executing warrants. The Government are proposing that those individuals or companies, which will not have a training requirement, a reporting system or a complaints system in the same way that the police do, should be allowed on the basis of an outstanding warrant to seek forcibly to enter premises, search the person whom they find there and arrest that person and take them away. Those are serious points.
If a police officer were to exercise his powers inappropriately, everybody would know what to do about it. They could go to the senior officer—the superintendent or chief superintendent—of the basic command unit in the area. If they failed to get satisfaction, they could go to the chief constable, and the case might be investigated by the chief or deputy chief constable. If they were not satisfied with that, they could invoke the internal complaints procedure or the external complaints procedure through the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
However, I bet that not a single Committee member would know what to do if the individual involved were an employee of Group 4 or whoever has the contract to provide services to a local court. I bet that they would not know what to do if their door were knocked down and they were searched in the belief that they had something that was adverse to the execution of the warrant or if they were arrested on that basis.
The sole safeguard is that the officer can exercise his power only to the extent that it is reasonably required for the purpose. However, it would be easy to argue that exercising the power was reasonably required to effect a warrant, although that may have been wrong, and that the officer had reasonable grounds for believing that the person involved was on the premises. That judgment could be left to the discretion of the newest employee of the company, which is at arm's length from the court that issued the warrant.
It being twenty-five minutes past Eleven o'clock, The Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned till this day at half-past Two o'clock.