Clause 45 - Powers of entry: supplementary
Fire and Rescue Services Bill
3:15 pm
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
This clause deals with the powers of fire and rescue authority employees on premises that they have entered. The amendments would add a reasonableness test to the exercise of those powers.
Amendment No. 139 would limit the powers over documents to those that the employee, the authorised entrant, reasonably believes to be relevant. At present, there is no restriction and the authorised officer can inspect and copy any documents or records on the premises or remove them from the premises. I cannot see any qualifying provision anywhere that they must be relevant or reasonably believed to be relevant to the investigation or other matter under way.
Amendments Nos. 140 and 141 refer to the powers of inspection and testing and, again, would limit those powers to matters reasonably considered necessary to the investigation. That does not seem to be over-restrictive or unexceptional and, bearing in mind the Minister of State's extreme caution in our discussion a few minutes ago about creating wider powers, I should have thought that he would want to be clear that the powers that can be exercised are directly relevant to the investigation or matter in hand.
Amendments Nos. 142 and 143 would change the limitation on power to remove items from the current provision in the Bill, which is a blanket permission to remove items or take samples from items with the restriction only that it should be not so as to destroy the item unless necessary, to a more general restriction that there should not be such a power unless it is necessary. As I read the clause, a sample can be taken or an item can be removed so long as it is not destroyed or damaged, unless it is necessary to do so. However, the unless-it-is-necessary test should apply to removing the item in the first place. That is what the amendments seek to ensure, and I look forward to the Under-Secretary's comments.