Clause 46 - Power to search and seize vehicles
Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Bill
2:30 pm
Mr Elliot Morley (Minister of State (Environment and Agri-Environment), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Scunthorpe, Labour)
I can certainly explain the Bill's drafting. There has been full consultation, as the hon. Gentleman would expect, with the LGA, the Home Office and those with an interest in the Bill, such as the police. Generally speaking, it is well established that the police often work with the Environment Agency and local authorities when they suspect that a crime may have been committed or as part of normal enforcement.
The agency has, for example, been carrying out a number of high-profile spot checks, whereby the police set up a roadblock, because as uniformed officers they have the power to stop vehicles. The police then inspect the vehicles and the waste licences, to ensure that they are in order, and then, because they are police, check for road traffic offences to do with tax, insurance, condition of tyres and so on. Such enforcement exercises have been very successful and I am keen to encourage the agency, the police and local councils to continue with them.
Another example, which the hon. Gentleman rightly mentioned, is where an agency or local authority officer sees a van or other vehicle leaving a scene and has reason to suspect that a crime has been committed. In those circumstances, the officer would phone the police in the normal way and they would send a mobile response unit to stop the vehicle. It would be difficult to give powers to stop moving vehicles to the agency or to local authorities, because of all the problems that go with them. Such powers are more appropriately left to the police. That shows that enforcement is a partnership issue, with the police working alongside other agencies. Such practices are quite well established and have been successful. The measures in the Bill will reinforce the effectiveness of that partnership approach.