Clause 46 - Power to search and seize vehicles
Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Bill
2:30 pm
Mr David Ruffley (Assistant Chief Whip, Whips; Bury St Edmunds, Conservative)
Have there been any discussions about, for example, giving powers to community support officers to stop vehicles on the highway? The important point behind my question is that although I absolutely take on board what the Minister said—that in practice the agency will mount operations in close collaboration with the local police force, where it has the requisite intelligence—equally, we all know that the police are stretched. That is true not only in my constituency but in those across the party divide, in other counties and in other constabularies. None of us can ever say that we have enough police. It will probably never be true, under any Government of whatever political persuasion, that everyone thinks that their area is adequately policed and has enough policemen and women.
It is in light of that that I ask whether the important work of preventing, deterring and apprehending those engaging in illegal fly-tipping might be done not only by uniformed police officers stopping vehicles on the highway, as the clause states, but by community support officers. I want to tease out from the Minister whether that has been considered. It is not always possible to ask police forces to make uniformed officers available every time a vehicle is trying to get away. Were community support officers at any stage considered as adequate replacements or substitutes for uniformed officers in those cases?