Clause 1 - Amendment of the Criminal Law Act 1967
Criminal Law (Amendment) (Householder Protection) Bill
2:30 pm
Mr Harry Cohen (Leyton and Wanstead, Labour)
May I say what a pleasure it is, Mr. Cook, to see you in the Chair? I know that all members of the Committee will get a good and fair hearing as a result of you chairing our proceedings.
Amendment Nos. 1 and 2 are mine. Amendments Nos. 4 to 9 were tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound), and I am sure that he will want to speak to his amendments in due course. They are good, well constructed amendments, and I shall be supporting them.
We had a good discussion on Second Reading, and I made clear my view, as did a number of my colleagues, some of whom are members of the Committee, that, for a number of reasons, the Bill is flawed. I shall not repeat what was said on Second Reading, but the amendments give us the chance to consider in detail some of the problems and flaws, and to see whether they can be ironed out. To an extent, the amendments are probing. They are intended to get answers from the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer), so that we can see where he stands.
The Bill’s title is typically bureaucratic, but I think that it is mistitled. As we can see from some of the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North, the Bill is not about the protection only of householders. Others could be covered by its provisions. I am sorry if some of the Bill’s supporters think that I am being a little cynical, but those who have to consider a Bill in Committee give the legislation a title of their own if its title does not quite fit in their mind. The title of the Criminal Law (Amendment) (Householder Protection) Bill does not quite stick in my mind, so I have been considering it under the title of “Kill a Burglar” Bill, because at its worst that is what it will authorise. I apologise for being a little cynical, but that is how I see it.
We are coming up to an election and the hon. Member for Newark will presumably be putting the Bill in his personal manifesto for his electorate—for him the Bill is, quite rightly, a good election campaigning point. I offer a word of advice. I do not think that it will go down particularly well if he says, “I promoted in Parliament my Criminal Law (Amendment) (Householder Protection) Bill.” Calling it a “Householder Protection” Bill would not be bad, but the rest is rather bureaucratic. It would be better still, in my view, if he said in his election manifesto that he had promoted his “Kill a Burglar” Bill. His electorate would at least know where he was coming from and what it was all about.