Clause 16 - Samples submitted for further analysis
Drugs Bill
11:15 am
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Chesham and Amersham, Conservative)
Subsection (2) provides that
''If a requirement ceases to have effect by virtue of subsection (1), a police officer must so inform the person concerned.''
No time limit is attached to that provision. Will the Minister confirm that such information should be passed on on a fairly immediate basis? Police officers should not have an open-ended time scale in which to inform someone that they have effectively been let off, because that could be used in all sorts of ways about which I do not want to speculate in public, and which I hope will never arise.