Clause 60 - Power to enter and seize documents
Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill
10:45 am
Mr David Heath (Shadow Minister (Home Affairs), Home Affairs; Somerton and Frome, Liberal Democrat)
Precisely so. I am grateful to the hon. and learned Lady for that point, because the ramifications of such exposure for that person's life could be extraordinary. A company could be destroyed. A person's privacy could be destroyed. They could attract the attention of the very criminals who are sought by the enforcement agency. That is a serious point, although I do not want to overstate it, because I do not believe that it will be SOCA's policy for its representatives to be trailed by television cameras wherever they go. However, it is perfectly reasonable to say that the people who may accompany a person executing a warrant should be there for the purposes of executing the warrant and not for any other, extraneous purposes.