New Clause 12 - Interception of communications (No. 4)
Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill
11:15 am
Ms Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Crime Reduction, Policing & Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)
I shall be delighted to do that, because I found it extremely useful to go back to the source material that we are talking about; sometimes, the issues are not that apparent from the Bill, and I shall be delighted to obtain that material during the lunch break so that we can discuss them. The point is important, and I am trying to establish that we are dealing not with a new set of criteria, but with criteria that have existed for 20 years, which have been tested through time and found to be extremely worth while.
At the moment, there is a range of arrestable and serious arrestable offences, for which the power of arrest is automatic, so the constable does not necessarily have to think about whether it is right to make an arrest. We want to move to a position in which all offences are arrestable, but the constable must then clearly go through a consideration process to determine whether it is necessary to execute an arrest in the circumstances of the offence.
Rather than lowering the threshold for accountability, we are almost raising it; we are saying that the constable must think carefully, exercising his or her professional discretion, training and skills to reach a decision in the particular circumstances. They will not simply have the automatic power of arrest and be able to arrest someone without thinking about it; they will have to go through the necessity test because it will be looked at in court and perhaps by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which will have judicial oversight. Having to go through that process places quite a rigorous burden on the constable, given that he or she does not have to go through it at the moment.