Schedule - Hatred against people on racial or religious grounds
Racial and Religious Hatred Bill
1:00 pm
Paul Goggins (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wythenshawe and Sale East, Labour)
I join the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) in welcoming you to the Chair, Mr. Benton. You will be our final Chairman, as this is the final sitting in Committee, but you are very welcome.
The hon. Gentleman discussed the powers of arrest, but he showed great powers of recovery in the first few moments of his speech. We know that he is an authority on citizen’s arrest, not least through personal experience, which I thought he might have shared with the Committee—perhaps he will on another occasion. He clearly understands that the powers of citizens to arrest were covered in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and clarified further and, indeed, extended in the Serious and Organised Crime and Police Act 2005.
Citizen’s arrests take place in unusual circumstances, and there are a number of safeguards, of which the hon. Gentleman will be aware. First, they are available only for indictable offences, although, as he rightly pointed out, all indictable offences are covered. Secondly, there have to be reasonable grounds to believe that it is necessary to carry out a citizen’s arrest. Thirdly, it must appear to the person making the citizen’s arrest that it is not reasonably practical for a police officer to attend and carry out an arrest.
I am aware from the comments that the hon. Gentleman and others have made that there is a fear that coupling the new offence with the power of citizen’s arrest may lead to people acting inappropriately or over-zealously, which might raise rather than reduce tensions as we intend. I do not think that that will happen, and I hope that I can reassure the hon. Gentleman. First, that has not happened in nearly 20 years of operating the race-hate legislation. I understand that he may consider that there are differences; he has explained to the Committee that he thinks that there is a difference between race and faith and that some adherents to religious beliefs may act differently.