Clause 5
Serious Crime Bill [Lords]
9:30 am
Crispin Blunt (Whip, Whips; Reigate, Conservative)
I think that we have had a particularly interesting debate. I want to congratulate Labour Members for doubling the number of Back Benchers who have spoken on the Bill. There were no set-piece speeches on Second Reading, although there were some interventions from the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-East (Mr. McFadden). Selection, therefore, must have been difficult for the Government.
However, there are important issues here about the context in which the amendments are being put forward; what we are doing to our assumptions about society; and co-operation by the public with the authorities that are sitting there with the powers that are being sought under this legislation. I hope that Committee members will reflect on the powers that we are seeking to take and on the different assumptions that exist on both sides of the Committee. Will Labour Members reflect on what is happening with the assumptions that underlie this legislation?
Earlier, the Minister gave us an example of a hotel or property owner whose premises were being used for trafficking. If the owner had brought the matter to the attention of the police, one would expect that most citizens would wish to co-operate with the police to ensure that that illegal activity did not continue on their premises.
There must be a limited number of occasions on which people turn round to the police and say, “Up yours, inspector. You can get on with it and doit yourself.” If there is no co-operation in such circumstances, that would leave the police to draw all sorts of conclusions about the nature of that individual and the amount of investigation that should then take place.
However, the Government’s answer to the perceived problem is to take a whole reef more powers to implement these orders so that the High Court can levy an order on those individuals who do not see the police as their people and refuse to co-operate. They have done it with terrorism prevention orders, control orders and, at the bottom end of the scale, ASBOs. We are now filling in the gap in the middle with serious crime prevention orders. There is a profound problem here about what will happen to the nature of the relationship between the state, the police and its agents and the rest of society.
The rest of society sees the state taking all those powers to itself—