Clause 30
Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill
7:45 pm
Edward Garnier (Shadow Minister, Justice; Harborough, Conservative)
In the light of what the Minister said, I wonder whether she could publish the list of excluded matters. I do not suppose that it needs to be in the Bill, but it certainly needs to be made public so that we all know what we are legislating about and what the Government have in mind when it comes to considering the remit of the commissioner.
The Minister said that the Secretary of State would ensure that the commissioner would not deal with police matters. I am concerned about deaths in police custody. Schedule 8, which is titled “The Commissioner’s deaths remit”, says:
“A death of a person while in the custody, or under the control or escort, of prison officers or prisoner custody officers anywhere in the world.”
I am not sure about Government amendments Nos. 315, 316, 302, 304, 317 and 310 to 312, which we will discuss under that schedule, because I have not looked at them, although I know that amendments Nos. 315 and 316 deal with Scotland. I sincerely hope that Government amendments will not delete paragraph 2 of schedule 8, but we need a little bit of clarification from somebody. Operation Safeguard has been extended until the end of the year and I have no doubt that the Minister of State will be extending it until Christmas 2008, given the way we are going at the moment.
The official Opposition think that setting up the commissioner is a good thing. We want him to do a thorough job on behalf of the public and we ask the Minister for a bit of clarity about the commissioner’s remit in relation to the investigation of deaths in custody, especially police custody, and how that fits into what she told us a moment ago.