Clause 30
Policing and Crime Bill
1:15 pm
Alan Campbell (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Tynemouth, Labour)
It is a rare occasion when I hope that no young people read the record of the Committee and discover the power that the hon. Member for West Chelmsford tells us that they have; I will return to that point in a moment.
The hon. Member for Chesterfield asked whether the power is necessary, because all existing powers are—I think he said—superfluous, but that is certainly not the case. The power should be seen for what it is, which is a power to plug a particular gap that has been flagged up to the Committee during the evidence sessions by the police, who complain of a situation where a mixed group of young people might be having alcohol and causing trouble, or have the potential to cause trouble. There is a clear power for those aged 16 and over, but it might be a mixed group we are talking about, so what do we do with the younger members of that group? Just because they might be younger, it does not mean that they might not be the most serious perpetrators of disorder or trouble among that group—that is what the clause is about.
The hon. Gentleman states that it might be more suitable just to move children on, and there is nothing in the Bill that would prevent a police officer from doing that. It takes us back to the point raised throughout our deliberations in this part of the Bill about allowing the police to use their discretion and ensuring that they have the power that they need. In their view—a view that we share—it is a power that they may need to use in some circumstances, but it is a power that they do not yet have.