Part of Orders of the Day — Police and Criminal Evidence Bill – in the House of Commons at 5:30 pm on 3 May 1983.
I agree with the hon. and learned Member that the Government's definition of "serious arrestable offence" inserted towards the end of our proceedings in Committee is a massive improvement. However, I hope that his assertion that the definition contains a subjective element is not true. The definition states that the officer must have reason to believe that it is serious by reason of
(a) the nature of the offence; (b) the scale; (c) the degree of organisation;
and so on. If an officer must believe that, surely he makes an objective assessment and not a subjective one, as it was originally. To that extent, we have moved from subjectivity to objectivity, which is crucial.