New Clause 2

Part of Orders of the Day — Police and Criminal Evidence Bill – in the House of Commons at 6:45 pm on 3 May 1983.

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Photo of Mr Robert Kilroy-Silk Mr Robert Kilroy-Silk , Ormskirk 6:45, 3 May 1983

I trust that the hon. Gentleman was referring to the proceedings in Standing Committee and not to the earlier debates today when he referred to my not being present. I accept the point that he makes, but he will acknowledge that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow said, whether we are protecting doctors, lawyers or journalists or those who confide in them the person who pays the penalty is the person whose home or workplace is searched. That is where the real degradation, humiliation and destruction of property occurs, and the protection afforded to the professionals does not apply to the ordinary citizen. We should not be introducing special categories and special privileges of that kind.

In taking that view, I am in remarkable company. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) said earlier that every national daily newspaper bar the Daily Telegraph was against the Bill. My right hon. Friend was uncharacteristically mistaken, as the Daily Telegraph is against it as well, and especially against the setting up of special categories. Its editorial of 22 April states: There is something, in principle, unsatisfactory about general laws which except special groups of people from their provisions. It continues later in the article: One's instinct is that a Bill which has to give special treatment to so many people is not rightly conceived in the first place, or else that the safeguards given to some should be extended to all. That is precisely my point about new clause 2 and the clauses that depend upon it.

The major question here is what evidence, if any, can be found for the need for more draconian powers. No one of any substance outside the House has been prepared to speak in favour of increased powers for the police to search the premises of innocent citizens. There has certainly been no vociferous police demand. Whether it be Association of Chief Police Officers, the Police Federation or the Police Superintendents' Association, they seem to have been remarkably unwilling publicly to support and to justify the proposal, and remarkably inhibited in defending the powers that the Government seek.

What serious problems have arisen to give rise to a demand from the police or whomever for such powers? In what specific cases have the police experienced obstacles? What crimes have gone undetected or criminals unconvicted due the absence of these powers? The Minister may have provided such evidence in Standing Committee but he has not publicly given it to those debating the matter in other forums and he certainly did not provide it in the very limited defence that he gave in moving his proposals today. The Home Secretary himself, in a recent incursion into print with an article in the Daily Express, gave a point by point defence of the controversial elements of the Bill—the powers to stop and search, to set up road blocks, and so on—but he made no mention of the powers to search premises for confidential documents or information. It is remarkable that, on his own initiative, he wrote an article for a newspaper defending the controversial aspects of the Bill, yet without making any reference to these clauses. No doubt he finds them, as they clearly are, indefensible.

Whether or not we can find anyone who can speak clearly and cogently in favour of the clauses, there is no doubt that numerous organisations and inviduals are bitterly opposed to them. No fewer than 170 organisations have made representations to the Home Secretary. In the light of that, and in the light of our debates, if the Government are sincere in wanting to get the matter right —rather than simply defending a dogma—they should accept the new clauses tabled by my right hon. and hon. Friends and many of the amendments put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, North. That certainly applies to amendments (a), (b), (f) and (i). In particular, amendment (i) imposes the test of whether the public good is served by either the issuing of a warrant or the protection of an individual. Such a test, injected into the legislation, would be a highly desirable innovation. It would require a justice or circuit judge to think about, and openly debate, whether the public good is served by giving the police powers, or whether it is served by protecting individual liberty. Of course, the public good involves the relationship that exists and must be sustained and encouraged between the police and the public.

As many hon. Members on both sides of the House have said, we all want an effective police force. We all want the police to have the powers necessary for it properly and successfully to carry out its duties. We want it to be able to detect crime, catch criminals and produce the evidence necessary to secure convictions in court. But the Opposition also want a police force that has the respect, confidence, good will and co-operation of the public. Apparently, we have always had such a police force. But if that confidence ever existed, it is now seriously in jeopardy. Such instances as those in Toxteth, Brixton, Moss Side and in parts of my constituency prove that. There was thuggery and vandalism by some members of the Metropolitan force in Railton road last year. Thugs were present at the annual conference of the Police Federation—the Prime Minister used the word "thugs" —when they heckled the Home Secretary and made it impossible for him to speak at the conference. Yet we are actually asking such thugs to be the custodians of our cherished civil liberties.

If we are to protect the confidence that the public are supposed to have in our police force, and if we are to sustain that, we must be careful to ensure that police officers only have the powers necessary for the proper performance of their duties, and that those powers are not abused.

I find it extraordinary that the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) can say that the need for these powers arises because the police do not have them but, in practice, use and abuse them—and, therefore, that we need to bring the law into line with practice. Such a statement is extraordinary and indefensible—albeit that similar remarks were implicit in the Home Secretary's article in the Daily Express.

Whatever we decide, it is clearly important that we have an effective and successful police force—and that depends on the consent, co-operation and confidence of the public. We must do nothing that will in any way erode or destroy that confidence. It is my fear that by these proposals, and by many other measures in the Bill, we shall embark not upon measures to reduce the level of criminality and sustain law and order, but upon measures that will create a greater distance between the public and the police, to the detriment of both and to the benefit of none.