I welcome the Minister's announcement. When the question of greater and extensive powers being given to authorised investigators first jumped on the Committee, grave concern was expressed, particularly by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Marshall) and the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon). The ability to channel powers and responsibilities into a code of practice is to be welcomed, and it ties in with a previous amendment in which we regularised the position of investigators as constables. The combination of the code of practice and the position of constables puts something that was vague, and therefore dangerous, when it was first presented to the Committee into a framework that may allay some of our earlier fears about the powers.

We welcome the proposal, but we shall have to see what is in the code before we can say that it is fully welcomed.