Crime (International Co-operation) Bill [HL]

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 6:00 pm on 3 March 2003.

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Photo of Baroness Anelay of St Johns Baroness Anelay of St Johns Conservative 6:00, 3 March 2003

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 84, 88 and 90, which are grouped with the government amendments. They aim simply to ask the Government to consider the drafting, as they are intended to clarify the clause itself.

As a result of the government amendments agreed to in Grand Committee, new Section 76A of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, inserted by Clause 82 of the Bill, refers to two types of officer. Those are a "foreign police or customs officer", defined in new Section 76A(9) of the 2000 Act, and a "United Kingdom officer", the definition of which is contained in the government amendment.

I fully accept that the government amendment goes a long way towards achieving a much better drafting of the clause. I have nothing against it. I am certainly as unhappy as my noble friend Lord Renton to add extra words to legislation. I always have his caveat in my ear when I try to do that. However, the words I suggest might assist clarity if the result of the Government's decision to amend the new section is to refer to two different types of officer. My amendments make it absolutely clear that the references to an officer in the relevant subsections are to a foreign police or customs officer, not to a United Kingdom officer.

It might be helpful if I also indicated to the Government and the House that I purposefully did not move my amendments in the preceding group. The Government will respond properly to them, and it would be otiose continually to say, "Yah boo, we got there first". I propose to say no more than one or two words when the Government deal with their Amendments Nos. 79 and 80, to point out issues to which we might want to come back on Third Reading if they have not been resolved before then.

My amendments in this group are merely on minor drafting matters, and I hope that the Government will say that they will look at them again before Third Reading.