Clause 9 - Licence conditions

Part of Private Security Industry Bill [Lords] – in a Public Bill Committee at 3:45 pm on 26 April 2001.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Charles Clarke Charles Clarke Minister of State, Home Office 3:45, 26 April 2001

This has been a helpful debate and I congratulate my right hon. Friend on introducing it.

In establishing its principles and drawing up the licence criteria, the authority must have due regard to all existing British standards. However, in the same way it must have due regard in particular to the situation in other European Union member states, but also, to take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Miller), to other international agreements as they arise. It must take into account any requirements relating to the single market and the free movement of services. The authority will be able to endorse British or European standards or codes of practice and to draw up new ones.

My right hon. Friend and I differed over amendment No. 13, but there is no such difference of opinion between us on the present question. He is right to raise it. Arising from the Tampere summit, which dealt with police co-operation and law and order, and the current discussions about, for example, the establishment of a European police college—which it is to be hoped will be located in the United Kingdom—increasing collaboration, as my right hon. Friend describes it, is a critical issue. Police collaboration is important in contesting international organised crime, particularly that involving class A drugs and the illegal movement of people, and in those matters co-operation between the private security industry and the police, internationally, is also necessary.

We do not, however, think it necessary to set those requirements out in legislation, as in the amendment, for the reason implied by the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey, that both practice and law will require the authority to do that.

In response to an earlier intervention, I mentioned that discussions are starting to take place in the European Union on the degree to which barriers may arise to the operation of the single market in the private security industry. I also said that I anticipated initiatives to address the issue in the EU context in the relatively near future. I hope that those will establish a framework within which such matters can be effectively addressed, in the way set out in amendments Nos. 6 and 7. I believe that that will be their effect.

On the points made by the hon. Member for Surrey Heath, I am aware in general of the directive to which he referred. On Second Reading and in Committee, I have described the consultation that the Department of Trade and Industry will hold with the IT security industry, and that is the right way to tackle the issue: there are compatibilities that can deal with it. By chance, I was informally discussing the matter with the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry last night. A consultant in the IT security industry had lobbied him on the matter on a train coming up from Devon. That proves that this is a matter of current debate among politicians travelling among the people.

Mr. Hawkins rose—