Ivory Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 10:30 am on 19 June 2018.
Steve McCabe
Labour, Birmingham, Selly Oak
With this it will be convenient to discuss clauses 15 and 16 stand part.
David Rutley
Assistant Whip (HM Treasury), The Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
These clauses all refer to powers of stop-and-search to be conferred on police and customs officers. They refer to persons, vehicles, and vessels and aircraft respectively. Clause 14 confers on police and customs officers the power to stop and search persons. There is no power to stop and search where an officer suspects that a person has in his or her possession an ivory item that is not intended for dealing. In order to use the powers, an officer will need reasonable grounds to suspect that a person has committed or is committing an offence. That might include intelligence gathered about a planned sale of ivory, or information from the registration database that an item has been falsely registered. A police or customs officer may also detain a stopped person for the purpose of carrying out a search. The stop-and-search powers in clause 14 are exercisable in any place to which a police or customs officer has access, including any public place.
Clause 15 confers on police and customs officers the power to stop and search vehicles. Again, the power is engaged where an officer has reasonable grounds to suspect that a person has committed or is committing a “relevant offence”, as defined in clause 14(4). The power does not apply where the vehicle is a dwelling. A dwelling is not defined but is intended to be given its natural meaning—the exclusion would, for example, apply to a residential caravan. The power will apply to vehicles whether or not a driver or other person is in attendance of the vehicle.
Where it is impractical for a stopped vehicle to be searched in the place it was stopped, an officer may require the vehicle to be moved to another place before conducting the search. That provision would apply, for example, where a vehicle was stopped on a busy road and it would be safer to conduct the search in another location. Clause 15(4) places a duty on any person travelling in the vehicle, or the registered keeper, to facilitate the exercise of an officer’s power under the clause. For example, the driver of the vehicle may be required to open a locked glove box or boot. Again, those stop-and-search powers are exercisable in any place to which the officer has lawful access. That would enable a vehicle parked in a garage on premises that were the subject of a search warrant under clause 15(7) to be searched.
Clause 16 will confer on police and customs officers a power, analogous to that in clause 15, to board and search vessels or aircraft. A vessel is defined in clause 36(4) and includes any ship, boat or hovercraft. However, the power does not apply where a vessel or aircraft is used as a dwelling—a houseboat, for example.
