Alex Norris: It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dame Angela. I rise to speak to amendment 62. Clause 32 and the weighty schedule that it introduces deal with confiscation orders and the regime that governs them. As the Minister says, they are not technical; they are substantial and important. It is safe to say that it is a matter of unanimity across the House that where people are convicted who...
Alex Norris: Will the Minister give way on that point?
Alex Norris: The Bill defines many terms, and I hope that “crook” will become one such term at a later stage. It is a great phrase. In previous debates, the Minister has said that putting things on the record may be valuable to future court interpretation. What I am hearing from the Government is a clear message that by “risk of dissipation”, we are talking about not acts of or in the throes of,...
Alex Norris: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether a Minister in her Department leads on policy on supporting children through parental separation.
Alex Norris: The Minister is being very generous with his time. There is a degree of comfort with the point about regulation. If concerns continue to grow about the use of DVLA data in retrospective facial recognition, Parliament will have its day. And on that basis, I will not divide the Committee. However, I want to press the Minister on something else. He is right to say that this clause is an enabling...
Alex Norris: So it is for that, then.
Alex Norris: The second point and the tone of the Minister’s contribution certainly give me a degree of comfort. The first point does not give me any comfort at all. The line that he quoted, which provides that the Secretary of State “may prescribe only such purposes and circumstances as are related to policing or law enforcement”, is a landing zone as wide as could possibly be needed to give police...
Alex Norris: I absolutely agree, and that is exactly the point I am about to make. It is a legitimate anxiety. If that is wrong and I am somehow being conspiratorial, albeit it is not my nature, the Minister can tell me and that would give me a degree of comfort, but I think, and it has been expressed to me by interest groups, that there is a legitimate anxiety that the clause could mean that the police...
Alex Norris: I give way to the Minister; nothing would please me more than to be contradicted.
Alex Norris: There is a significant difference between what the Minister talks about, which is using, on an individual basis, information that is available to cross-reference—perhaps to deal with known aliases or known addresses—and where this could go. I mean a broad-scale use of surveillance, seemingly without any guardrails, that would essentially allow tens of millions—I think it is in the...
Alex Norris: “Proportionality” is the exact word here. It is about finding balance, as I say, between individual liberty and our collective safety. If we are saying that, in all instances where the police have a photo of a possible offender, we have complete comfort about their searching the entire DVLA database to try and identify that person—well, that is a very significant change. I would argue...
Alex Norris: I am sorry to ask the right hon. Member to give way, because I have said so much—but I guess the point I was making about the Beyoncé concert was about having a defined watch list of people known and suspected of having done significant crimes. Such measures feel like a proportionate tactic to apprehend them, but is that enough for us to say that therefore everybody’s faces ought to be...
Alex Norris: It is a pleasure to resume proceedings with you in the Chair, Ms Bardell. I shall resist the temptation to start again for your benefit; I am sure you can look in the Official Report should you want to see the first part of my contribution. I was talking about the inclusion of non-disclosure requirements in suspension orders, and I want to understand what the Minister thinks their function...
Alex Norris: I want to speak to amendment 60 in my name. I do not know whether the Official Report can capture this, but my feeling is, “Hmm!” There are things I hoped the Minister would say, not least because it would have reduced my contribution by half, but he did not, so I will have to see whether I can get him to say them. This is a very important clause. It is a long-standing, accepted principle...
Alex Norris: Just briefly, what the Minister has said is in the Bill is welcome. I still think that a stronger signal on tightness may yet need to be furnished. The rubber will meet the road at subsection (2)(b) of proposed new section 26A—that the specified items are on the specified premises. If that was seen to be done on an intelligence basis or possibly a word-of-mouth basis, that might discomfort...
Alex Norris: Given the time left in this sitting, I thought there was a degree of optimism when the Minister stood up on a matter related to some degree to illegal gambling and thought it would be quick; I will try to bring my remarks in under the wire, but I may fail, when I assume I will be cut off in my prime. Much of our discussions so far have had a digital and online dimension: the sale of knives...
Alex Norris: I am grateful for colleagues’ contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for Bootle raised a couple of points. We must always hold in our head how things will operate in practice. What is in the Bill is in the Bill but often what happens in that moment—perhaps a moment of challenge or conflict at 11.30 on a Friday night—can feel very different from what is in the Bill. We ought to hold...
Alex Norris: I am grateful for the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle. His points about human rights are really important. In this Committee, and during the Bill’s remaining stages in this place and down the other end of the building, we will have to fine-tune—I think that is the phrase he used—the balance of these provisions. The Opposition certainly do not support routine...
Alex Norris: I beg to move amendment 58, in clause 19, page 16, line 24, at end insert— “(4) The Secretary of State must, as soon as is practicable after a period of two years from the date of Royal Assent to this Act, lay before Parliament a report on the implementation and utilisation of the police powers introduced by this section.” This amendment would require the Secretary of State to publish a...
Alex Norris: There are considerable concerns about clause 19, as colleagues have demonstrated by tabling amendment 2. As far as amendments to Bills tabled by people who are not Committee members go, the range of signatories to amendment 2 is interesting. It shows that there is interest from a wide range of colleagues with a wide range of world views, so it is important that we take the time to look at the...