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Mr. John Gummer (Suffolk, Coastal): I am concerned because, if there is a need for sub-paragraph (4), it means that a considerable number of people would have to be apprehended under that provision. If it were to apply only occasionally, it is unlikely that we should be dealing with the matter in that way. The more people who come under that category, the more difficult it is to explain or to defend the whole procedure, as my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Malins) suggested.
We are in danger with this measure, because, as none of us like football hooligans and naturally want to stop them travelling abroad and lowering the reputation of our country, we start with the assumption that the Home Secretary must be right in trying to find an answer to the problem. However, many of us are concerned that he has found not one answer, but several. After each successive attempt to find the right answer, he has found that his previous answer was wrong.
It is not possible to believe that, if a period of 24 hours was considered essential three days ago, a period of four hours, with a possible extension to six hours has now become practicable. I suspect that it has not. I suspect that the Home Secretary has discovered that perfectly reasonable, decent, sensible, law-abiding, non-hooligan Members of the House recognise that detention for 24 hours is intolerable if it takes place because a constable believes that someone may have done something in the past that does not--or will not until the Bill is amended--constitute criminality or may in future do something that does not constitute criminality, but that may contribute to violence or disorder.
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If we bring the period down to four hours, we shall face the problem that my hon. Friend the Member for Woking raised. At places where we expect large numbers of people to congregate to go to a match abroad, we shall need not only large numbers of police officers but new arrangements for magistrates to operate. I do not believe that there will be all those policemen or the arrangements for the magistrates. The provision will not work. The same people will return to the same ports and travel abroad to make the same row and the Home Secretary will return to the House and say, "I am frightfully sorry. I did my best, but the provision did not work." That is what worries me about this clause.
The House appears to be saying that there is a problem for which there must be an answer. Any answer will do--the period can change from 24 hours to 4 hours--because if we do not have an answer, people will say that we are not doing our job. However, the worst job that we can possibly do is produce an answer that we know will not work just because we think that we must do something.
Mr. Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield): If one reads the Bill, one might imagine that the court procedures will take five minutes. However, court procedures with the opportunity, I assume, of some form of representation for those brought before the court are likely to take days. Individual cases will take hours and, if they are not resolved in that period, they may take days, with adjournments, so that the necessary evidence may be adduced.
Mr. Gummer: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Because that might happen, the tendency will be to treat
such cases like speeding offences. It does not matter whether one gets the cases wrong because the important point is to get them through. The provisions in the Bill are serious because I fear that local magistrates will have no alternative but to proceed at a pace that does not fairly give people an opportunity to ensure that they put their case and are heard properly. Magistrates will be tempted to think, "I'm sure this officer is doing the best thing. Indeed, if I do not accept that, I shall undermine an important provision that is necessary if the reputation of my country is to be defended."
Mr. Simon Hughes: The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The implications are that if someone cannot be brought before the magistrates within 24 hours--a notice being served after he has been held by a police officer for four or six hours--he is bound to be released. That will discredit the earlier part of the process and, in reality, many people will probably be in that category.
Mr. Gummer: The hon. Gentleman is not only right, but does not go far enough. I hope that the Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but my reading of the clause is that the constable may give the person a notice in writing that requires that person to do several things and the constable can take the passport away. In the debates on Second Reading and in those held so far today, we have not been clear enough about what that would mean. Passports are not granted through the grace of Governments, but are owned by citizens as the result of their being a citizen of the European Union and the British Isles.
Mr. Gummer: I shall give way in a moment. I want to restate that that is an important issue. Taking away someone's passport is not a mere passing matter, and the House should be extremely concerned if they cannot get it back because the process takes longer than the period that we are discussing. I am not sure to which boiling pot on which side of the House I should give way, but I shall give way to my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) first and then the hon. Member for Watford (Ms Ward).
Mr. Simon Burns (West Chelmsford): I do not know whether my right hon. Friend has recently looked at page 3 of his passport, which states that the passport is the property of Her Majesty's Government and that an individual may keep it only as long as Her Majesty's Government wants him or her to.
Mr. Gummer: I have certainly read that, but I am also aware of the fact that, in this country, we have always felt that the passport is a disagreeable necessity which is required because other people tend to stop our citizens if they are unable to present one. One does not need a passport, which is just a convenience for making sure that one does not get stopped. It is true that, in this House, we have always felt that the passport is a matter not of grace, but of right. I do not wish the provision to undermine that fundamental belief, which is why the amendments are crucial to ensure that the Bill is not a pain.
Ms Ward: Would the right hon. Gentleman accept that there are already precedents in law for the removal of
passports that may not relate to criminal convictions? For example, a court can remove a passport on the basis of a bail condition or in relation to a feared child abduction. Under existing law, courts have the power to remove a passport under football banning orders. The right hon. Gentleman suggested that a passport cannot be taken away, but it can be removed under certain circumstances.
Mr. Gummer: Not for the first time, the hon. Lady has mistaken the position. She referred to occasions on which the courts remove passports. We are considering a position in which policemen remove passports. I am merely saying that if one holds a passport as a matter of right and importance, taking it away is of considerable concern, and I want due process of law. If one follows the matter through, the court will not be in a position to undertake such action within the reasonable period to which the Minister referred.
The Minister is trying to get there, and has spent a lot of time altering his first thoughts to second, third and fourth thoughts, but he is not there yet. At the moment, if the power is to be used sensibly, it will have to be used for more than the occasional person. It could be used for a significant number of people--after all, we were talking about 300, 400 or 500 people being sent back, let alone the ones who were prevented from going out--and the numbers that we talked about when discussing the reasons for this rushed legislation lead us to believe that there will be many people in one place and the courts and the police will not be able to deal with them. The provision is therefore not tolerable unless there is significant alteration.
Unusually, I find myself in some sympathy with the amendments tabled by Liberal Democrat Members, who do not normally table amendments for which I have any sympathy and, of course, they belong to a party with which it is difficult to sympathise.
On this occasion, however, as must be true in the random nature of life, they have hit on something closer to truth than is their habit. They have suggested that it would be a good idea if we did not introduce the Bill in this way but went away and thought about it again.
We have suggested a number of ways in which we could do that, such as having a small gap between the different stages in this House. We were told, rather unconvincingly, by the Home Secretary that he had had a few words with people and they thought that it could not be done. Well, they ought to have found a way of doing it. I worked out the number of days, and it is perfectly possible to do it. There is no reason why the Government should not have given us more time, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) pointed out. We are subject to the disagreeable necessity of asking the Home Secretary whether, given that by his own admittance he has got the legislation wrong several times in a short period, he should not give himself the benefit of the doubt and allow himself more time to think about it.
I do not want to be churlish to the Home Secretary because it is kind of him to have given way on a number of issues, although he probably did so because he realised that he was wrong. That is why I want to argue with his position on the amendments, particularly those that my right hon. Friend has said that she may press if he does
not give her a better answer. We can argue about parties disagreeing on amendments and about Members being in favour of guillotines when they are in government and against them when they are in opposition, but sometimes the Opposition are trying to help the Government. On this occasion, the official Opposition and the Liberal Democrats wish to help the Government to avoid getting themselves in a pickle, and no doubt the Welsh nationalists, Ulster Unionists and others would share that wish if they were here.I remember that, from time to time, the previous Government tabled legislation that had the universal support of the House. If anyone asked them whether they were quite sure that it was right, they said that it must be right because everybody wanted it. I have been in the House for about 25 years and I have come to suspect any proposal that everybody seems to be happy with. I find that the press are very happy with a measure until they start to wonder whether it would not be better to do something else, which they start to do the moment that something goes wrong.
I end with a message to the Minister which I hope he will pass on to the Home Secretary. The worst task in the House is that of the Minister who has to defend actions that were popular when proposed but which turn out to be a disaster. All those people who supported him when he proposed the measures do not turn up, and the only ones present are people such as my hon. Friends. We will all turn up and tell the Minister, "I told you so. We tried to be helpful and you didn't listen to us."
I simply say to the Minister that it would do the Government good to step back and give themselves more time by accepting amendments such as those in the names of my hon. Friends and of Liberal Democrat Members. I suppose, therefore, that I hope that they will not accept them, because obviously they will get in a mess and I ought to be pleased that they will be in yet another mess--they are getting into a mess most of the time. On this occasion, however, I must try to help the Government simply because this is not a trivial matter but one of considerable importance.
I have young sons, and many hon. Members have young sons and daughters who, with their friends, could so easily and quite innocently be affected by the Bill, and their first brush with the law should not be in circumstances so ill conceived, ill thought through and badly drafted as the fourth proposal in the Bill. I hope that the Government will think again, even though if they do not, I suppose that we might have a drink on the fact that within six months they will feel very silly indeed and wish that they had listened.
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