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Mr. Douglas Hogg (Sleaford and North Hykeham): The Minister says that the military code tends to follow PACE. If so, I follow his points, but given the degree to which it diverges from PACE, it seems that the Minister is on a bad point.
Mr. Ainsworth: I have said that, by and large, the code tends to follow PACE. I do not know whether the right hon. and learned Gentleman considers it useful to take up the time of the House discussing what are effectively duplications in most cases. I shall be happy to listen to views on that. However, we do not believe that there is a case for the affirmative resolution procedure to be used, certainly in regard to analogous codes.
Mr. James Clappison (Hertsmere): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Minister has repeatedly adverted to the inadequacy of the timetable motion. Is there any way in which the Minister and the Government can return to a further programming committee to seek more time so that we can properly debate the Bill? The Minister keeps saying that inadequate time is the reason for not debating matters in this place. That is the message that is coming from the horse's mouth. Can you help the Government out of the fix of their own making?
Mr. Speaker: It is not a matter for the Minister because the House has decided to agree to the programme motion, and therefore it is the property of the House.
Mr. Ainsworth: The hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) should listen to what I say. I was talking
about whether it would be useful for the House to spend time discussing changes to the military codes in future. I was not talking about the time that we spend dealing with the Bill now. We would have had a little more time today if Members had not spoken against the programme motion and divided on it. We would have had an extra hour and a quarter to discuss these matters rather than the truncated debate that will now take place.As for amendment No. 122, we believe that it is sensible to extend the consultation requirements to the Law Society and the Bar Council but that it is unnecessary to extend them to the Institute of Legal Executives. The Law Society and the Bar Council adequately represent a broad range of legal perspectives. The institute could be consulted where a particular need arose.
Amendment No. 167 relates to consulting the Home Affairs Committee. That needs to be considered in line with what I said earlier about potential changes to the code.
Mr. Grieve: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Ainsworth: I would like to give way to the hon. Gentleman, but Conservative Back Benchers are demanding that I take less time at the Dispatch Box. The hon. Gentleman speaks for the Opposition Front Bench, and I will give way to him if he wishes me to do so. However, I hope that I do not get—
Mr. Grieve: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Ainsworth: I will not give way. I shall make some progress.
I move on to the amendments to clause 9, which deals with powers of arrest for possession of class C drugs. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced his intention to bring forward reclassification of cannabis from class B to class C under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. In conjunction with that, my right hon. Friend announced that the police would continue to be able to arrest persons for offences of possession of cannabis where public order was threatened.
Under guidance issued by the Association of Chief Police Officers, for most offences of cannabis possession, a police warning will be sufficient along with confiscation of the drug. However, where there is a public order problem or where children are at risk, the result could be an arrest. We do not believe that clause 9 sends mixed messages. The message that we are sending is that cannabis is harmful, but not as harmful as other class A or B drugs. That is reflected in law enforcement. The power of arrest for possession of cannabis will be used sparingly, and the penalties are different.
On amendments Nos. 57 to 59, it would be inconsistent with the principles underlying the classification structure of the Misuse of Drugs Act to have a specific law for cannabis. The Government believe that it is right that cannabis should be in class C. The power of arrest would be used only in limited circumstances. In practice, we envisage very few cases
indeed where the power of arrest would be appropriate in relation to other class C drugs. The problem is more apparent than real.
Mr. Grieve: With regard to new clauses 14 and 15, the Opposition fully understand the concern of the police that it may be a powerful tool in the detection of crime if they have the opportunity, when somebody is arrested and brought into the police station for another matter, to obtain, prior to charge, non-intimate DNA samples and to take fingerprints, so as to check whether that person might be wanted in connection with some other, possibly far more serious, matter. It is a pragmatic approach, but it is based on the knowledge that often, when police officers pick up somebody for some minor matter, something far more serious may be lurking behind.
If that were the sole purpose of the new clauses, we would be willing to go along with it. But the Government are seeking through the new clauses to add to a mischief that they introduced in the 2001 Act and to provide that, although somebody may have no criminal conviction against their name and may never even have been charged with any offence, the material collected from them by way of a non-intimate DNA sample or by way of fingerprint when they are brought into the police station will be retained and added to the national database. That potentially involves a very large number of people. Some 1.2 million people per annum are arrested for possible recordable offences, although that does not mean that that number are charged.
The Minister seemed to miss the point when he answered the intervention earlier. There may well be a thoroughly sound argument that matters have moved on so much in the possibilities of scientific analysis and detection that the time has come when, for the sake of the prevention of crime, all of us, law-abiding and non-law-abiding, should voluntarily or compulsorily provide our DNA and our fingerprints to the state, so that if an offence is committed, rapid checks can be carried out. There are some who would oppose that on civil liberties grounds. It would undoubtedly be a considerable intrusion into civil liberties, but it is perfectly capable of rational justification, if that is what the Minister wishes to do.
However, what is being done through the new clauses is yet again to create a new category of—excuse me using the word—Untermenschen, a sort of sub-people who, although they may have done nothing wrong, must figure in the national database, whereas other people are excluded from it. I find that, as a philosophical position, deeply unsatisfactory and offensive. The Conservatives objected to the 2001 extension for that reason. Whatever the Court of Appeal may say or do, I disagree with it. The court is there to interpret the law. Parliament passed the law. In this context, it was a thoroughly bad law, and now the Minister's proposals would compound the matter.
Law-abiding people who have never been in trouble with the police in their life, who were taken into the police station for some minor matter from which they may be totally exonerated half an hour or 45 minutes later, will find, to their deep resentment that their DNA and fingerprints have been added to the national
database. The opportunities for abuse of the measure are obvious. The police can easily arrest somebody and release them afterwards. The chances of anybody having some subsequent recourse or bringing proceedings are slight. People do not normally act in that way. I say to the Minister that there will be a new class of people who are dissatisfied and discontented with the way in which policing is carried out in this country. As my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) recently pointed out, the state is good on the easy cases—it arrests and criminalises people who are usually law-abiding—but poor at dealing with those whom society requires should be dealt with. For those reasons, we object to the new clause, and if the Government are not prepared to accept an amendment ensuring that the DNA and fingerprints would be destroyed, we will oppose it.4.30 pm
Lady Hermon (North Down): As the hon. Gentleman, too, was present at the many Standing Committee sittings, he will recall clearly that the Minister who was then responsible for the Bill frequently prayed in aid experience, practice and procedure in other common-law jurisdictions. Is he aware of any other common-law jurisdiction in which such provision is the practice or procedure?
Mr. Grieve: I am not aware of any such jurisdiction. Indeed, on normal common-law principles, the provision is highly offensive. It runs contrary to every aspect of our national tradition, because law-abiding individuals who do not bring themselves into trouble by being successfully prosecuted and convicted should not have any personal details about them retained on police files—in particular, their fingerprints and DNA.
I object fundamentally to the proposal and I do not understand the rationale behind it. Indeed, when I met the Association of Chief Police Officers to discuss the proposal when it was first raised, it did not suggest that such material had to be retained. It wanted power to obtain fingerprints and DNA to make the comparison, but there was no suggestion that it wanted to add those data to the national database.
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