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Mr. Grieve: I am interested in the hon. and learned Lady's comments about the clause. We support the intention behind it, and the amendments were designed to ensure that it operates correctly. She has encapsulated some of our concerns.
I will make a further and related point. Police officers must exercise judgment and take decisions about whether they should make arrests. The greater flexibility that the measure provides will be a powerful tool for the police to remove bureaucratic problems, and will probably enable them to deal with multiple offenders simultaneously.
However, the legislation should not be used as a substitute for judgment about whether to arrest. I am anxious that it should not be used as a blunderbuss, so that people become irritated that they are being placed under a sanction that may require their subsequent attendance at a police station, only then to be told that the matter will not be proceeded with, when it could have been resolved at an earlier stage. That is not desirable. Careful implementation will be needed, and appropriate guidelines must be issued to the police so that the legislation is used correctly. It must not be seen as a tool of administrative convenience that leads to people being inconvenienced by the police rather than being brought to justice. We must be careful to guard against that.
Mr. Allen: May I briefly support my hon. and learned Friend? Amendment No. 75 also aimed to ensure that there would be objective criteria rather than reliance on subjective judgment.
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I leave the Minister with one thought as he sups his cocoa. These provisions aim to free up police time and reduce bureaucracy. Will he give some thought, as he puts on his nightcap tonight, to what we will do with that extra time? Can we quantify it and put it to use for the people whom we have been discussing—even those in Nottingham, North or anywhere else?
6.30 pm
Hilary Benn: On that last point, all hon. Members will have a long list of uses to which they would like to put additional police officers' time in their constituencies, so I do not think that that will be a problem in practice. That is why all members of the Committee have welcomed the provision.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) made a point about property. Property can be seized under section 18, but as she will be aware, that would apply equally to someone who was subject to the provisions of street bail.
On the guidance, which clearly will be very important, I understand hon. Members' desire to see what it might look like, but one must ensure that it is written with regard to the process that Parliament goes through in deciding legislation, and not anticipate the final form. I was much taken by the point made by the hon. Member for Beaconsfield about the importance of getting the guidance right. I undertake to reflect on the nature of the guidance, but I do not want to submit to hon. Members' understandable wish to get something quickly to look at, and in so doing get the drafting wrong. If I did, people would tell me that I had not got it right, and we would end up in more difficulty. I would rather get the guidance right than draft it quickly.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 3, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 4
Use of telephones for review of
police detention
Mr. Grieve: I beg to move amendment No. 12, in
clause 4, page 4, line 19, after 'out', insert 'with the authority of an officer with the rank of superintendent or above'.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to take amendment No. 30, in
clause 4, page 4, line 20, leave out 'with' and insert 'between an officer of at least the rank of inspector and'.
Mr. Grieve: The amendment would make an important and sensible change. The intention behind the clause was clear to me when I first read it, but became much less clear when I started to consider what was already in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, and when I read the explanatory notes. I may have completely misunderstood what is intended, in which case the Minister will put me right.
The explanatory notes state that the provision
''enables reviews of the continuing need for detention without charge . . . to be conducted over the telephone rather than in person at the police station'',
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as is currently the case. However, under section 40 of the 1984 Act, provision is made for review when a person has been arrested and not charged. Section 40(1)(b) states that a review must be carried out
''in the case of a person who has been arrested but not charged, by an officer of at least the rank of inspector who has not been directly involved in the investigation.''
Section 40A(1) states:
''This section applies, notwithstanding anything in section 40 above, where in the case of a person who has been arrested but not charged . . . it is not reasonably practicable for an officer of at least the rank of inspector to be present in the police station where that person is held to carry out any review of that person's detention that is required by subsection (1)(b) of that section''.
The review is not a conferencing review. Section 40A(2) continues:
''The review may be carried out by an officer of at least the rank of inspector who has access to a means of communication by telephone to persons in the police station where the arrested person is held.''
The Minister and I may be on common ground, but under the current rules it is possible to carry out reviews of detention of a person who has not been charged by telephone. To that extent, the explanatory notes are misleading or I have not understood something important about them. What is the consequence of the clause as it stands?
The new subsection seems to remove the need for the involvement of any police officer at inspector rank. It states:
''A review under section 40(1)(b) may be carried out by means of a discussion, conducted by telephone, with one or more persons at the police station where the arrested person is held.''
The new subsection does not specify who is supposed to carry out the necessary discussion. It is a wondrously nebulous concept that to carry out a review one has only to pick up a telephone and talk to some unspecified disembodied individual at the other end. What is the intention behind this provision? I detect that the need for the inspector's presence at the other end of the telephone has been removed.
Vera Baird: The hon. Gentleman has ''Archbold'' there, so can he tell us who is required to carry out a review under the existing section 40(1)(b) of PACE?
Mr. Grieve: Yes. Under that section, when a person is arrested but not charged, the work must be done by an officer of at least the rank of inspector who has not been directly involved in the investigation. The new section 40A appears to add the rider that if the inspector is not present at the police station, he can communicate over the telephone with those who are. It is perfectly comprehensible.
It is noteworthy that new section 40A does not specify that the inspector should not be the one who is engaged in the investigation. That follows logically because he is not at the police station at the time. I understand the present rules, but not what the new rules are intended to achieve. As I told the Minister, something is missing from the explanatory notes, which I do not understand, so the purpose of the amendments is to probe the position. Until I can
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understand what the Minister intends, it is difficult to know how best to amend the provisions.
I find it particularly difficult to understand why the need for a police officer of at least inspector rank should be removed from the process entirely. Is that the intention? At this stage, the best thing would be for me to sit down and listen to what the Minister has to say. I shall then exercise my right of reply if I am dissatisfied with his explanation.
Simon Hughes: I shall speak in support of the hon. Gentleman. I have been round this course before when we debated the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill a year ago. On another previous Bill, too, we discussed changing the rank of police officer—bringing it down a peg from inspector to superintendent—appropriate to authorise detention powers. We also debated the perfectly reasonable proposition of enabling some form of checking from afar in order to avoid making police officers run around different police stations.
Two questions follow from the two amendments. The first is, what is the justification in practical terms for moving down a peg in seniority in these cases? Logically, the more it becomes possible to review from a distance, the less the need for a low-ranked officer. Understandably, if someone had to be in the station, it would have to be a superintendent, because an inspector could not get to the station every six or nine hours. However, if it were someone from afar, they would not need to be of a lower rank, because inspectors are available across a police force area very easily down a telephone. The proposal is for a twin-track change, to reduce the seniority of the officer and to allow them to conduct reviews from a distance. The Minister must justify both the parts to which I have referred.
Secondly, with regard to the amendment and the clause as a whole, it is not clear quite what the line of communication will be, as the hon. Member for Beaconsfield said. I have a proposition to test that for the Minister. If a person and their legal representative accept from the beginning that the person is likely to be detained for a long time for various reasons, there will be no great concern periodically. Everyone will almost have signed up in advance to the fact that the six-hour or nine-hour check will happen. If there is consent, a video link from afar may be used—even, arguably, with a less senior officer.
Let us imagine, however, that the case is controversial. It could involve a young adult who had come under the remit of the Youth Justice Board, which has made clear its views about the sort of detention that we are discussing. That would involve wholly different considerations. One might want to insist that a more senior officer be in the cell at the police station to see what is going on, in order to satisfy everyone, not least the young adult, that their interests are being looked after.
I am anxious that we should know much more clearly the two justifications that we have probed with the amendments, and the linked justification for the
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much less clear line of communication proposed by the clause.
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