Standing Committee G
Tuesday 13 May 2003
(Afternoon)
[Mr. Bill O'Brien in the Chair]
Clause 32
Powers of community support officers
Amendment proposed [this day]: No. 173, in
clause 32, page 26, line 4, leave out subsection (2).—[Mrs. Brooke.]
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Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.
The Chairman: I remind the Committee that with this we are taking the following:
Amendment No. 174, in
clause 32, page 26, line 7, leave out subsection (3).
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Bob Ainsworth): I was about to conclude my comments on the Liberal Democrat amendment by saying that individual chief police officers will have to decide in each case whether to designate community support officers with the powers, as they do for designating CSOs with any other powers. The chief police officer will therefore have to ensure that the person designated is comfortable with the designation and has had the appropriate training to be able to exercise the powers that we seek to give them. In the light of my explanations, I hope that the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mrs. Brooke) will be prepared to withdraw the amendment.
Mrs. Annette L. Brooke (Mid-Dorset and North Poole): I thank the Minister for his answer, which has provided some reassurance. I am pleased, however, to have been able to put down a marker about my general concern about community support officers being put into difficult situations. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 32 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 33 and 34 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 35
Interpretation
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Tony McNulty): I beg to move amendment No. 191, in
I start by thanking members of the Committee for their indulgence in moving part 2, for which I am largely responsible, to today so that I can talk about it, which I would have been unable to do last Thursday. I am grateful to all concerned.
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This is a minor, technical amendment, which clarifies the definition of antisocial behaviour for the purposes of this part. We propose an identical definition to the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 in clauses 24 to 28. I therefore hope that hon. Members will accept the amendment.
Amendment agreed to.
Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
Vernon Coaker (Gedling): Clause 35 is about interpretation and the definition of ''relevant locality'', which refers us back to clause 29. During our discussions this morning, I meant to ask the Minister whether there is any limit on the size of the designated area or relevant locality. Is a relevant locality defined as a few streets, or is it up to the superintendent to define it?
Mr. McNulty: The designation, as long as it is justified, can be as large as the basic command unit of which the commander is in control, or as small and as limited as a few streets, as he says. It is meant to be as flexible as that in terms of responding the locality concerned and the antisocial problems therein.
Vernon Coaker: It is helpful that my hon. Friend the Minister has clarified that the designated area or relevant locality can be quite large. That may overcome some of the problems that some of us thought might arise if a police officer had one set of powers in one street, but not a couple of hundred yards away. I hope that those who read the record of our deliberations—the command unit, the superintendents and so on—will take note of that.
Mr. James Paice (South-East Cambridgeshire): I shall take up what the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) has extracted from the Minister. The concept that a relevant locality could be an entire basic command unit area shines a slightly different light on some earlier discussions. I accept the Minister's point that the superintendent has complete flexibility. He may make the decision only in respect of a couple of streets. However, the prospect that the area could be as large as a whole BCU area throws a different light on the matter. In some ways, if that were the case, it would negate or at least reduce the concerns that I expressed under earlier amendments.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Gedling for getting the Minister to place that point on the record. It makes a significant difference. I just hope that, when the Bill is enacted, superintendents realise that they could have that scope. Then we might really see the benefits of this part of the Bill.
Liz Blackman (Erewash): We have established that a relevant locality involves considerable flexibility. Does my hon. Friend the Minister agree that, to make the powers work, it is important that the provisions in the code of conduct also have flexibility?
Mr. McNulty: That is indeed the case. The code of conduct is not meant to restrict any more readily than the flexibility in the Bill. As I said earlier, this is about relevance and full justification. In that context, I agree with my hon. Friend.
Question put and agreed to.
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Clause 35, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
New clause 3
Aggravated trespass
'.—The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 shall be amended as follows.
Section 68—Offence of Aggravated Trespass
Subsection 1, line 2, leave out ''in the open air''.
Subsection 5, at end insert ''( ) In this section 'Land' does include commercial premises and buildings erected thereon''.
Section 69—Powers to remove
Subsection 1, paragraph (a) leave out ''in the open air''.
Subsection 1, paragraph (b) leave out ''in the open air''.'.—[Mr. Paice.]
Brought up, and read the First time.
Mr. Paice: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: New clause 4—Trespassory assemblies—
Mr. Paice: We now come to a rather different issue, although it fits with part 4 of the Bill because it has to do with dispersal of groups. In introducing the new clauses, I welcome formally the Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty), to the first sitting of the Committee in which he has participated. I am sure that he will follow the pattern of constructive engagement shown by the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Coventry, North-East (Mr. Ainsworth). I am sorry that we did not reach the new clauses this morning, because the hon. Gentleman was prepared to respond to them, and I am sure that he would have been helpful. I do not in any way doubt that this Minister will be helpful, but he would be the first to acknowledge that this is not his master subject.
I tabled the new clauses largely because of experiences that I have had in and around my constituency and representations made to me about the workings of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 and the Public Order Act 1986 as they affect the control of animal rights demonstrations. My constituency is at the leading edge of biotechnological developments. Huntingdon Life Sciences, of which I should think every hon. Member has heard, is located just outside my constituency, but many of its employees are my constituents. A number of other institutions either engage in such research or commission it, so they are seriously affected by the activities of so-called animal rights activists. Now is not the occasion to have a debate about the rights and wrongs of their cause or of animal experimentation, nor indeed of the controlling legislation passed by the Conservative Government when we were in office. However, I believe it to be robust in controlling experiments.
I am seeking to amend two pieces of legislation with these two new clauses to deal with the activities of
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protestors whose behaviour can be not just antisocial but threatening, and, on occasions, dangerous. There have been many physical attacks on those who either work in animal research or simply service companies engaged in animal research. It has gone beyond direct employees to others who may be linked to it, their firms of auditors, and so on. I am sure that the Minister is aware that there have been cases of firebombing and serious damage to property.
That is clearly already illegal, and I do not seek to address those issues. However, below that level of violence there is a serious, significant threat of violence, intimidation and harassment, which are themes that run through the Bill, hence its relevance. I am grateful to you, Mr. O'Brien, for allowing us to debate these new clauses. I hear from people involved in the sector that when they are going about their daily business and doing their job they are constantly intimidated and harassed. I will not pretend that if the Government accepted these new clauses they would solve all the problems, but it would be a step in the right direction.
These helpful proposals have been made by the BioIndustry Association. We see groups of protestors invading private property and shouting threats and abuse. They often enter commercial premises and run amok. The new clauses would help to address that. They stem from many conversations that I have had with affected businesses and, as I said, with the BioIndustry Association.
New clause 3 extends the situation in which the offence of aggravated trespass and its associated powers to remove can be implemented. The legislation as currently enacted restricts the offence of aggravated trespass to the open air. I want to amend it to ensure that it includes entering private commercial premises, which may be in the open air; not in the countryside or whatever but on private property. I also want to ensure in the insertion to section 68(5) that it could mean within buildings erected on such property. I realise that that would be a significant extension, but as I tried to explain to the Committee a few moments ago, it is a problem if a bunch of so-called animal rights protestors invade laboratories or whatever and threaten the people who work there going about their daily business. In such cases the police need the power to deal with aggravated trespass.
New clause 4 seeks to amend an older piece of legislation: the Public Order Act 1986. It seeks to reduce the number of people involved in a trespassory assembly from 20 to three. That is my proposal, although one could select any very low number. The reason is straightforward: whereas the 1994 Act amended the Public Order Act 1986 to introduce the prohibition of trespassory assemblies, it allowed chief officers to apply to the council for an order to prohibit an assembly, but the assembly had to consist of at least 20 people.
Hon. Members on both sides of the Committee will appreciate the point made to me by many constituents: that one does not need many people standing on one's front lawn or drive to be extremely intimidated and harassed. Twenty is far too excessive a number. That is
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why I propose in new clause 4 to reduce the figure from 20 to three. If one were faced with people standing immediately outside one's home or next to the gate of entry into work shouting and screaming abuse, one would be entitled to expect protection from not only any physical violence but verbal assaults, threats and intimidation.
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I know from my constituents how extremely frightened some of them have become because of the activities of groups of people who appear close to their homes to shout abuse and threaten violence. Many of my constituents live in fear of their lives because of the invaluable work that they do. They do their best to keep their addresses and phone numbers confidential but, inevitably, that is not always possible. It is also not right that they have to try to do that. Whatever the rights and wrongs of animal experimentation—now is not the time to go into them—we should provide protection and not allow people to be intimidated, harassed or threatened for doing what they are legally employed to do.
I hope that the Minister understands the serious points that I am trying to make. We discussed them in a Westminster Hall debate a few months ago, and I know that the Government are examining what they can do. Indeed, I pay tribute to the work that they have done already in protecting people, especially the employees of Huntingdon Life Sciences. However, more can be done, and the two new clauses are further steps. I hope that the Government will treat them sympathetically.
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