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Mr. Gardiner: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Fabricant: Yes, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman will make a more sensible point than he did earlier.
Mr. Gardiner: I intervened not to make known my honourable record in the Royal Anglian Regiment, but to challenge the hon. Gentleman on the point about passports. I understand that passports are the property of Her Majesty's Government rather than of the individual. They are, therefore, subject to be withdrawn by Her Majesty's Government at any time for any reason.
Mr. Fabricant: The hon. Gentleman is right. The inside back cover of the passport makes that very point. What is he advocating? Football hooliganism aside, is the hon. Gentleman, who is now giggling, saying that it is absolutely right that if I wanted to go to America to give a talk on--
Mr. Fabricant: If I wanted to give a talk about civil liberties or about the Labour Government, who are full of good intentions but are unable to fulfil any of them, would it be right for the Under-Secretary of State for
the Home Department, the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), to say to me, "I don't like the sound of that. That is the Government's passport and I am confiscating it."? Of course, she would not dream of doing that because it would be unconstitutional and, more to the point, it would be wrong. If the hon. Member for Brent, North (Mr. Gardiner) is saying that the passport can be freely confiscated by the Government merely because it is their property, I am astonished.
Mr. Maclean: I was astonished to hear the remarks of the hon. Member for Brent, North (Mr. Gardiner). Of course, passports are technically the Government's property and can, theoretically, be withdrawn at any time. However, we are all subject to be arrested at any time if we have committed offences, and like the power of arrest, the power to confiscate passports should not be arbitrarily exercised by an officer of the state unless there are exceptionally good reasons.
Mr. Fabricant: My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. In an earlier intervention, he referred to the numbers of people who have been convicted of football offences committed at stadiums. I congratulate the police and football clubs for reducing the numbers of people who are convicted of such offences. I put on the record the fact that in 1984-85, there were 40 arrests at football stadiums per 100,000 attendances. Incidentally, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) made a point about the bad grammar of the clauses--how nice it is when hon. Members on both sides of the House say stadia and not stadiums.
The number of offences fell from 40 in 1984-85 to 13 in 1997-98. It is all very well for hon. Members on both sides of the House and my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford to say that, therefore, more offences are now committed outside the stadium, but it is worth noting that even if football offences comprise 0.1 of 1 per cent. of all crimes of violence, and 10 times as many are committed outside the stadium, the overall figure is still only 1 per cent. Although 1 per cent. is still too much and my hon. Friend is therefore right to promote the Bill, my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) was also right to make the point that we must put the matter into context. It would be very easy for us to get crime and disorder at football matches out of all proportion.
It is also worth mentioning that the French have introduced emergency security measures to allow suspected trouble-makers to be expelled from France before being convicted of offences, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale said. He said that as there would not be a conviction, passports should be confiscated--
Mr. Fabricant:
Surrendered, to use my hon. Friend's word. I wonder whether--perhaps the Minister will respond to this--the criminal law could be changed so that if British citizens commit a crime beyond British territory and are not convicted in the country in which the crime is committed, they could be arrested, charged and prosecuted in the United Kingdom for the crime. I make that point because it would get round the argument, which
Clause 1(1) implies that passports should be confiscated. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst said, that could be done on reasonable grounds, providing the court is satisfied. I always think that the questions of reasonableness and satisfaction in Bills are too loose and leave too much to the discretion of courts and, far more dangerously, of Ministers. If the Bill goes into Committee, as I suspect it will, that issue must be addressed. We want a fair and constitutional Bill, which does not encroach on the freedom to travel and the rights of individuals, regardless of whether we think that they might be football hooligans. We must preserve the right that one is innocent until proven guilty.
Another problem with the Bill, which has not been mentioned, is that it could be subject to judicial review. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford will address that problem when he winds up the debate.
The question of ticket touting has been debated at some length. I should mention that I am joint chairman of the all-party internet group. If anybody has any grand ideas that we can control the sale of tickets--or anything--on the internet, they should forget it. The internet cannot be policed. We cannot legislate, for example, for the sale of books from Amazon.com or the purchase of half-price compact discs from Tower Records in New York, which, incidentally, possibly evades Customs and Excise duty. Believe me, if Customs and Excise cannot legislate, the Home Office certainly cannot legislate on this matter. Therefore, if any members of the Standing Committee have any idea that the Committee can restrict ticket touting through the internet, they should not waste the Committee's time.
Mr. Forth:
Before my hon. Friend leaves that point--which I had hoped to mention if I caught your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, although I fear that time may not now allow it--does he agree that the word "touting" is too loosely used, and has been today? Unless one is prepared to consider the method of sale of tickets; the origin; those who are buying them and for what purpose; and, more important, the various ways in which tickets can be resold outside the ground, through the Royal Mail or on the internet; and then take serious action, it is likely that the spirit of entrepreneurship and enterprise that is sometimes called touting cannot sensibly and properly be tackled.
Mr. Fabricant:
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am aware of the arguments of the Bill's promoter, who rightly says that, if ticket touting takes place outside stadiums and people turn up on spec and are disappointed because they cannot buy tickets, that leads to hooliganism. He says that touting should be controlled. I have some sympathy with that argument. On the other hand, I do not want the Bill to remove the rights of the individual to free travel and to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. I also do not want the Bill to become too much in
Mr. Fabricant:
Simply because one could argue that the touting of tickets--that is, the purchase of tickets on a speculative basis and their sale for a higher price--is free enterprise.
Mr. Burns:
Why, then, under the previous Government, did my hon. Friend vote for legislation to outlaw ticket touting?
Mr. Fabricant:
I did so because, at the time, we were not discussing the withdrawal of passports. Incidentally, the Bill did not work, because ticket touting continues. I shall not venture into this area for too long, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because it would be out of order, but many hon. Members voted for the age of homosexual consent to be 16 not only because--
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord):
Order. The hon. Gentleman is already straying too far. During his speech, he has trodden the same ground more than once. I hope that he will not do so again.
Mr. Fabricant:
I am reaching my conclusion anyway, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I am arguing that any law that cannot be enforced is a bad law per se. The ticket touting law has obviously not been enforced, and it was a bad law. If I voted for it--and I did--I made a mistake, and I admit it. Will my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford admit that he made a mistake if he voted with me?
Mr. Fabricant:
He will not. All right.
I generally support the good intentions of the Bill, although "good intentions" is often an epitaph, and certainly something that I would not like to see on my tombstone.
I must ask at least five questions of my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford, because a worthless Bill is a waste of the time of the House. First, will the Bill be workable? Secondly, is it right for passports to be confiscated from individuals who have not only not been convicted of any offence, but have not even been charged with any offence? Thirdly, will the Bill be subject to judicial review? Before my hon. Friend says no, I should tell him that the Library considers that it could be.
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