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Mr. Leigh: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Efford: No; I must be brief.
My point is that we could deal with this issue in other ways. Also, it would be easy for people to get around the legislation by going to Glasgow or Belfast. More thought should be given to the timing of matches. If people present themselves at police stations or magistrates courts at a certain time, they cannot be at the match. They will not be able to use their passports, which will prevent the get-out of travelling to Glasgow or elsewhere.
12.25 am
Mr. Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills): I share the concern about the Bill that has been expressed by Members on both sides of the House. I am worried about new section 21 generally, but paragraphs (2) and (3) in particular show how far we have gone. We no longer have
answers, so we strike out. We strike out against certain basic principles with which we grew up, such as the principle that we are innocent until proven guilty.The Bill does not even require a proof that we would understand in a court. It enables magistrates to take into account an offence that may take place in a jurisdiction of which we know almost nothing--a jurisdiction that may meet none of the standards of freedom, justice or intent that we consider important in dealing with crime.
Would we consider proper justice necessary in Zaire, or in parts of Turkey? I know that it is invidious to mention other nations, and I have no real understanding of their criminal and justice procedures; but, like many other Members, I have travelled, and know that corruption is not absent in all countries. It is possible for people in those countries to say to British subjects, "I will identify you as a hooligan unless you give me a bribe." That may be a trivial argument in itself, but it presents various questions.
I should like to know from the Home Secretary how many people, on any given day in the early summer, pass through British ports. I think of London; I think of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted; I think of the south-coast ports; I think of the channel; I think of Newcastle; I think of my local airport, Birmingham, and of Manchester. Tens of thousands of people probably pass through, and we are proposing that a police constable should stand there, trying to exercise his power if it appears to him that someone's behaviour demands that.
In life, we sometimes get things wrong. There is nothing more grievous than being wrongly identified by authority. Under this objectionable proposed new section 21, I may be detained for as long as it takes a police constable to satisfy himself that an order may be issued. That is wrong. I have been placed in an intolerable position. As a free citizen with no convictions, innocent of intent, I have been detained while trying to leave the country.
I do not know whether it is possible to sift through tens of thousands of people passing through a port reasonably, quickly and effectively. However, I can tell the Government that, almost within weeks of the Bill's implementation, some young man taking an elderly couple whom he is meeting in Calais to Lourdes in search of a miracle cure will be detained for 24 hours, and someone will die. Then the very newspapers that have driven the Home Secretary to this action will comment on the brutality of the police in denying the wishes of that poor, sainted, benighted youth.
Sometimes, when examining the details of legislation, we question it and discover its defects. I have been in the House for a long time. I remember hearing a Conservative Home Secretary say--this was mentioned in the House of Lords--that all stages of a Bill must go through in one day because dangerous dogs were going to eat us. Hon. Members on both sides of the House said, "Hallelujah", although a few voted against it. The hon. Member for West Ham (Mr. Banks) nods--but the legislation went through. Members of my party sit in courts and have had to make decisions on the execution of dogs and settle arguments about species and sub-species. One of them said that although he had sentenced two dogs to death, he did not think that the sentence was ever carried out.
Errors always creep in, because no one is perfect. I am concerned that the Bill places a burden on the police and will exacerbate their relationship with a generation of young people, as well as older people.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Sir N. Lyell) made the perfectly good point that, according to the Home Secretary's own figures, 30 per cent. of young men--it is always men--have had a conviction by the age of 30. I think that the same applies to those under 40. Any trawl through a group of people passing through one of our many ports is likely to secure someone who has had a conviction. The conviction may be spent, he may be a good person, and the circumstances of many years ago may not be known. My right hon. and learned Friend asked a reasonable question. Are spent convictions taken into account? Registers are kept of people who do not have a conviction but have given the police cause for concern.
We have lived through the troubles in Ulster, and know of the grievous injuries that have been inflicted on innocent people. In hitting out or trying to prevent certain behaviour, we put in the hands of authority powers that cause contention between the citizen and the authorities of the state. That is an intolerable burden to place on the police.
If, in the court's judgment, a person were guilty of committing an offence, and part of the punishment was the withdrawal of a passport, I would have no difficulty with that. I can understand if a crime has been committed, a sentence passed and the nature of the sentence includes the confiscation of a passport, but that is not what the Bill is about. It relies merely on the suspicion of a constable who does not even have to have reasonable grounds. Does the House of Commons really want to pass such a Bill into law? I think not.
12.32 am
Mr. Eric Forth (Bromley and Chislehurst): I disagree with the Bill totally, entirely and in every aspect. I associate myself with the excellent speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) and the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope). I do not agree with the way in which the Bill has been treated and the spurious urgency with which it has been brought to the House.
What has the House of Commons come to when, apparently in all seriousness, we are asked to make fundamental changes to our law because of a football match of all things? That must be the ultimate in absurdity, but that is what we are being asked to put our names to. We risk totally inadequate scrutiny. That would be bad enough at the best of times--we have seen many examples of it recently--but inadequate scrutiny of this Bill covering these subjects and threatening these liberties is triply intolerable. It must not be allowed, and the House must resist it.
This is a bad Bill for a number of reasons. It challenges or undermines the presumption of innocence, which I always thought was a fundamental of our judicial process. It has retrospective elements, which I do not think have been mentioned up to now. New section 14B(2) has an unacceptable element of retrospection. It is loose, sloppy and dangerous. Retrospection has increasingly crept into our law, and that should be resisted on every occasion.
The Bill threatens the liberties of the many to deal with the few, which is the reverse of the point that my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) made. He put it in a different context, but I see it very much in that way. Yes, there may well be a problem with a small number of people and we should find proper ways to deal with them within our domestic law, but no, we should not threaten the liberties of many people, as so many of my right hon. and hon. Friends have described--for example the tens of thousands that my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) mentioned--to catch the few who act in ways of which we all disapprove.
Finally, I do not accept that we should take responsibility in this country for misdemeanours committed in other jurisdictions. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden argued that so eloquently. It is beyond me why we should take it on ourselves to treat within our judicial system misdemeanours committed in other countries. [Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for West Ham (Mr. Banks) want to intervene?
Mr. Banks: What about sex tourism?
Mr. Forth: I make no distinction. I am stating what to me is a general principle: if our citizens travel abroad, the countries to which they go and in which they commit alleged misdemeanours should deal with their crimes. I do not accept the principle that we are importing into our judicial system that we deal with alleged crimes committed abroad. I say that for a number of reasons, the most obvious being that we can never have the quality of evidence that we would expect as a standard in our judicial system.
At every level, the Bill is wrong, defective, undesirable and unacceptable--in its content, in the principles that it would apply, in the way in which it is being treated and the method in which it has been brought to the House. Therefore, I hope that we have an opportunity to vote against it, so that those of us who have those feelings can express them properly in the Lobby. That is my hope and intention.
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