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Committee, Report and Third Reading
1.--(1) Proceedings on the Bill shall be completed at this day's sitting.
(2) Proceedings in Committee shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion at midnight.
(3) On the conclusion of the proceedings in Committee the Chairman shall report the Bill to the House without putting any Question and, if he reports the Bill with Amendments, the House shall proceed to consider the Bill as amended without any Question being put.
(4) Proceedings on Consideration and on Third Reading shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion at 5 am on 18th July.
Conclusion of proceedings
2.--(1) For the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with paragraph 1 the Chairman or Speaker shall forthwith put the following Questions (but no others)--
(a) any Question already proposed from the Chair;
(b) any Question necessary to bring to a decision a Question so proposed;
(c) the Question on any amendment moved or Motion made by a Minister of the Crown;
(d) any other Question necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded;
and on a Motion so made for a new Clause or a new Schedule, the Chairman or Speaker shall put only the Question that the Clause or Schedule be added to the Bill.
(2) Proceedings under sub-paragraph (1) shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.
(3) If two or more Questions would otherwise fall to be put by the Chairman or Speaker--
(a) under sub-paragraph (1)(c) on amendments moved or Motions made by a Minister of the Crown, or
(b) under sub-paragraph (1)(d) in relation to successive provisions of the Bill;
the Chairman or Speaker shall instead put a single Question in relation to those amendments or Motions or (as the case may be) those provisions.
Order of proceedings
3. No Motion shall be made, except by a Minister of the Crown, to alter the order in which any proceedings on the Bill are taken or to recommit the Bill; and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.
Dilatory motions
4. No dilatory Motion with respect to, or in the course of, proceedings on the Bill shall be made except by a Minister of the Crown; and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.
Extra time
5. Paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 15 (Exempted business) shall apply to proceedings on the Bill.
Business Committee
6. Standing Order No. 82 (Business Committee) shall not apply to this Order.
Supplemental orders
7.--(1) The proceedings on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement; and paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 15 (Exempted business) shall apply to those proceedings.
(2) If at the sitting this day the House is adjourned, or the sitting is suspended, before the time at which proceedings on the Bill are to be brought to a conclusion under paragraph 1, no notice shall be required of a Motion made at the next sitting by a Minister of the Crown for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order.
Mr. Roger Gale (North Thanet): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In its wisdom, the House has passed an amendment to the motion ensuring that
- Third Reading shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion at 5 am on 18th July.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): I have received no representations. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that sometimes, at 5 o'clock in the morning, I lose track of the date, but I certainly do not lose track of the time. The House will manage to get through the proceedings all right.
Orders of the Day
Football (Disorder) Bill
Considered in Committee, pursuant to Order [this day].
[Mr. Michael J. Martin in the Chair]
Clause 1
6.52 pm
Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark, North and Bermondsey): I beg to move amendment No. 20, page 1, leave out lines 17 to 20.
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Michael J. Martin): With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment No. 21, in schedule 1, page 9, line 4, leave out from beginning to end of line 21 on page 10.
Amendment No. 28, in schedule 1, page 9, leave out lines 5 to 19.
Amendment No. 7, in schedule 1, page 9, line 8, leave out--
'If it appears to a constable in uniform'
'If a constable in uniform has reasonable grounds to believe'.
Amendment No. 6, in schedule 1, page 9, line 9, after "him", insert--
'(being behaviour which the constable has reasonable grounds to believe constitutes a criminal offence under the law of England and Wales)'.
Amendment No. 33, in schedule 1, page 9, line 14, leave out--
'until he has decided whether or not'
'for such time as is reasonably necessary for him to ascertain whether or not it is necessary'.
Amendment No. 36, in schedule 1, page 9, line 15, at end insert--
'if authorised to do so by an officer of at least the rank of superintendent'.
Amendment No. 37, in schedule 1, page 9, line 15, at end insert--
'and shall give the person his reasons for detaining him in writing.'.
Amendment No. 38, in schedule 1, page 9, line 19, leave out "24 hours" and insert "12 hours".
Amendment No. 34, in schedule 1, page 9, line 19, at end insert--
'; and the grounds for, and continued necessity of, such detention shall be reviewed by an officer of at least the rank of superintendent every three hours, and by a chief officer of police after 12 hours.'.
Amendment No. 35, in schedule 1, page 9, line 19, at end insert--
'(5) No person shall be detained under subsection (3) above more than once in any period of 48 hours, nor shall any person be subject to detention under subsection (3) above for a total period of more than 24 hours within any one period of seven days.'.
Amendment No. 8, in schedule 1, page 9, line 20, leave out--
'If it appears to a constable in uniform'
'If a constable in uniform has reasonable grounds to believe'.
Amendment No. 9, in schedule 1, page 9, line 23, leave out--
'an officer of at least the rank of inspector'
and insert "a magistrate's warrant".
Amendment No. 11, in schedule 1, page 9, line 24, leave out "inspector" and insert "superintendent".
Government amendments Nos. 45 and 46.
Amendment No. 39, in schedule 1, page 10, line 21, at end insert--
'21D--Where a person, having been detained under section 21A(3) or having been issued with a notice under section 21B(2), appears before a magistrates' court as respondent to a complaint for the making of a banning order, and the complaint is dismissed, the court may on the application of the respondent order that the appropriate chief officer of police shall pay to the respondent such sum as, in the opinion of the court, is justified to compensate the respondent for any costs incurred as a result of any delay in, or cancellation of, a journey being undertaken by the respondent when he was detained under section 21A(3) or issued with a notice under section 21B(2), as the case may be.'.
Mr. Hughes: I shall speak specifically to amendment No. 21. As a warm-up, may I point out to the Committee that at 6.52 pm we are beginning the first of 17 scheduled debates, all of which must be finished by midnight? If ever there was a nonsense, this is it. The first group contains 20 of the 46 amendments, including one significant amendment tabled by the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Sir N. Lyell), the former Attorney-General; 11 amendments tabled by right hon. and hon. Members on the Conservative Front Bench, all of which relate to important issues; two amendments tabled by my hon. Friends and me; and five Government amendments, tabled on Friday to a Bill that the Government published on Thursday.
A Government change of mind is sometimes welcome, but one does not usually see such a speedy transition in legislation--[Interruption.] In case the Hansard writers did not hear the sedentary comment, I shall repeat it, as it deserves recognition: new Labour, new amendment. One might add new Labour, new tough measure every new day. Nevertheless, all the amendments are a move in the right direction.
The debate takes us immediately to what the Home Secretary called in the previous debate the core and important new proposal in the Bill, not floated before, not discussed before, not trailed before: Parliament is asked to agree to a new form of summary detention, whereby people can be stopped when they fulfil certain conditions. At the end of the debate, I shall ask the Committee to agree to the two things that we can do to take out that proposal and start again.
There are two parts to the proposal--a trailer in clause 1(1)(d), which my hon. Friends and I seek to delete, and the substantive matter, which appears in schedule 1, paragraph 4, under the heading "Summary measures: detention", the first part of which the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Bedfordshire has also proposed we should delete. He goes part of the way towards what we seek to do, but we believe that it is better to start again.
I pray in aid, because it is so supportive, the editorial in The Guardian on Saturday, which appeared after my hon. Friends and I had held our discussion. It was entitled:
- MPs play a blinder but hooligan bill should go to extra time.
- But more important, are two issues of civil rights.
Government Ministers must be more specific in the bill about the conditions under which people can be banned for behaviour which falls short of criminal actions. It is far too vaguely worded at present ("there are reasonable grounds for believing that a banning order would help prevent football-related violence or disorder"). Second--
- the trigger which allows a police officer to arrest and detain someone for up to 24 hours, simply on the basis that their behaviour is such that immediate inquiries should be made--
- must be totally rewritten.
As a result of debates in recent days, the proposal has been shown to be bad law. I refer not so much to the enabling provision in clause 1 as to the substantive provision in the schedule. I shall try to persuade the Committee of why those parts of the Bill should go.
The Bill breaks down the procedure as follows: a constable in uniform does not believe that the behaviour of the person in front of him is a criminal offence or even that the person is violent. All that is necessary is that the person's behaviour makes the constable decide that immediate inquiries should be made as to whether various conditions, which appear elsewhere in the Bill, are met.
The conditions that must be met are, first, that the person in front of the police officer at Dover, Newhaven or any other port or airport has at any time, whether before or after this Bill becomes law, caused or contributed to any violence or disorder in the United Kingdom or elsewhere--in other words, the issue is whether the person has, at any time, anywhere in the world, done anything that may or may not have been a criminal offence, and which has caused or contributed to violence or disorder. That is the trigger, and the police officer has only to decide whether the behaviour of the person in front of him makes him want to make inquiries as to whether that is the case.
I have described the first trigger. The police officer then has to decide that he or she will detain somebody, potentially for 24 hours. During that 24 hours, the police
have to decide whether to serve a notice, for which they have to see a senior officer. The notice states that the person who has been detained must appear before a magistrates court, cannot leave England or Wales and may have to surrender a passport. If the police believe that the person will disappear before the notice is served, they can make an arrest. They therefore have the power to detain, arrest, hold, consider for 24 hours and go to a magistrates court.
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