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2 Apr 2003 : Column 930—continued
Simon Hughes (Southwark, North and Bermondsey): I did point that out in Committee, as the hon. Gentleman has generously acknowledged. Subsequently, however, I received a letter of correction, showing that the Gwent figures had been inaccurately reported. The one example demonstrating that one particular force had often used the excessive power has proved to be aberrant, so no force appears to have used it frequently.
Mr. Grieve: I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for clearing that up. While studying
Hansard, I noticed that the Minister had certainly not corrected that matter. I did find it extraordinary that one police force should use the power so often. The hon. Gentleman's clarification reinforces the point that the vast majority of police forces have no need to use the extended power, and those that have used it have done so only rarely.As the Minister knows, 36 hours is not always the cut-off point for serious offences under current arrangements. It is already possible to continue well beyond 36 hours—in fact, for up to 92 hours—if application is made to the court. Generally speaking, that is considered quite long enough to carry out full investigations.
Another issue raised in Committee was the question of how things were done elsewhere. Clearly, comparisons with other countries may be helpful in ascertaining whether the police need the 36-hour power. The Minister wrote to the Committee helpfully setting out the initial detention periods in different countries—and the correspondence makes illuminating reading. In respect of Australian states, the figures show that in New South Wales, the period of detention is four hours. In Queensland, it is eight hours, which can be extended for a further eight hours with a magistrate's approval. In South Australia, the period is four hours, with a four-hour extension granted by a magistrate. In Canada, the period is 24 hours, with a possible extension from a justice of the peace. In Denmark, it is 24 hours, with a 48-hour maximum, to be extended by the court. In Finland, the period is 24 hours. In France, it is 24 hours, with an extra 24 hours possible on the stamp of the public prosecutor. In the Netherlands, the period is six hours, excluding the hours between midnight and 9 am, and there can be an extension of another six hours thereafter. In South Africa, the period is 48 hours, and in Spain it is 72 hours. In Sweden, it is six hours, with a six-hour extension.
I do not find the Spanish model an especially happy one, as I suspect that it may be a carryover from a period in Spain's history when it enjoyed a rather authoritarian form of Government.
Mr. Chris Bryant (Rhondda): It was not Franco, in fact.
Mr. Grieve: I wait to hear from the hon. Gentleman, who intervenes from a sedentary position. I do not know the answer to his contention, but the period strikes me as being very long. I note that, apart from Austria and South Africa, the proposed period of 36 hours, with the extension provided for by the superintendent, will put us in an usual category. Britain will allow detention for longer than most other countries.
I therefore return to the original question, which I wanted to ponder after the Committee debate: is the proposed period really necessary? The Minister's international comparisons, and the precise nature of the proposed change, leave me with an increasing feeling that the change is unjustified.
I hope that the House will forgive me for reading from the Minister's letter of 8 February, as I think that, in a funny way, he destroys his case as he makes it. He wrote:
- "As you know, the police can currently only extend detention without charge beyond 24 hours (and up to 36 hours) in relation to serious arrestable offences. Some offences are always serious
- arrestable offences and these are specified in section 116 of Schedule 5 to PACE. However, section 116 also makes it clear that any arrestable offence can qualify as a serious arrestable offence if it has led to or is intended or likely to lead to certain specific consequences. For example, serious injury to any person or serious financial loss to any person.
It follows from this that there is a sense in which the proposals in clause 5 of the Bill do not add any new offences to the group where detention up to 36 hours is available. This already applies in respect of any arrestable offence if the 'consequences' test is met. What the clause does is to allow scope for extended detention in relation to any arrestable offence, whether the consequences test is satisfied or not."
The House should consider the matter carefully. Later in our proceedings, although not today, we will consider Government amendments concerning taking DNA and fingerprints from people who have been arrested and taken into police stations. As I understand it, the purpose is to take advantage of the golden opportunity presented when someone is arrested. The police can check whether that person is wanted for, or connected with, some offence other than the one for which he has been brought in.
When I read those amendments, and then look at the proposed increase in police detention powers, I feel slightly worried that we are signing a blank cheque to the police, encouraging them to use the occasion of arrest as an opportunity to carry out trawl searches in connection with a person arrested for an offence which, although trivial—such as the theft of a packet worth 6p from the supermarket—is still arrestable. The police could then take the opportunity to find out more about that person, and detain him while those investigations are carried out.
1.15 pm
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): My hon. Friend is mounting a forensic dissection of the Government's rather draconian and clumsy case. He has just hit the nail on the head. Should not the essence of the power to detain be that it is based on reasonable grounds for suspicion, and not on an incentive to the law—and its officers, in the form of the police—to mount unwarranted fishing expeditions on other grounds?
Mr. Grieve: My hon. Friend is right. Of course, the reasonable grounds of suspicion should relate to the offence for which the person is arrested.
I want to be realistic: I am the first to accept that there will be occasions when the police pick up a person for some minor matter and then suddenly realise that they have hit the bull's eye and that they have laid hands on someone who has committed serious offences. However, there needs to be a balance in all this, and no one has persuaded me that the Government have got it right. The Minister did not persuade me of that in Committee, although he did enough to make me willing to think further. However, he has not persuaded me that the existing powers do not adequately allow for the possibility that I have described.
The anxiety must be that, once the House gives an extra power to the police in this blanket form, the inevitable consequence will be to encourage those who are given the power to use it routinely. That is what always happens, although not as the result of some sinister intention. In contrast, at present the police must be constantly mindful of the fact that in the ordinary course of events a person has to be released within the 24-hour period.
I repeat: if the Minister can come up with compelling arguments in this afternoon's debate to justify his position and explain why the proposed power is so vital, then I am, on a pragmatic basis, open to persuasion. However, he did not succeed in doing that in Standing Committee, and his subsequent honest and forthright letter seems to damage the case yet further. The letter highlights the fact that the power is not needed.
Mr. Bercow: In addition to the dangers that my hon. Friend has just highlighted, is there not a real prospect that a change to 36 hours rather than 24 will become the norm rather than the exception? Moreover, in respect of offences for which a 36-hour period is allowed, will not the clamour come from the voices of authority for a limit of 48 hours, or some other period that would be excessive?
Mr. Grieve: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One anxiety expressed in some circles, and particularly in legal circles, is that as soon as the extension of the period by administrative action by the superintendent is raised routinely to 36 hours, one of the first possible consequences is that the Government start encouraging the idea that they might approve an extension of the court's discretionary powers.
Obviously, criminal cases need to be investigated fully. However, two things need to be borne in mind. The first is an issue of straight civil liberties: it is undesirable that people should be detained for excessive periods of time without charge. A look at the provisions in comparable countries in the civilised world leaves us with the impression that Britain is moving very substantially towards putting itself on the upper level of countries that allow for long periods of detention. That bothers me.
Mr. David Cameron (Witney): Before my hon. Friend finishes, will he deal with the Government's response to the Home Affairs Committee? They said, as an excuse for bringing in this proposal, that in many cases those detained needed medical treatment or a translator, or that there needed to be a pause while waiting for a solicitor to arrive. Does my hon. Friend agree that it should be incumbent on the police to get their ducks in a row, as it were? Would that not be preferable to changing fundamentally the civil rights of the person who has been arrested and detained?
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