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Mr. Bercow: I do not disagree with anything that the hon. Gentleman has said, but let us be clear that the offences cited by my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield were, in every case, trivial. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, however one divides the cake of police time, one does not change its size and that it would be almost criminally irresponsible for this House to vote to enable or oblige the police so to spend their time as to prevent them spending it much more effectively in more deserving cases?

Mr. Heath: The hon. Gentleman is right in principle but in practice I do not think that that would be the consequence of this clause being enacted. I trust the good sense of the police not to use their time in that way.

Mr. Bercow: To ignore the clause.

Mr. Heath: From a sedentary position, the hon. Gentleman suggests that I trust the police to ignore it. That is precisely what I am doing. It is an otiose provision and one that we should resist. I hope that the whole House will support the amendment when it is pressed to a Division, as I hope it will be.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Hilary Benn): The hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) fully and helpfully set out the circumstances and the nature of the argument. To the best of my ability, I will try to persuade him—while acknowledging that the Conservatives did not vote against this clause in Committee, although the Liberal Democrats did—of the argument for the change suggested by the clause. Listening to both the speeches that we have heard, I detected that a case for the principle of some extension might be accepted but that there was concern about the scope. That happened in Committee and it has been reflected today.

Mr. Grieve: If Parliament hears evidence of a particular problem with the investigation within the 24-hour period of individual offences which cannot be put in the category of serious offences, I am prepared to be pragmatic and make an exception for them. However, the clause contains a blanket extension that will have powerful symbolic and practical consequences. I am not prepared to accept those consequences unless I can be persuaded that the blanket approach is correct.

Hilary Benn: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will bear with me while I try to assuage his concerns. As he rightly told the House, PACE allows detention without charge for longer than 24 hours only if a serious arrestable offence is involved. As he helpfully told us, serious arrestable offences are either inherently very serious—murder, rape or kidnapping—or specific offences that produce serious consequences such as serious injury or serious financial loss.

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I want to address the hon. Gentleman's argument in response to the letter that I sent him after the Committee stage. It was suggested that the way round this problem was to rely on the interpretation of the word "serious" to bring into the purview of a 36-hour detention period offences that might not otherwise be included. The difficulty with that suggestion is that it raises questions such as, "How serious is serious?" and in whose perception the offence is serious. Is it to a hardened police officer who has unfortunately had to deal with many cases, or to someone who has worked hard to save what may appear to be a small amount of money but which to them is a very large amount? To that person, theft of that money would be very serious. Rather than trying to twist the definition of "serious" in a way that would not be terribly helpful, it would be better simply to lay the thing open and—for reasons that I shall come to—say that, where the investigation requires a longer period of detention, we should permit it.

Mr. Heath: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that to pervert the sense of "serious" would not be the right way of dealing with this. That is why I hope that he will accept our argument that, if there is evidence that specific offences lead to a problem, they should be specified in a schedule to the Bill rather than being covered by the amorphous provision that he advocates.

Hilary Benn: I accept the argument that the hon. Gentleman makes; I was simply trying to protect myself against the charge that I had undermined my case in what I thought was the extremely helpful letter that I sent to him. I do not believe that I have undermined it.

It may be of assistance to the House if I read the list of offences that are not automatically serious arrestable offences but for which a person may be imprisoned for five years. My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Bryant) made a helpful point about such offences. The list consists of theft, robbery, burglary, handling stolen goods, threats to kill, actual bodily harm, indecent assault, blackmail, conspiracy to defraud, counterfeiting, criminal damage and riot.

Schedule 1A to PACE contains a specific list of arrestable offences—some of which the hon. Member for Beaconsfield read out in support of his argument that the police would not, in relation to such offences, want to spend an enormous amount of time detaining people for up to 36 hours. On that list are other offences, including the carrying of offensive weapons without lawful authority or reasonable excuse; the publishing or distributing of written material that is threatening or abusive, or that could stir up racial or religious hatred; and racially or religiously aggravated harassment. I simply want to put that on record because it puts in perspective the argument that has been advanced in some quarters during this short debate that this measure is a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The offences that I described, which will now be brought within the purview of the extension that the Government propose, are quite serious nuts.

Lady Hermon: With the greatest respect, I would find the Minister's argument much more convincing, and I might be persuaded to support clause 5, if, instead of

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reading out a long list of serious offences, he told us that a certain police force needed 36 hours. That would be helpful.

Hilary Benn: The hon. Lady anticipates the point that I am about to make.

Mr. Bercow: Ah.

Hilary Benn: I am glad that that meets with approval. We are asked why the provision is in the Bill and whether it is just because the Government fancy extending the detention period. I am surprised that no hon. Members have drawn attention to the PACE review that was undertaken. The answer to the question, "Where does this come from?" is that it comes from the PACE review. I shall read what that had to say, because it makes the case very strongly. It states:

"The initial detention period of twenty four hours can provide insufficient time in which to conclude the investigative process and charge a detained person because of delays elsewhere in the custody process, for example: obtaining the services of an appropriate adult; police surgeon; or interpreter; or when a suspect might initially be unfit for interview for reasons of alcohol or drugs intoxication. The Review has looked at several options regarding amending the detention clock, weighing up the practicalities and attendant bureaucracies of each proposal. In addition to the measures to enhance the provision of Appropriate Adults, healthcare professionals and interpreters, the Review recommends that the initial period of detention for which someone may potentially be detained for an arrestable offence be extended from twenty four to thirty six hours, under the authority of a superintendent."

Mr. Grieve: I accept that that is what the PACE review said, but there seems to be a lack of evidence to back up the existence of the problem in practical terms. Indeed, the only statistics that the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) was able to lay his hands on, which he quoted to the Committee, and which I have seen, rather suggest otherwise—that the police have no great difficulty in handling the 24-hour rule. That is why I asked the Minister to explain in detail something beyond simply the wishes of the Association of Chief Police Officers.

Hilary Benn: I was about to come to that having completed the quote from the PACE review.

I hope that I have dealt with the suggestion that the extension of the detention period has come from nowhere and that it is a whim of the Government.

Mr. Grieve: It is the wish of ACPO.

Mr. Benn: No, it is not—it comes from the PACE review, which considered a whole range of issues to do with the operation of PACE. In the judgment of those who conducted the review, there was a case for the extension.

I want to draw hon. Members' attention to the view expressed by the Select Committee on Home Affairs in its report. Although in the end the Committee was not persuaded, the report said:

"We accept that the current time limit may cause difficulties in some non-serious cases."

So the Home Affairs Committee also acknowledged that there could be a problem with the current arrangements. The point that my hon. Friend the Member for

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Rhondda made a moment ago is a forceful one. The hon. Members for Beaconsfield and for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) are right in the statistics that they gave us. In practice, even with the current arrangements, the number of people who are detained beyond 24 hours is very small indeed. The average detention period for all cases is between five and six hours, and even for serious cases the average is less than 24 hours. That suggests that in the vast majority of cases the current arrangements work. In essence, the argument is that in some circumstances the current time limits may cause difficulties. That is why the PACE review asked us to make the change, and why the Home Affairs Committee, even though in the end it was not persuaded, accepted that in some non-serious cases such difficulties may arise.

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