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Mr. Heath: First, I am grateful to the Minister. I understand what he has said, but I am not sure that I agree with him. It is certainly not what the explanatory memorandum says. I would still ask him to consider the last sentence of the explanatory memorandum on this clause:
''The effect of this clause . . . is to implement the recommendation by the Electoral Commission that the existing provisions relating to personation should be extended to give the police the power of arrest at any location, not just at polling stations.''
That is transparently not what the clause does. It does the reverse. It prevents anybody else from making an arrest inside a polling station. If it is felt that the polling process should not be disturbed by an arrest, it is hard to understand why a police constable should make that arrest within a polling station.—[Interruption]. The Minister says that there is a distinction, but not in law.
If he recalls, in our debates on the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill, the Government's proposition—not mine—was that the power of arrest should be extended to any offence, not just to a serious indictable offence, by any citizen. It was only when we defeated them on that matter that the Government changed their mind and adopted the proposition that is now in the Act. The Government's position was that anyone should be able to arrest anybody, anywhere for anything.—[Interruption.] The Minister suggests that that is a general principle and I have no difficulty in believing that that is the basis on which the Government work.
I understand why the hon. Gentleman does not want presiding officers to make an arrest, but the effect probably will be that people will not be arrested because, unfortunately, there are relatively few polling stations that have a police officer on duty as they used to. There was a time when every polling station had a constable on duty, but not now. Thus there will not be arrests for personation. I have looked again at the clause and I have become aware of something that I should have noticed in the first instance, that it would not be possible for a person to make an arrest outside the polling station because the proposal applies only
''if the offence is committed or is suspected of being committed inside a polling station.''
That is the only place where a person can commit the offence of personation, other than when filling in an application form for a postal vote. In effect, it means that a person will not be arrested for personation unless there is a police constable at the polling station. The offence will not be prosecuted unless it is possible to trace a person later without knowing who they are and why they were personating another person. If that is the Government's position, at least it is comprehensible; I am not sure I agree with it but I do not want to pursue it.
David Cairns: I need to clarify the issue. Most people would understand that in the confines of a polling station there is a difference between a police officer coming in and arresting someone and a candidate trying to arrest another candidate, in which case the presiding officer would have to go to
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the police station. A citizen's arrest inside the polling station could cause more harm than it would prevent.
The overall effect of the clause, taken with provisions in the Serious and Organised Crime Act 2005 is to implement the recommendation by the Electoral Commission that the existing provisions relating to personation should be extended to give the police a power of arrest at any location that they currently have prior to this proposal, not just at the polling station itself.
Mr. Heath: I am sorry, but I do not accept that that is what the clause says. I will leave the Minister to read it at his leisure. I do not accept that it gives any additional power to a police constable. It is a restriction on the powers of arrest by persons other than constables. If one construes the provision in a particular way, it removes the power of arrest anywhere for a person who has committed the offence of personation. The Minister may disagree but the clause says
''if the offence is committed or is suspected of being committed inside a polling station.''
That is where the offence is committed, or is suspected of being committed. The first part of the clause states that it
''does not permit a person other than a constable to arrest''.
If someone had been to the polling station before me and cast their vote in my name, saying, ''I am David Heath,'' and there was no policeman to be seen—there will not be a policeman in Witham Friary for six months after an election because we do not have policemen there—nothing could be done.—[Interruption.] I could not arrest that person. This is not a trivial point.
David Cairns: The hon. Gentleman has misunderstood it.
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Mr. Heath: I am reading what the clause says. I cannot make a citizen's arrest outside the polling station.
Kevin Brennan: Why not?
Mr. Heath: Because I am not a constable and, under the clause, I cannot make a citizen's arrest and arrest outside the polling station someone who commits or who is suspected of committing an offence if the offence is committed or is suspected of having been committed inside a polling station. That is where the offence has been committed. It has not been committed outside, so I cannot detain that person outside the polling station.
The Under-Secretary needs to reconstruct the clause if he intends it to read that a person may not make a citizen's arrest inside a polling station, so that it is possible to make a citizen's arrest outside the polling station for an offence that is committed inside. At the moment, however, the clause says that no one other than a police constable may detain that person as he leaves the polling station and say, ''You have just committed an offence and I am detaining you under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984,'' until a police constable can effect an arrest. That is the effect of the clause.
I do not want to strain the patience of the Committee any longer, but the Under-Secretary needs to consider very carefully what the clause says, because it does not say what he believes it to say.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 65 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 66 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Further consideration adjourned—[Mr. Brennan.]
Adjourned accordingly at thirteen minutes to Four o'clock till Tuesday 22 November at half-past Ten o'clock.
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