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Lord Dixon-Smith: Yes.

Lord Rooker: It is a remarkable innovation then.

Lord Dixon-Smith: Yes, it is a remarkable innovation, and we should be quite clear about it. That is why I say that it is a radical proposal.

I shall leave it there. The Minister is now aware of the point, and that is satisfactory. We have also identified the difference between us. I ask him to think about the point, which is very important. At this stage, however, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 224 to 226 not moved.]

Lord Dixon-Smith moved Amendment No. 227:

Page 33, line 24, leave out subsection (5).

The noble Lord said: This is a probing amendment. Clause 34(5) states:

"A community safety accreditation scheme must contain provision for the making of arrangements with employers who . . . are carrying on business in the police area in question, or . . . are carrying on business in relation to the whole or any part of that area or in relation to places situated within it".

The amendment seeks to uncover precisely what is meant by the provision. Firms such as Group 4 and Securicor, for example, have company headquarters. Are they carrying on business only at the location of that headquarters or across the whole country? If the latter, their employees policing a shopping centre could be accredited in that area although their headquarters were somewhere else and all their revenue and taxes went elsewhere. The amendment makes a small point of detail which seeks to ascertain the meaning of the provision, which is loosely worded. We shall have to be able to gain employers' co-operation.

There is another point. It appears that employers who indulge in these schemes will pick up a liability if their employees do anything wrong when acting on behalf of the police. The point is dealt with in Amendment No. 260, which is in this group. We have

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to be very clear that, should someone acting with police powers make a mistake, liability for that mistake should go back to the police rather than to the employer.

Both issues are very important in their own way, although in the context of some of the matters we have discussed they may seem trivial. I beg to move.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: I believe that we can reassure the noble Lord sufficiently. As I understand the amendments, they appear to be concerned about a shift in responsibility and legal liability for unlawful conduct on the part of staff who are given certain powers.

So far as we are concerned it is immaterial where a company's headquarters are located. If Group 4 is contracted to provide the security in a shopping centre in Epsom, it is carrying on a business in Epsom. The location of its headquarters does not have much relevance. The important matter is that whoever is deployed or employed as a neighbourhood warden has already built up a reputation for his or her commitment and professionalism. Such wardens will be eligible, if their employer and the local chief constable agree, to be accredited as part of a community safety accreditation scheme and could be extended limited appropriate powers.

We do not want to bring wardens and the like under the control and supervision of the police; their strength is their independence. As part of the accreditation process the training and professionalism of both the individual staff and their employers will be carefully assessed and powers will only be extended where the chief officer is satisfied with standards of training and professionalism and that there is appropriate supervision in place. That is the important point.

The accreditation of an organisation and the extension of powers to employees will be reviewed regularly to ensure that the standards we expect are maintained. That is another important assurance for the noble Lord to take into account. We believe that we have the safeguards in place to ensure that supervision of exercise of powers is of a high standard. We already trust others to exercise official powers and their employers to supervise them; these safeguards will enable the public to trust accredited persons and their employers in the same way.

We believe that bringing accredited organisations under the direct control of the police by making them liable for the actions of accredited persons will discourage organisations from working in co-ordination with the police and could be a burden on the police and mean that those organisations that are accredited would lose their independence.

I hope that those assurances help the noble Lord. I understand what motivated him to table the amendment, but we believe that we have adequate checking mechanisms in place and that the liabilities are understood.

Lord Mayhew of Twysden: I am afraid that I yield to no one in my ignorance of these procedures but I

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thought that Amendment No. 260 was grouped with the amendment we are discussing. I thought that my noble friend on the Front Bench alluded to the making of a joint tort-feasor in connection with the employer. I raised that matter briefly at Second Reading. I do not think that the Minister mentioned it in his reply. In my view what is wrong here—I should be grateful for the Minister's comments on the matter—is the following.

In law you are liable as an employer for the actions of your employee only if they are carried out in the course of his employment with you. That is putting the matter very generally. Yet here we have a blanket imposition of liability upon the employer as a joint tort-feasor, joint wrongdoer, with the chief officer of police in circumstances—which will catch the employer—where he may have given the most express instructions to his employee not to do a certain thing in the course of his work as an accredited officer and has exercised proper supervision to see that he does not. Yet, none the less, his instructions are broken. In those circumstances I believe that anyone would say that it was unjust to make the employer liable. If anyone is to be liable it should be the police on whose behalf this work is being carried out.

Which employers will be approached for accreditation purposes? We have heard of some instances of providers of private services of a security character but the matter is not limited to that. Will the Minister deal with that point? I believe that it is a fairly simple one which can be dealt with today, particularly as it was raised at Second Reading.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: I am not an expert in tort but I should think that in the circumstances that the noble and learned Lord described, there probably was a strict liability because the instructions or guidance had been issued by the employer, not the police. I do not necessarily believe that the liability would shift, but I shall take advice on that. I apologise to the noble and learned Lord if we did not cover that point in the fallout from our debate at Second Reading. A difficulty may well be caused in the situation that he described. That is one of the circumstances in which liability is perhaps more strict that he would wish.

Lord Mayhew of Twysden: Liability can be strict only if the Bill imposes it, which it does. It is that which I respectfully suggest is unjust.

Lord Condon: I place on the record the fact that I am a non-executive director of Securicor—particular firms have been mentioned—and my silence on this matter should be seen in that context.

Baroness Gardner of Parkes: In London, there is much interest among local boroughs about accredited persons. They should also be considered in this respect.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: For the convenience of Members of the Committee, our advice is that in this instance the employer will be liable for unlawful conduct only in the course of the person's employment

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and in reliance or purported reliance on designation or accreditation. I think that it is right to say that a member of the public should have a remedy against an organisation, not an individual. That must be right.

Lord Mayhew of Twysden: I hope that the Minister will examine this matter again because I do not believe that that is an accurate statement of the position. I am quite prepared to find that I am wrong in the event, but in this regard the provision would impose strict liability on anything done by an employee in reliance or purported reliance on a designation or accreditation. It is important for the guy in the street who is stopped and told that he is behaving in an anti-social way to know who he will sue. He will assume that the person is acting within the course of his employment. One can envisage certain circumstances in which he will not be; none the less, strict liability will be imposed, as the clause is currently drafted, on the employer.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: We will need to satisfy the noble and learned Lord, who is obviously very learned in these matters. I have put our interpretation on the record.

Lord Dixon-Smith: I am grateful to the Minister for his clarification and to my noble and learned friend Lord Mayhew for pursuing this point. The only sensible advice that one could give to any employer is to avoid letting his staff be accredited because of this potential liability, and I do not think that that is what the Government intend. They may think that that position will not arise but we are right to fear that it could arise. If it could arise, the advice that I suggested would be appropriate and that would rather destroy the scheme's credibility. I hope that the Government will carefully examine the issue. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendment No. 228 not moved.]

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