| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
Lord Brightman: My Lords, is it possible that there is a defect in the drafting of the amendment? If the amendment is accepted, as I understand it subsection (6) will read:
- "A designation under this section shall confer powers and impose duties . . . that are to apply to the designated person; and for this purpose the applicable Part of that Schedule is . . .".
Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for drawing my attention to that point. It highlights the problem of being an amateur when drafting amendments. The noble and learned Lord is quite right; without the schedule I have removed the purpose of the amendment and therefore the amendment is at fault. That can be corrected.
I was interested in the Minister's response. He was talking about having to train community support officers in all four of the possible disciplines mentioned. In fact they would only need to be trained in each basket. A community support officer would need to know about the police powers relating to community support officers in Schedule 4. An investigating officer would need the powers of an investigating officer. The two do not need to mix.
The criticism made was that we were prejudging the roles that such people would play. But what is extraordinary about that? We prejudge the roles that the police themselves play. Their powers are defined by law. That is not an optional basket. If it is deemed that
those powers should be changed, it is a matter for Parliament and not for chief officers. That is not an inappropriate decision to take.We shall need to think seriously about this matter. For now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 137 to 139 not moved.]
Schedule 4 [Powers exercisable by police civilians]:
Lord Dixon-Smith moved Amendment No. 140:
- Page 121, line 6, leave out paragraph 1.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Schedule 4 provides a menu of police powers for community support officers. This point parallels our earlier debate. Police powers should not be exercised by non-police and this group of amendments is to give effect to that. The House will remember that we have already put forward an amendment to remove the category of community support officer. If that is done we do not need the powers in Schedule 4.
Amendment No. 40 simply applies consistency with the earlier amendment. The Minister may not even need to reply to it. But in the event that finally there is a decision that community support officers should come into being—we will no doubt reach that at Third Reading—we may well need to look at this basket of powers in detail. However, as far as I am concerned, Amendment No. 140 was tabled to make that point. We could not have had the earlier debate without including these amendments on the Marshalled List. But there may come a time later in the consideration of the Bill when this becomes a serious issue. I beg to move.
The Deputy Speaker (Viscount Allenby of Megiddo): My Lords, I have to say to the House before calling Amendment No. 140, that if it is agreed to I cannot call Amendment No. 141.
Lord Dholakia: My Lords, Amendment No. 140 is grouped with Amendments Nos. 141, 142 and 144, some of which are our amendments and one is tabled jointly with the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith. A number of amendments in this group and in following groups deal with the exercise of police powers by civilians. We could debate each of them at length but that would be time consuming.
The schedule provides for specified police support staff and for civilians to be given particular powers in identifiable circumstances. There is no dispute that better use ought to be made of police resources through more effective deployment of support staff but there is a need to exercise great care in granting powers that, while making policing easier, might increase anxiety in the community.
One problem is the Bill's terminology. There is confusion because of the widespread use of different terminology and varying public perceptions of the new powers. The provisions need to be rationalised. In particular, I recommend that consideration be given to a title that is common to all the functions in
question—perhaps something in the nature of "community safety wardens", to ensure that everyone understands the meaning of a second-tier police service.Under the amendments, community service wardens would be accredited by the police but be under local authority control. We make a distinction in the case of the Metropolitan Police but propose greatly reducing the powers proposed by the Government.
The Police Federation strongly opposes the Government's proposals. They and we know already of the confusion surrounding various strands of policing support. There are community safety officers, community wardens, neighbourhood wardens—one could go on. Even the Prime Minister managed to use four different titles when referring to the CSOs that the Bill proposes. There is a need for a rational approach to avoid confusion.
We must make sure also that the public are able to distinguish between the powers of police officers and those proposed for second-tier support. The solution is clearly to indicate the nature of the new powers and to use a title such as "community safety wardens". We propose also that wardens wear the same visible uniforms and display identifying badges, to indicate the local authority by which they are controlled. All wardens will have been accredited by the police, after assuring themselves of an individual's suitability for the role. Wardens will also be required to complete some training to the satisfaction of both the police and the local authority.
The police and local authorities already work closely together. Our proposal would put community safety wardens at the heart of local community working. They would have fewer powers than those proposed in the Bill and everyone would understand what those powers are.
The Police Federation helpfully drew attention to the possible implications, in exercising the power of detention by CSOs, of Articles 5 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. I should like the Minister to comment. I draw to his attention also the federation's concern that CSOs could potentially find themselves in dangerous and volatile situations, in providing public order support and operating at times of terrorist threat. I accept the Minister's comments, but does he not agree that sudden escalations of violence are not unknown and require the highest standard of training and professionalism among those who confront them? What kind of expert training does the Minister intend for officers likely to find themselves in such circumstances and whose lives might be put at risk?
The Bill should keep it simple by identifying police officers and then others in a supporting role, so that the public will be neither confused nor uncertain.
4.45 p.m.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, I confess that I am in danger of being swept along and losing my balance by the sheer enthusiasm of the Minister who is in loco
parentis to the Bill. He seems such a zealous convert in its cause that he can see no objections. I believe that he has misunderstood one point that we have tried to make. It is not so much that we suspect the Home Secretary of some devilish scheme to compel chief constables to make use of designated officers. Rather, we fear that they will feel under pressure, because of their limited budgets and lack of resources, to make use of cheaper manpower. I wish that the Minister would get that clear in his mind.The noble Lord, in his enthusiastic advocacy, referred to this part of the Bill as a major innovation. Some aspects of it puzzle me. I am particularly interested in Amendment No. 142, which seeks to leave out paragraph 2 of Schedule 4. That schedule refers to a designated person with a limited function, who will not receive the full training given to a police officer. The Minister said that such an officer would have the advantage of not being so likely to be called away because of the pressures on a chief constable.
The schedule allows a designated person to stop someone whom he suspects of having committed an offence and to demand the individual's name and address. If the individual declines or the designated person suspects that he is being fobbed off with a false name and address, he has the power to request the suspect to wait with him for 30 minutes while a police constable is sent for and turns up.
I cannot help feeling that it is unrealistic to expect a person who has not received full police training to wait with his suspect for 30 minutes on the roadside, perhaps in the rain, while a police constable is sent for to do the job that he—and only he—is fully trained to do. That scenario verges on the unreal to such an extent that it would be as well if the Minister would agree to leaving that provision out of the Bill. It asks an awful lot of a designated officer, who is not as well trained as a policeman. That officer would for up to half an hour be the acting policeman and that is a little too much. I hope that the Minister will bear in mind the worry that the schedule represents a rather devious means of obtaining a larger force on the cheap.
Lord Rooker: My Lords, I respond to the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, by saying that there is nothing devious about this matter. We have been totally upfront. We want a greater uniformed presence on the streets. We are not being devious about it. I have always said that it is a flagship part of the White Paper and of the Bill. We are not hiding that light under a bushel.
I am sorry if I have come across as being zealous. I am more jealous than zealous. If these powers had been available during some periods of the 27 years when I served my constituency in the other place, my constituents' lives would have been vastly improved. So I fully support them.
With regard to our not listening, as a result of discussion in Committee I have returned—yesterday and today—with a sack load of amendments to the Bill. Half of today's amendments will be government ones. So we have gone away and thought about the
matters. We also went away to think about this aspect. But we are still of the view that the powers are worth keeping.The noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, did me a favour. He accepted that this group of amendments was really part and parcel of Amendment No. 134. I have 30 pages of notes which explain each and every one of the powers. But I do not think that that is the issue at stake.
The central point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, is that it is important that people clearly understand the powers of their community support officers. It is incumbent on the police authority and the chief officer when they designate and choose from the menu that there is clarity and not confusion about the powers of the support officers.
What they are called colloquially does not matter. There is nothing in the law that talks about a "bobby on the beat". But people will go to police consultative meetings and other public meetings and will talk about bobbies on the beat because people understand what is meant by that. I accept that "community support officers" is a piece of legalise in the Bill. I do not know whether in future they will be known as that. The London authority has already said that it will designate three types of community support officer and probably give a name to each of them, but the name is connected to the police because they will be police authority employees. However, the public needs clarity.
Perhaps I may address the view of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton. He asked me especially about paragraph 2 of Schedule 4. He jested about detaining a person for 30 minutes without a power of arrest. He asked when the clock would start ticking and so on. Given the support officer's existing powers—whether it is in order to remove alcohol or because of anti-social behaviour—basically we need him to be able to get a person's name and address. In most cases he will be limited to asking for a name and address. He may get details that he does not think are true and which he wants to check. He should be reasonable and not oppressive. In order to check he could say, "Will you wait until a police constable comes?" If the person makes off, the support officers will not have the power to go after him, as it were, "to search and rescue". I make clear that the officers do not have a power of arrest.
In a way we must strike a balance in the powers between having support officers dealing with some of the low-level crime matters that I have discussed earlier and the matters dealt with by the fully trained police constable. I cannot say how this will work out in practice. It will be for the community support officer to judge whether to detain, say, a gang of youths and ask for their names and addresses; as indeed it would be for a police constable on his own to make a judgment whether to apprehend a person or to make an arrest. The community support officer would call for extra support. The support officers will be in contact with the police. They will not be isolated out there. They will be the eyes and ears of the police.
They will have the ability to contact the station and to contact patrolling officers when they need that kind of support.
| Next Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |