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Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way. I failed to ask him the right question. Given that the suspect may not be an entirely reasonable, patient and well-behaved character, is it not verging on the unreasonable to expect a not fully-trained designated officer to handle him for 30 minutes while he waits for a policeman to arrive? That seems to me to be a little unrealistic.
Lord Rooker: My Lords, I do not think that that is unrealistic or unreasonable. As I have said, it depends on the circumstances. Whether it is a gang of marauding, strapping youths as opposed to strapping "kidlets"—although they can be equally dangerous these days—it is a matter of judgment. The support officers will be trained. They will not be sent out untrained with these powers. They will go through the processes and the scenarios of what happens—as indeed police officers are trained—and then make judgments. They will use their common sense in the ultimate circumstances. But it is not unreasonable for them to have these modest powers to detain for 30 minutes if they need a name and address.
After the 30 minutes the officers will not have a power to detain. That is a matter of local contact with the police. It will be a matter of custom and practice and what actually happens in the locality. It will be up to the chief constable and other police officers to make the best use of their community support officers. Time will tell what happens. But the training will be provided to meet those circumstances. I have no doubt that in due course—I suspect although I cannot make these offers—the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, could be appraised of the kind of training that goes on. Other noble Lords could be, because this is not being done furtively. It is not being done deviously, as the noble Lord claims. We are quite open about this matter. We shall be quite boastful of its success in due course.
Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Peyton of Yeovil for his supportive remarks on the principles that we have been following. I am grateful too to the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, for explaining his amendments and indeed his concerns about the basket of powers and the flexibility within it. It was right that he raised that at this stage. I dealt with this group of amendments as a simple follow-on from the case that we had been arguing that in fact we should not be putting people exercising police powers on the streets who are not in fact full policemen with full police powers.
We have had a long and fascinating debate across various groups of amendments in this field. One point appears to be strongly made. I return to the point raised by the Minister in the diary of a policeman who has to spend 42 per cent of his time on administration. If by legislation we could reduce the administrative burden on that man by one half, so that he only had to
spend 22 per cent of his time—nearly one-quarter of his time—on administrative duties in the police station, we would do far more good for the police service than anything that has been proposed here. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 141 to 151 not moved.]
Lord Dholakia moved Amendment No. 152:
- Page 124, line 39, at end insert—
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No 152 I should like to speak also to Amendments Nos. 154, 156 to 158 and Amendments Nos. 159 to 169. There are a large number of amendments in this group. They all deal with the exercising of powers. We believe that persons who undertake powers of search, of entry and of seizure should be under the direction of a police officer. Similarly, Amendments Nos. 159 to 169 would ensure that a constable directed a community safety warden. I beg to move.
The Deputy Speaker: My Lords, I must inform the House that if Amendment No. 152 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment No. 153 under the pre-emption rule.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, the noble Lord has made his intention commendably plain. To a degree, I can understand his caution about the provision. But ultimately I am drawn to conclude that it would be an unnecessary fetter on the police service's ability to make full use of what we are enabling. That is especially true of the first set of amendments. The second set of amendments have a comparable feature in that they would require any powers used by a detention officer to be pursuant to an instruction from a constable. I will say more about detention officers before I conclude my remarks, because there are some particular points worth making about them, but I shall first set out some general concerns about how the amendments would seriously undermine what we are trying to achieve by the Bill.
The purpose of the designation process is to create a flexible and proportionate response to tackling anti-social behaviour and freeing up police officers' time from doing certain tasks. The noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, has emphasised several times how important that is, and it is a shared belief across the House. We want to ensure that we have designated officers who do not require the full skills and training of police constables so that there can be some flexibility of use.
Community support officers, or whatever they are called in the end, will allow police officers to focus on serious crime and public disorder, which is highly desirable and at the top of most people's agenda—street crime in particular—while community service
We fear that the amendments would prevent us from doing that to the full because they would remove the flexibility that we have frequently discussed this afternoon and which is a key feature of the Bill. They would require police constables to accompany community support officers or investigating officers when carrying out some of their functions, rather than allowing the designated officers, who will be thoroughly trained and accountable, to carry out the task themselves.
Although I understand the noble Lord's concerns, the amendments would lead to duplication, inflexibility and added bureaucracy. That is undesirable. We want designated people to work closely with the police in what could be accurately described as a virtuous partnership. Like most noble Lords, I am sure, I should prefer to leave decisions about deployment and making the best use of valuable human resources to the chief officer, rather than prescribing in the Bill a requirement that will constrain the chief officer's operational discretion, which is key to making good use of staff in any situation.
I said that I would also comment on the amendments relating to detention officers, which work in a similar way and to which the same arguments apply. We must ensure that police officers do not have to spend unnecessary time in the station and that we do not constrain how the chief officer and his senior management deploy their staff. We want properly trained and accountable detention officers to be able to carry out their range of functions without constant supervision and being second-guessed by a busy police officer in attendance.
Lord Dholakia: My Lords, the Police Federation drew attention to the possible implications of the exercise of power of detention by community support officers that the Minister mentioned under Articles 5 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Is the Minister satisfied that there are no difficulties in that regard?
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, that point has been fully checked out and we are satisfied that the provision is fully compliant. The issue has been raised, rehearsed and considered and we are confident that that is the case.
The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 provides significant safeguards in relation to what happens in the police station. For that reason, the amendments are unnecessary. For example, as we discussed in Committee, in future an inspector must authorise an intimate search of a detained person and
We think that we have the checks and balances right. We have taken a flexible but accountable approach that allows chief officers to exercise the necessary local discretion in deploying their staff resource—whether police officers or designated support staff. The amendments would fetter, damage and undermine that important point of principle. With that explanation, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment. We fully understand his cautious approach to the introduction of the provisions, although they have been broadly welcomed.
Lord Dholakia: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation. I must study carefully what he has said. As the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, said earlier, the powers vested in community support officers is a matter of serious concern to us. We may return to it at Third Reading. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 153 to 162 not moved.]
"(2) A person to whom this paragraph applies shall not exercise any powers conferred by this paragraph except in the company, and under the supervision, of a constable."
5 p.m.
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