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Lord Dholakia moved Amendment No. 178:

Page 34, line 13, leave out from "with" to end of line 16 and insert "any local authority (or parish or community council) falling within the police authority area"

The noble Lord said: My Lords, there are a number of amendments in this group. I apologise for overlooking Amendment No. 176 but I shall refer to it in moving Amendment No. 178 and speaking to other amendments related to Clause 35. There are more than 20 amendments in this group in regard to community safety accreditation schemes.

Amendment No. 176 was tabled because we believe that local authorities need to be included as major partners in consultation. Amendment No. 178 seeks to include other relevant partners who make up the consultation process in areas and communities—a kind of "subsidiarity" argument. As to Amendments Nos. 180, 181 and 182, we would prefer to use "local authorities (or parish or community council)" instead of "employers". That applies also to Amendments Nos. 183 to 189. Amendment No. 184 and other amendments in the group seek to ensure that sub-contractors will be sub-contractors of the local authority as the local authority will be the employer. Amendments Nos. 186 and 187 are simply tidying amendments.

I have spoken already to Amendment No. 191. If the local authority is the employer, then it must be deemed to be a fit and proper "person".

Amendment No. 198 is similar to Amendment No. 180, as is Amendment No. 200, which seeks to change "person" to "local authority". Amendment No. 201, again, is a tidying amendment. Amendment No. 203 explains what we mean by "local authority". Amendment Nos. 212 to 218, as I have indicated, seek to introduce the new name we have suggested—"Community Safety Warden"—and there are various similar amendments to which I have spoken previously. All these amendments relate to Clause 35. I beg to move.

5.45 p.m.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, the purpose of the amendments, essentially, is to limit membership of community safety accreditation schemes to employees of local authorities. I suspect that this is driven by a concern that accreditation—and hence the limited range of powers available—may not be suitable for employers of what the noble Lord might describe as irresponsible private sector organisations. I can understand that, but we take a different view. We believe that it is sensible to have greater flexibility.

Amendments Nos. 184, 188 and 215 seek to ensure that when the accredited employer is a sub-contractor of a local authority, the sub-contractor is also

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accountable under the Bill. However, as the sub-contractor is the immediate employer of the accredited employee, the argument is not necessary as his responsibilities are already covered by the Bill.

Amendment No. 212 seeks to make it compulsory for an accredited employee to be known as a "community safety warden". Again, the amendment is not necessary because a scheme can choose its own name for its members. The amendment would simply restrict a local discretion to choose other, existing or perhaps more relevant names. We are puzzled as to why the noble Lord would wish to constrain a scheme in that way.

Amendment No. 213 seeks to make it compulsory for a accredited local authority, parish or community council to be consulted before the removal of an accreditation by a chief officer. The net effect of all of this would be to exclude from the accreditation scheme a wide range of organisations which are already involved in community safety, regeneration and community-enhancing public safety. I am puzzled as to why the noble Lord would wish to do that, particularly as he champions enthusiastically a whole range of voluntary organisations in the public sector and may well, in some guise or other, be involved in community safety and regeneration schemes through community safety accreditation programmes. It would also slow down, and perhaps dangerously undermine, any withdrawals of accreditation which a chief officer may wish to make.

In appealing to the noble Lord's liberal inclinations and his broader view of how community accreditation might work, I ask him to think long and hard on how illiberal, constraining and authoritarian are these proposals and measures. I tease, I know, but we do require a broader view if we are to make good use of these powers in the flexible way that I understood, from earlier discussions, the noble Lord endorsed and supported.

I invite the noble Lord to go back to his basic philosophy, examine the thinking behind these amendments and ultimately reject them.

Lord Dholakia: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation and his flattery. However, these amendments are brought forward to probe how far the Government are prepared to accept some of the proposals I mentioned earlier in regard to streamlining, rather than widening, the variation of people involved in this exercise.

I should give advance warning to the Minister that we intend to come back at Third Reading with an appropriate proposal to advance the arguments I made earlier about why they should be community safety wardens and the limited powers they should have, not the excessive powers contained in the Bill.

At this stage, I am grateful for what the Minister has said in appealing to my liberalism. I hope that I shall appeal to his socialism when we come to the Third Reading. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 179 to 182 not moved.]

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Clause 36 [Accreditation under community safety accreditation schemes]:

[Amendments No. 183 to 189 not moved.]

Lord Dixon-Smith had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 190:

Page 34, line 34, leave out subsection (3).

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment and Amendment No. 211, which is grouped with it, flow from the previous group of amendments which we have not discussed. For now, therefore, I shall not move the amendment.

[Amendment No. 190 not moved.]

[Amendments Nos. 191 to 203 not moved.]

Schedule 5 [Powers exercisable by accredited persons]:

Lord Dholakia moved Amendment No. 204:

Page 134, line 30, leave out paragraph 2.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, the amendment relates to powers exercisable by accredited persons which we want to limit. The grouping also includes Amendments Nos. 206 to 210, which add some of the powers from Schedule 4, so that accredited officers can have powers to deal with the minor offences specified in the amendment. I beg to move.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, for explaining his amendments. We believe that it is important for accredited persons to have powers to enforce, which is why we have included in Schedule 5 a power to detain, and why, I regret to say, we cannot accept the amendment.

The power to detain is a necessary part of the powers of an accredited person if that person is to be effective in combating the examples of low-level disorder to which I referred earlier. An accredited person will be able to detain a person only where he believes that the person has committed a relevant offence; namely, one of the fixed penalty offences or an offence causing injury, alarm or distress to another person or causing the loss of or damage to another person's property; or has been acting in an anti-social manner and has then failed to provide a name and address. Without the power to detain, an accredited person will have no means of enforcing the requirement to provide a name and address.

As I said earlier, there is a need to strike a balance. It is important constantly to place on record the fact that the schedule does not confer on accredited persons the power of arrest. Accredited persons will not be able to use "reasonable force" to prevent a detained person from making off. Accredited persons who are given the power of detention will be fully trained in the issues surrounding this, including conflict resolution, as I indicated earlier.

We do not agree with Amendments Nos. 207 to 210. We believe that they are in danger of giving inappropriate powers to members of community safety accreditation schemes.

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I shall not repeat the arguments that I advanced in Committee where I set out my view that we need to be clear about issues of accountability. But it is worth saying that community support officers and others designated under Clause 34 are clearly accountable in the same way as police officers.

Members of community safety accreditation schemes will be different. They will be accountable to their employers for their actions. Bearing in mind the relatively few powers that they would be able to exercise, it would require disproportionate levels of training if they were to be able to use all these powers effectively. I suggest that if noble Lords want their local chief officers to employ people who are not police officers to exercise such powers they should convince their local chief officer to employ some community support officers.

One of our intentions behind the accreditation scheme is to extend very limited powers to individuals who are already active in their communities, particularly in terms of community safety and regeneration in many neighbourhoods in our large cities. That is important.

Requiring a constable to be present might act as a check or a balance to the exercise of these powers, but I am not convinced that this would necessarily be the best use of a police officer's time. I am sure that in some neighbourhoods and on some estates it would undermine the role of the neighbourhood or street warden, for example.

Of course, there is nothing to stop a constable from accompanying an accredited employee. The constable has full powers at all times. No work by an accredited employee will in any way diminish that.

This has been a limited response. Before closing my remarks, however, I should refer specifically to Amendment No. 206. Paragraph 4 of Schedule 5 allows an accredited person to require an individual not to consume alcohol in places designated by local authorities. That has been a hot topic of debate up and down the country for many years. I recall from my own local experience in the West Midlands that Coventry was very much to the fore in attempting to bring back some order to the streets as regards the consumption of alcohol.

Amendment No. 206 limits the power so that it can be exercised in relation to people under 18. Limiting the power in this way would undermine the purpose of the power. Our intention is to enable the accredited employee to pre-empt disorderly behaviour before it arises and, in so doing, support police officers in their efforts to reduce the incidence of such behaviour—not just among minors, but in relation to drinking by adults in parks and in other open places, shopping centres, and so on. Paragraph 5 of Schedule 5 deals with the confiscation of alcohol from minors. In the light of this brief response, I hope that noble Lords will not pursue their amendments.

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