Draft Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (Codes of Practice) (Revision of Code E) Order 2015

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 General Committees

[Mike Penning]

It is an honour to be the police Minister and to work with the shadow Minister, with whom I discussed briefly last night the matters in this delegated legislation. I fully understand the points he made and I will address each in turn.

The shadow Minister was right in saying that there are three pilots for out-of-court disposals. We are trying to move away from cautions and slapped wrists; for people who commit offences and admit them, there are consequences and the current pilots will report back imminently. If those pilots are successful—the anecdotal evidence suggests that they are—we want to roll them out very quickly.

The evidence from the police on the ground indicates that they would like these offences and others—I stress “others”—to be exempted. We have looked carefully at the proposals and at the Bar Council’s concerns and exempted only these four categories of offence. I do not accept that the measure will have a detrimental effect on the public’s view of the police. Actually, the police have worked successfully in this area for many years. We have a very professional police force and we must make sure that we trust them. I looked at the evidence and that is why I brought the provision forward, as I discussed last night.

I fully accept what the shadow Minister said. We are moving to a more digital age. It is not only in the Met where we are piloting body-worn cameras. They have been a huge success and we are considering rolling them out, but we must make sure the evidence is protected within the devices and that will take even more of a leap in the process. We will be back for another change in PACE to allow that evidence to be taken when we come away from the pilots.

There were some concerns and the police asked for more exemptions. I have looked carefully at that and restricted myself to the four. I will continue to look at the matter carefully, especially in the light of the Bar Council’s comments. If there is any evidence of what it is saying, the Government will come back to the Committee to make sure we address that. With that in mind, I hope that these changes to PACE can be accepted this morning.

Question put and agreed to.