Offensive Weapons Bill

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 28th January 2019 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Erroll]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is absolutely on the right lines. One of the troubles is knowing what is permissible and what is not. In speaking to the amendments in his name, I will suggest something which takes it a bit further. I declare an interest as chair of the Digital Policy Alliance, which, among other things, worked for several years on age verification for the Digital Economy Act. This Bill has exactly the same problem as Section 3 of that Act: what systems are adequate for proving the age of someone in an online sale? We worked on such systems and if noble Lords want to see that it can be done properly and securely I recommend they go to the web portal dpatechgateway.co.uk, where there are several to play with. The challenge is that there is no official certification scheme in place, but those systems are compliant with BSI publicly available specification 1296. I chaired the steering group that produced that standard and it had a lot of different people on it—people from the industry, academics, legislators, lawyers, et cetera. It shows that it can be done securely.

This goes one stage further than the suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that the police can certify. Here is a system that you could trust. The technology also enables it to be on a mobile, so you can do point-of-delivery verification. You have got the person there: you can compare them with the device. Amendment 13 goes some way to solving the quandary for a seller, but what is “adequate”? Someone in the industry has suggested to me that it might be better to insert a new paragraph (c) after line 22 saying that: “The Secretary of State may lay regulations as to which bodies are recognised to provide standards against which age-verification schemes can be assessed”. In that way, a certification system could be set up. The BBFC and DCMS have been struggling with this for some time. They are getting there, but there is a lot to be learned from the fallout from that which could be imported into this Bill. Giving the Secretary of State the power to say what schemes can be certified against would go a long way to making life far simpler. We are moving into an online age. We cannot do all this offline and we should not pretend we can.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of the amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is right that we are in the hands of sellers and delivery drivers, who have quite a lot of responsibility. If they get this wrong, they could be convicted, go to prison and have a criminal record. I am not against the Bill—in general I support it—but it is reasonable for it to set out what people need to do to protect themselves. One way of going forward may be a police guidance scheme. Another would be requiring the delivery driver to take photographic evidence. This would be a very good thing to do, because it is important to protect the people who are doing this work. People do make unintentional mistakes. They need to know that the person at the door is the right age and can hand over documents as evidence, or that they have abided by a police-approved scheme to which their company has signed up. These amendments go a long way to ensure protection for the seller, as well as making sure that the items are handed to the right people who are entitled to buy them.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I am grateful to my noble friend for explaining these amendments, which deal with the evidence required to satisfy the defence if a seller is charged with selling or delivering a corrosive product to someone who is under the age of 18. As regards Amendment 3 to Clause 1, I understand my noble friend’s intention but I am doubtful that it is necessary or appropriate to require the police to certify a seller’s processes as adequate. There are already well-established and widely recognised age-restricted policies in place for retailers and sellers through Challenge 21 and Challenge 25. These policies are used day in and day out by retailers to deal with situations where an individual may appear to be under 18, particularly in relation to the sale of alcohol or tobacco. I have concerns about the value of asking the police to certify a seller’s processes and about the burden this would place on police forces. I am also concerned about whether this approach would undermine these established policies. Arguably this amendment would necessitate the police certifying the specific age-restriction policies of every individual seller of a corrosive product, whether a high-street store or an online marketplace. This not a valuable use of police time when we want them to be focused on preventing and tackling violence in our communities.

In any event, I am not persuaded that the police would be the appropriate agency to discharge this function. We must not forget the important role that trading standards plays and its expertise in this area. That said, I would have the same concerns about the resource implications for local authorities if they, rather than the police, were to be made responsible for certifying the systems put in place by all retailers of corrosive substances caught by the Bill.

The defence we have put in place for the Clause 1 offence is similar to that for the sale of knives to under-18s, and it seems right to have a seller prove that they took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid committing the offence of selling to an under-18. Similar considerations apply to Amendment 13, which would again require the police to certify as adequate a seller’s system in preventing, in this case, the remote sale of a corrosive product to someone under 18. We have not specified an age-verification system in the legislation as there are various types of systems available and, as the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, pointed out, the technology behind such systems is continuing to develop at a fast pace. As a result, we did not want to prescribe a specific method or set a minimum standard for what these systems need to do, first, because we need to ensure that we future-proof the legislation, and secondly, because it is for sellers to determine the most appropriate system for their businesses to be able to demonstrate that they took all reasonable precautions and exercised due diligence to prevent the sale of a corrosive product to an under-18.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I see the point the Minister is making. She referred to various age-verification systems. I do not know whether we are going to have any guidance from the Government when this Bill becomes law. I want to ensure that these products are not sold to young people, but equally I want a system whereby I am confident that the person selling these items has had to reach quite a high bar to get this wrong so I am more confident that they have sold them deliberately. Will there be some sort of guidance saying that the Government would expect a seller to be in a scheme for age verification, so that if you are a courier company delivering products we would expect you to be in a scheme that does this and your driver would have professional training to know that, when he knocks on the door, he has to have done such and such? We need to make sure that we give the maximum amount of direction to people so we avoid these things getting into the wrong hands.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord makes a perfectly practical point. We are aiming to produce guidance. We talked about shopkeepers the other day and the abuse of shopkeepers who are trying to abide by the law. I think some of the conversation we had with USDAW will prove very fruitful in developing our thinking on that.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

Will you produce guidance along the lines of what I have suggested? Or are you not sure yet? Will you get to it later on?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

We will produce guidance and I will of course take the noble Lord’s points into account. I cannot say whether supermarkets are currently part of the Challenge 21 or Challenge 25 scheme; I do not know the answer to that. However, in the production of guidance, you consult the various interested stakeholders to make sure that the guidance is as clear as it possibly can be.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

With the greatest respect, you would expect some of the bigger companies to have systems in place. I am more concerned about smaller couriers and shops—one-man-band operations—which may not have anything in place. Being directed to sign up to a scheme would be good for everybody concerned.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

In fact, I was thinking precisely of the small shop owner, who may not have the resource. If they could sign up or reference some sort of guidance that would be ideal. I was thinking along the same lines as the noble Lord.

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Earl, Lord Erroll, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, essentially come back to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, made. Sellers want to make sure they are abiding by the law but, as the noble Baroness said, buyers want to make sure they are abiding by the law as well. On the systems that the noble Earl raised, I hope I did not suggest that he was trying to imply a specific system. I made the point that it would be wrong to specify a system in the legislation, given that systems are developing all the time.

To answer the point from the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, about age-restricted products, I have already mentioned knives, alcohol and tobacco, but lottery tickets are age-restricted as well, of course. Retailers are very used to operating in these systems, without a specific approved system in place.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

This is a different type of retailer—hardware shops. You usually buy your lottery ticket from a different sort of place. I think we need to deal with these like for like.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord is both right and wrong. A shop might sell a range of products that includes all these things—I am thinking of Tesco, for example—whereas a corner shop might be entirely different.

The amendments would place additional burdens on sellers and delivery firms or couriers beyond the conditions proposed in Clause 2 that would need to be met by any remote seller who is charged with an offence of selling a corrosive product to someone under 18 and wants to rely on the defence for remote sales. We have already prescribed a tight set of conditions on remote sellers if they want to rely on the defence in Clause 2. There is clearly a balance to be struck, but I am not sure that we want to go further and be more prescriptive by imposing a requirement for photographic evidence, albeit that some firms may well want to adopt such an approach.

As for obtaining and retaining photographic evidence that the corrosive product was only delivered into the hands of someone aged over 18, I would have concerns about the storage for an appropriate period of such photographs under the general data protection regulation. The person who received the package would of course need to give their consent to any photograph being taken. We also need to bear in mind that it might not necessarily be the seller making the delivery; it could be a third-party delivery firm or a courier. That would raise the question of how the photographic evidence was transferred to the seller for retention. There is also a concern that the seller would not be able to fulfil the conditions set out for condition C in Clause 2 if the delivery firm or courier delivering the package failed to take and send the photographic evidence to the seller. The seller would not be able to demonstrate that they had taken all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to ensure that, when finally delivered, the package was handed over to someone over 18. I accept that these difficulties are not insurmountable, but they demonstrate the drawback of imposing a level of regulation beyond what is arguably necessary.

I reassure noble Lords that we will work with retailers, the police and trading standards on implementation of the measures relating to the sale and delivery of corrosive products to ensure that those measures are adequate. As I said, we will want to produce guidance to ensure that retailers and sellers know what steps they can take to ensure that they comply with the law. I hope that, with those explanations, the noble Lord will be happy to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

Could I just come back to the issue of getting people to provide information? I understand the point that the noble Baroness makes about the GDPR, but we want the person who is knocking on the door to take all reasonable steps to know who the person answering the door is. Age can be quite deceptive. I had to go to the Co-op last night to get a package. I had my passport and my driving licence and I had to put in a PIN, just to pick up a jacket. These days, people often buy things that come in the post or have to be picked up from the post office or elsewhere, so giving identification is not a big issue now. If you are not doing anything wrong, why would you not provide that information anyway?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I think that the noble Lord was referring to the taking and retention of photographs, which is slightly different, and we need to acknowledge the distinction.

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[Lord Judge]

If I might say so, “all” means “every”. Without “all”, you have just to take reasonable precautions and show due diligence. Once you put “all” in, you fall foul of any particular point you could have but did not look at and did not do.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

This is something we talked about earlier. If we are to put “all” in, it is not unreasonable to have some sort of guidance in the Bill to protect people, otherwise people are just left hanging.

[Lord Paddick]

Would it help the Committee to suggest that the Government have put in Clause 4 exactly the sort of things the delivery courier should be looking at to take reasonable precautions?

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[Lord Judge]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. Views have been expressed here which I respect but do not share. The seller will be, or is likely to be, an adult, and certainly will not be a vulnerable child. The purchaser, or the person to whom the product is sold, may be a very young child. It may be a 17 year-old who lives in an area where there is an awful lot of violence and who has a bad record which is known to the seller. We have to be careful. I am implacably opposed to minimum terms—we may come to that at some stage—because minimum terms do not do justice. However, a person who sells to a vulnerable child, or to somebody who leads a gang or who has been given a community sentence first time round, with a condition that he is prohibited from selling corrosive products but continues to do so, merits a prison sentence as punishment. Prison is not just about rehabilitation. Short sentences do not do much good; indeed, the evidence suggests that some of them do a lot of harm. However, some short sentences do some good because they punish the offender. Therefore, I cannot support these amendments.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, as you heard, Amendments 4, 5, 20 and 21 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, seek to replace the punishment that a person is liable to get on conviction, as set out in the Bill, with a community sentence. Amendments 6 and 7 allow conditions to be added to prohibit offenders from selling corrosive substances.

I am very sympathetic to these amendments. We have heard about the debate that is going on in Government at the moment between the justice department and the Home Office on sentencing policy. Generally, as we have heard, short-term sentences are not the right thing to do; they can be expensive and counterproductive, and they are not long enough to deal with a person’s issues. They can actually do more harm than good: the person can lose their job, home and family and then of course they have to go back out into the community. These amendments concern the delivery driver and the owner of the corner shop—the person who sold the products—not the young person who may want to commit other offences.

I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. Magistrates have the ability to look at the case in detail and decide on the best punishment. It could be that, for a second or third offence, prison might be the right place to put this person, because they will not listen. Equally, I want to make sure that the magistrates deciding these cases have that ability because they will know whether the offence merits a community sentence. I want to hear that a suite of punishments is available to the court and not have it driven down that they must impose a mandatory sentence. On that basis, although I have some sympathy with the amendments as they are, I want a much broader suite that enables the court to look at the evidence before it and make a sentence that it believes is appropriate.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for tabling these amendments and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for speaking to them, as it provides us with the opportunity to debate the appropriateness of the penalties we are proposing for anyone found guilty of selling a corrosive product to someone aged under 18 or for arranging the delivery of a corrosive product to residential premises or a locker. I am not persuaded of the case for replacing custodial sentences of up to six months for the sale and delivery offences with community sentences. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, very articulately outlined why they might be necessary for some, but not all, offences. Let me explain my reasons for this.

We need to consider the significant harm corrosive products can cause if they are misused as a weapon to attack someone. My noble friend Lady Eaton pointed out one such circumstance in which this might happen: domestic abuse settings. The effects can be significant and life-changing for a victim, leaving them with permanent injuries, not to mention causing serious psychological harm. But it is important to be clear that in providing this maximum custodial penalty we are providing the courts with a range of penalties, from custody through to a fine or both. That gives the courts the option to impose a community sentence if that is most suitable, taking into account all the circumstances of the offence and, of course, of the offender.

There is also the requirement under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 that the court has to be satisfied that the offence is so serious that only a custodial sentence can be justified, so we can have every confidence that our courts will be sentencing offenders appropriately. Where a custodial sentence is justified they will impose it, but where a community order would be better for punishment and rehabilitation while protecting the public nothing in our provisions prevents it. There is also the broader legal framework to consider and the novel problems of a maximum penalty being a community order.

I must point out to noble Lords that, under Section 150A of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, a community sentence can be imposed only where the offence is punishable by a prison sentence. That is an important point to note. Even if it were possible to change the maximum penalties we are proposing, it would raise the problem that if someone wilfully breached their community order, then, as the law stands, it would not be possible to sentence them to custody. The courts would be able only to re-impose another community sentence. As a result, it is important that custodial sentences are available to the courts as one of the penalties available for anyone convicted of the sales offence. Such an approach is also consistent with the range of penalties available to the courts for anyone who has been convicted of selling a knife or bladed article to a person under the age of 18.

It was very clear from the debates in the House of Commons that we should treat the threat of violence from corrosives as seriously as that from knives. We have therefore tried to ensure that the offences relating to corrosives mirror those for knives wherever possible, as we discussed. I note that this approach was strongly supported by the Opposition during the detailed consideration of the Bill in Commons Committee. These amendments would undermine that approach, and would in effect be saying that selling a corrosive product to someone under the age of 18 was less serious than selling a bladed article to a person under the age 18.

I add that, as with other age-restricted products, in many cases it is the company selling the product or arranging for its delivery that would be prosecuted. Although the person at the checkout desk is sometimes prosecuted, it is more likely the case that it will be the company operating the store, because it will be responsible for ensuring that procedures and training are in place to avoid commission of the offence. This goes back to the guidance point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. Where it is a company that is being prosecuted, the sentence is likely to be a fine rather than a custodial or community sentence, but if an individual is prosecuted, the full range of penalties should be available.

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[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I am more comfortable with the Minister’s explanation than I am with what is written in the Bill. Perhaps we can look at this again between now and Report. The Bill seems harsh—it says that there will be a prison sentence—whereas the Minister has said that a whole suite of options will be available to the courts, including community sentences. It seems a shame that what is written in the Bill is not the whole case. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said, prison might be the right option in some cases, but in other cases a community sentence would be appropriate. I not a lawyer—I am a lay person—but perhaps we can look at how the Bill is written. As I said, I am happier with what I have heard than with what is in the Bill.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her helpful, informative and careful reply. I particularly welcome what she said about the need to think about placing women in prison, given the stubbornly high level of female imprisonment over many years now. I was thinking about the fact that one in 10 lone-parent families is headed by the man. Is there any advice to the courts on whether, when deciding on sentencing, they should take into account whether a man is looking after the children in the family? The Minister will not have it to hand, but I imagine that there is some guidance on that. Perhaps we can look at it at some point.

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[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I think the noble Viscount makes a fair point. He has listed some examples of when this could be a problem. I look forward to the Minister’s response to these valid concerns.

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, before my noble friend responds—the noble Viscount, Lord Craigavon, raised some very pertinent points—she might consider that if a miscreant wanted to obtain a corrosive substance, buying a brand-new motorcycle battery would be an extremely expensive way of doing it. When we look at banning things, we have to be very clear about what we think the benefit will be. This is a substance that is still very easy to obtain. It feels as if we are doing a great thing by banning things—we all want to see a reduction in the availability of these dangerous substances—but the reality is that any backstreet garage or facility will have stacks of used car batteries, from which these substances can be taken. We have to consider whether the delivery of an expensive motorcycle battery that may cost £50 is really a likely route for a miscreant who is trying to get hold of these substances. I am a motorcyclist too, although my battery appears to be very reliable.

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[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I am confused as well, so I am in good company. Maybe an example would help the Committee. I am certainly confused about what the words mean.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Would it be helpful if I wrote to noble Lords giving examples?

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[Lord Lucas]

That seems a bit odd. If you can get the corrosive stuff only from overseas sellers, you will get the rest of your stuff from an overseas seller too because it is that much more convenient. If there is no positive effect—because people can still get the corrosive substances from an overseas seller—why ban getting them from a UK seller? It is really very easy. A lot of sellers that you think are in the UK are overseas.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

Can I be absolutely clear? Are we saying that you cannot buy it from a UK seller but you can buy it from an overseas seller?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

You can buy it from either, but the mechanisms for age verification are slightly different.

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[The Earl of Erroll]

I can see that this will also get more complicated because you can order a product from a supermarket located just across the channel and have it delivered to your residential premises, which presumably means that it is an international transaction. A particular supermarket was mentioned earlier. I do not think that any supermarkets want to lose their trade to people located just across the channel, but a ban is suddenly going to be put on a lot of local supermarket deliveries.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

It seems that in this debate we have highlighted a massive hole in this legislation. Obviously when legislating on matters such as this, you are legislating not for the law-abiding people but for those—villains, crooks and suchlike—who want to do harm to others. It now seems that if you are a person who wants to use these products to attack somebody, you can go to a bad company abroad that will very happily sell them to you. You can make the transaction and the product will come in the post. You think, “Thanks very much”, and off you go to commit your crime with no problem at all. That is a very bad place for us to be in. It might be useful if the noble Baroness could write to those taking part in the Committee to explain where we are, because a big coach and horses could be driven through the Bill in this area. Unfortunately, we will find companies abroad that will sell to bad people in this country, making a mockery of the law that we are trying to pass here.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, obviously in a perfect world the overseas arrangements would mirror the home arrangements, but the rigour of the age-verification procedures applied to the arrangements for pick-up points cannot be relied on or effectively enforced for home deliveries. It would be great if we could do the same for both situations but we cannot, although I shall be very happy to talk about these issues further before Report.

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Moved by

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

23: After Clause 5, insert the following new Clause—
“Offence of obstructing a seller in the exercise of their duties under section 1
(1) A person (“the purchaser”) commits an offence if they intentionally obstruct a person (“the seller”) in the exercise of their duties under section 1 of this Act.(2) In this section, “intentionally obstruct” includes, but is not limited to, a person acting in a threatening manner.(3) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (1) is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause would create an offence for those who obstruct retail staff in performing their responsibilities under this Act.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for adding his name to this amendment and I am happy to support his Amendments 24 and 25.

We discussed shop workers on Second Reading and, as Members of the Committee will know, the issue was also discussed in the other place on Second Reading during its progress there. I am glad to be here today. As we have heard before, we are placing shop workers at the forefront of the delivery issues. They will be at risk of committing criminal offences, being sent to prison, or incurring a community penalty or possibly getting a fine. If they have sold this product incorrectly, I have no problem with that; if things are wrong, they should be dealt with. What is missing in the Bill is anything about protection for shop workers. In a Question to the Minister last week my noble friend Lady Kennedy of Cradley talked about some of the discussions that have gone on between Victoria Atkins and Members in the other place. A number of initiatives are going on; that is all very welcome, and I support them, but what is missing from the Bill is anything about a specific offence. USDAW, which is promoting this, and organisations such as the Co-op and other companies, the British Retail Consortium and the Association of Convenience Stores have said that this is missing from the Bill.

USDAW has run its Freedom from Fear campaign for many years. I used to work in a shop on a Saturday when I was at school. It was hard work, but it was great fun and I enjoyed it—you got to talk to people. But equally, I remember getting knocked over once when someone ran out with a credit card. In those days you had to phone up to check that the credit card was legitimate; it was not, and the person legged it down the road, leaving me lying on the floor. People get assaulted in shops and can be treated very badly. Here we are putting on shop workers some big obligations that they have to comply with and deal with, but we are doing nothing to support them. People can get assaulted and abused, so we need to see what we can do to improve that. As I said, we have had the discussion around helping the Government, and what they said there is fine, but there is nothing in the Bill. We are asking shop workers to report knowledge and enforce the legislation, as it were, so we should require the Government to do something to support them. There is evidence: plenty of facts and figures. A survey from the Health and Safety Executive found 642,000 reported incidents of violence at work—assaults and threats— and there are other aspects about how people are dealt with.

One of the problems we have is that people are assaulted, abused and threatened. I know that the Minister will say to me in a moment, “There’s no problem here, Lord Kennedy, because you’ve got all these things we’re going to do as a Government, and on top of that, of course, you’ve got the legislation in place already, so people who commit offences will be dealt with”. But, of course, far too often these offences are not prosecuted; people are assaulted in shops and the perpetrators are not prosecuted. That is why we are asking for a specific offence to deal with this. No one goes to work to be punched, pushed over, or abused. If you are assaulted at work and it is particularly traumatic, it can cost people their job or their livelihood; people may not want to go back to work after having been knocked over or assaulted. Why would you put yourself in that position? People can get very scared about going back to work, so again, we need to look at that. To have a specific offence would give shop workers the comfort to know that people recognise that they have been asked to do an important job and support them. Equally, as regards the prosecuting authorities, it should be clear that if people are assaulted in a shop, the prosecutors know that this offence has happened, and the perpetrators can then be prosecuted to the full extent of the law for that offence.

I will leave it there, but this certainly simplifies sentencing, would encourage prosecutions, and would have a deterrent effect, as people would know that if they go into a shop and abuse or threaten a shop worker, they will have committed X offence and, potentially, things can happen to them. I beg to move.

Amendment 24 (to Amendment 23)

Moved by

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Amendment 25 (to Amendment 23) agreed.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I thank all noble Lords who have spoken for their support. I agree very much with the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove. We have to remember that we are talking about usually very low-paid people, often working in difficult situations. I can often see these things happening late at night or early in the morning. It does not really matter whether you work in a big organisation or in the corner shop. As we know, in many big stores there is no one around late at night. That is part of the problem. If ever you leave this House and go to the supermarket on the way home—I do sometimes—there is no one in them. It is the same if you go to a big hardware store. Whatever the people’s job is, it is not to sell the young person the knife or the acid, and they are put in a difficult situation.

I agree with most of the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, about anger. There is a lot of anger around in this country at the moment for all sorts of reasons. That is another debate for another time, but angry young men going into stores late at night wanting a knife or acid are not the sort of people I would want to meet. I would not want to be behind the counter saying, “You can’t have that”, and we are leaving people to do that. As the noble Lord said, if the amendment is not harmful, what is the problem? I recall debates on other Bills. On the counterterrorism Bill, we passed a few amendments and accepted that what we were agreeing was wrong—but it was all fine to carry on as though that were not a problem.

If you go into a store and commit this offence, the amendment would make things easier for prosecutors and give some comfort to shop workers. I certainly intend to come back to it at a later stage. I look forward to meeting USDAW. I know that my friend Paddy Lillis will put forward a strong case for holding those discussions before Report and I hope that we can persuade the Government to act on these matters. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 23, as amended, withdrawn.