Protection of Freedoms Bill

Lord Selsdon Excerpts

Tuesday 24th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, picking up on the point of the noble Lord, Lord Butler, I think everyone’s heart is in the right place on this matter but that we are struggling to articulate what is in our hearts in the right way. I am with those who, as the debate goes on, increasingly see complexity in this matter and a need for us to be very careful in the way we do what we are all trying to do.

We have reached a point in the procedure where what we agree to in the wording has got to be very precise and correct. Some noble Lords have said, “Send this back to the Commons and it can sort it out”. However, we know that in practical terms that would be very difficult within what is now almost a matter of hours. To be rather boring, perhaps necessarily so, on the drafting, I said on the previous occasion that I find the term “demonstrate” very difficult. It is not one which I am accustomed to seeing in legislation and I do not know where it rests in the evidential hierarchy, if that is the right way of expressing it. I am worried about the possibility of judicial review around “demonstrate” within new subsection (3)(b)(i).

I am also quite puzzled. I think I am correct in saying that what the Government are proposing in Clause 40(1) is discretionary, and so could come within the review; that Clause 40(2) is not exclusive; and that we, as a House, would be asked to consider what is proposed in particular instances through the statutory instruments procedure. Sometimes, notwithstanding the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee, of which I am a member—I was not there this afternoon but I read the green bananas order realising that it might have some application today—it is incumbent on all of us, as a House, to be very diligent with what is coming before us via statutory instruments. However, if there is discretion—I think the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, are not mandatory but discretionary—then, in a sense, what is proposed is something and nothing. However, we are talking about them as if they are mandatory.

As to noble Lord’s reference that, essentially, future Parliaments may say, “Notwithstanding that a statute says X, Y, Z, it shall be something else”, again that may be something or nothing. However, I wonder what implication it has because no Parliament can bind its successors, as we know.

This brings me back to thinking that we need the review which has not only been promised but is required. I am entirely with those noble Lords who say that two years is too long given the demands that we are all making. It is easy to ridicule departmental inquiries. As I had understood it—I have never been in government —it is the departments that do all the work, with Ministers being advised by them. So we should not be too dismissive of the departments. However, the work needs to be done more quickly than under the timetable the Government are currently setting, and I for one would urge my noble friend on. If the Government can see their way to a quicker exercise, that might take the sting out of this.

I ought to say, finally, that I am vice-president of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health. However, I have not been briefed by it, or even discussed it with it, and it has not been in my mind as in any way influencing what I have said.

[Lord Selsdon]

My Lords, I find myself in a very difficult position, having begun this subject in 1975 and taken three Private Members’ Bills through the House. I am extremely grateful to my noble friend Lord Marlesford, who has a much more aggressive and attacking attitude than I do, being a man who has journalistic abilities. I am a simple person who simply says that there is a logic here.

First, you have to find out how many powers of entry there are. We began by asking questions of Ministers, none of whom knew what their powers of entry were. We worked out together that there were 584 and then made a joint arrangement with the Home Office to conduct a review, which took 18 months. We got up to 800 and then to 1,100. Finally, with the support of the Home Office, we found there were 1,200. However, this was not enough, because individual Ministers still did not know what their powers of entry were. All powers of entry relate to individual ministries, whether to Defra or any other ministry. I suggested this to my noble friend in Committee but did not want to speak again because one says the same things again and again. Even though some of your Lordships have passed on and some have never heard what one has said, repetitive Peers are not good creatures.

I therefore suggested to my noble friend that he put the latest list of powers of entry in the Library. He was rather reluctant to do this and said that we could see them on the Home Office website. However, that is quite difficult to access. Fifty per cent of your Lordships are not what I would call electronified and therefore do not know how to access websites. My noble friend wrote to me the other day and said that it would be placed in the Library. I am on the Information Committee and it is not yet there. Perhaps it could get there quite quickly.

My objective today is not to suggest anything. The help that I had was from the party opposite, which in the beginning was slightly cynical about all this. However, it went out of its way to say that this was a non-party issue and that we needed first to define what those powers of entry are and secondly to make sure that each ministry and Minister knows what their powers are and how they could be applied. There was then a separate exercise in respect of a code of conduct. That was going to take a further period to review, although we worked one out in a simple morning sitting around a table. You would say please and thank you and identify who you were. You might wear a uniform. It was not a very difficult exercise.

I am not saying that the Government are prevaricating in any way. I find this very difficult. Trying to be non-party on this, I should probably not vote for or against anything. However, the Minister should do what he can to reassure the House that this matter is under control. There is no need for another two-year review. I could get it done by the private sector pretty quickly.

I am very grateful to my noble friend for showing the attitude that he has. The noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, does not give up once he is on to something and does not lose the scent. I am very grateful to him for doing this today. I do not want to go against any party Whips, but I did say to my own party Whip that there might be an occasion when I could once more be a little bit independent for a short period. However, I urge him to take matters further.

[Lord Rosser]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, has explained that his amendment seeks to address the objections that were raised by the Government to his original amendment, which was passed by your Lordships’ House but did not find favour in the other place. As the noble Lord has said, the amendment seeks to address what he has described as the “blanket approach” criticism and has sought to meet points raised in the other place by including officers of the Serious Organised Crime Agency and members of the Security Service in the exceptions.

The amendment provides that,

“a power of entry may only be used without warrant, or without agreement with the occupier of the premises to be entered … in cases where the authority using the power can demonstrate that the aim of the use of the power would be frustrated if a warrant or agreement were sought; or … by persons specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State when acting under any legislation which permits such a person to exercise such a power”.

The amendment goes on to say which persons may be specified in such regulations, but also says that it,

“need not be limited to”

such persons.

I wish to refer, as an example, to trading standards officers, who are one of the five persons specified in the noble Lord’s amendment. Trading standards officers do not currently have, and have never had, a routine power of entry into premises used solely as a private dwelling place. If the trading standards officer is dependent on the first criterion—the power of entry without a warrant or the agreement of the occupier—the difficulty arises from the fact that the breadth of their work is considerable and there are many and varied reasons why such an officer may wish to visit a business.

The first criterion means that any time an officer entered a business without a warrant or without the agreement of the occupier of the premises because they believed that the use of that power of entry would be frustrated if a warrant was sought, they could then be open to a legal challenge and the need to prove a negative: namely, that they could not have achieved their objective if they had applied for and obtained a warrant. That could be difficult to prove and would certainly be time-consuming when trading standards officers are already under pressure. It would probably result in trading standards officers entering premises unannounced much less frequently, to the detriment of their vital public protection role. Without having a power of immediate entry into business premises, trading standards officers would find it more difficult to carry out their basic day-to-day functions of protecting the public and their local communities, since they could have the barrier of possible legal challenge every time they sought to act swiftly.

Unfortunately, the second criterion, which is new, would leave it up to the Secretary of State to decide whether to give trading standards officers and any other officials the right of power of entry without a warrant or the agreement of the occupier of the business premises, unlike the noble Lord’s previous amendment, which gave such power full stop without being dependent on or waiting for the Secretary of State. If the Secretary of State does not, by regulation, give that power—and no one knows which way a particular Secretary of State would jump—it would make it much more difficult than now for trading standards officers to carry out their role of protecting the public and local communities. It would also make it harder to resist a legal challenge under the first criterion, on the grounds that trading standards officers were seeking to exercise a power that the Secretary of State had declined to give them by regulation. My understanding is different from that of the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, on the position of the Trading Standards Institute on his amendment.

We understand the intentions and objectives behind the noble Lord’s amendment and the safeguards in relation to powers of entry that he is seeking to achieve. For that reason, we will not oppose his amendment if it is taken to a vote. However, we do believe, for the reasons I have mentioned, that in some instances the noble Lord’s new amendment may well make it more difficult for people such as trading standards officers to carry out their vital public protection role. For that reason, if his amendment is taken to a vote, we will abstain on it.