Philip Davies
Main Page: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)London Local Authorities Bill [Lords]
Philip Davies Excerpts
Mr Chope
The answer to my hon. Friend’s second question is yes. As for what uniform would be appropriate, I think that there is much to be said for requiring the accredited people to wear bowler hats, because they could be easily identified. People would know when an accredited person was approaching, and would be able to scarper. There is a lot of common sense in that suggestion from my hon. Friend. A better solution, however, would be not allowing the Bill to extend the power to accredited persons in the first place.
Amendment 8 mirrors amendment 5, again proposing the insertion after the word “payable” the words
“by the person being served”.
I do not think that I need go into it further.
Mr Chope
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his sedentary intervention, because it has given me an opportunity to welcome him to the Chamber. Unusually for him, he has been a bit late in arriving. I am afraid that he will have to look at the Official Report to find out what I said in support of amendment 5.
Amendment 9 proposes that clause 4 should be left out completely. Clause 4 relates to the power to require names and addresses. This goes to the heart of the whole issue of civil liberties. Increasingly in this country, we are seeing a departure from the principle that people cannot be required to give their details to anyone who comes up to them and says, “I require your name and address.”
In preparation for the debate, I looked at a website called freeBEAGLES, which provides “legal advice for activists” and includes some helpful advice on when people are and are not required to give their details. For instance, it states:
“Other than under road traffic and anti-social behaviour legislation, you do not commit an offence in English law by refusing to give your name and address to the police.”
The Bill refers not to the police but to accredited people and police civilians. The advice continues:
“However there are certain situations where the police may arrest you if they cannot establish your name and address”
—Members should note that it is the police who can do the arresting—
“and if you are arrested and charged with an offence you will be unlikely to be granted bail unless they can establish these details.”
It adds that the general principle
“is that you never have to give your name and address to the police prior to arrest”
unless
“the police reasonably suspect you of a non-arrestable offence, and require your name and address for the service of a summons …where you are the driver of a vehicle…where the police say they suspect you of ‘anti-social behaviour’”.
Philip Davies
Will my hon. Friend explain how this will work in practice? If someone who is asked for his name and address by a representative from the council makes up a name and address, what mechanism will the council have to check the information and establish whether it was genuine?
Mr Chope
At present, a council officer has no more power than any other individual. Let me cite a constituency case. Someone with a shopping trolley ran into and damaged a car belonging to one of my constituents in Christchurch. My constituent saw that the trolley had dented the car, but the person who had been pushing it then got into her own car and drove away. My constituent tried to identify the person by asking the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency for details of the registered keeper of the vehicle. The DVLA could not give her the details, however, because no criminal offence had been committed. It might have been accidental criminal damage, but it was a civil matter and therefore the DVLA could not release the details that would have enabled her to bring a civil action against the individual.
That is similar to the situation before us: if somebody commits a civil offence but their identity cannot be ascertained or they were not photographed, hard luck! Nothing can be done about it. Obviously if the person is driving a vehicle, specific laws apply requiring them to give their name and address to the police. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) looks a bit perplexed and disappointed, but if he analyses the matter, I am sure that he would agree that it would be wrong to allow people to make accusations and then immediately, on the back of those accusations, require people to give their names and addresses, and to back that up with criminal sanctions for failure to give either a name and address or an accurate name and address.
Philip Davies
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend—I take his point and I support his amendment—but there is one thing that I still do not understand. The clause that he wants to delete states that someone
“commits an offence if…he gives a false or inaccurate name or address”,
and would be liable to conviction and a fine. If his amendment is not accepted and someone gives a false name and address, how on earth would they be found out in order for a fine to be imposed?
Mr Chope
Again, my hon. Friend is spot on. I am not sure whether the promoters have thought about that. It seems that if someone gave their name but could not give an address—because they did not have one—they would automatically be guilty of failing to supply a name and address, if there were not the defence of reasonable excuse, so they could be penalised merely for being itinerant or vagrant. This is another example of the law of unintended consequences that so often applies to private Bills that have not been thought through properly.
Philip Davies
I suspect that my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) is right: the officials would probably use the electoral register to check the names and addresses that people give. Would my hon. Friend agree, though, that there are a multitude of reasons why somebody’s name might not yet be on the electoral register at a particular address, so that does not mean that they have given a false name and address? The register may not yet have been updated. Would it not be worrying if local officials were handing out fixed penalty notices or fines on the basis of who is on the electoral register?
Mr Chope
I agree with my hon. Friend, but this opens up a much larger debate that we will not go into now—the whole question of the electoral register and the proposed changes to it. The Government are thinking of effectively making filling in the registration form voluntary. The powers in the Bill, coupled with people’s freedom to decide whether to put their name on the electoral register, could result in a significant reduction in the number of people choosing to do so.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend cites another good example. Again, the conscientious law-abiding citizen could find himself penalised, while an irresponsible person from overseas might get away scot-free. That will create increasing resentment. There is already enough resentment in this country against some foreigners, and we do not want to do anything that will increase that resentment.
Philip Davies
If a constituent of mine, confident that they did not have to give their name and address to a local council official in Shipley, came down to London and was asked by a council official to give their name and address, they would reasonably expect the same rules to apply in London. Would it not be perverse were they found to be breaking the law because of some rather officious rule introduced in London that did not apply in any other part of the country?
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend is on to a really important point: if we are to change the balance between officialdom and civil liberties, it should be done nationally rather than on an ad hoc, case-by-case basis, which could lead to laws in London being different from those in Shipley—different, indeed, from those anywhere else outside London.
It should be for Home Office Ministers to come forward with these proposals, if they think it reasonable to extend such powers to councils in the way suggested in the Bill, but they manifestly have not done so; there have been extensions, but nothing in this area, despite the fact that the Bill was printed back in 2007. The Government have not chosen to extend these powers to police community support officer and others, or to extend officials’ ability to require names and addresses nationally. Implicit in that is that the Government would not support such an extension of restrictions on civil liberties. If they do not support such restrictions on civil liberties nationally, why should they support them in London?
Mr Chope
I do not want to advertise, but I agree that readers of tourist guides such as those produced by Lonely Planet and Rough Guides might find it useful to know about such penalty regimes. I am sure that if this legislation is put on to the statute book in its current form the editors of those books will want to ensure they are up to date in respect of the fact that there are fewer civil liberties in London than in other parts of the country, as visitors may wish to steer clear of London in order to enjoy the full range of English freedoms outside London. Those are important points.
Philip Davies
In respect of this group of amendments, instead of simply restricting the provision so it applies to community support officers and not the accredited persons of the county, would it not be better to delete it entirely, because if it applied solely to community support officers, councils would be for ever tying up their time by ringing them up to ask them to come and carry out these functions, when the public want community support officers to be a visible police presence on the ground deterring proper crime?
Mr Chope
I agree, which is why I have tabled amendment 9 seeking to leave out clause 4 entirely. I have provided an alternative solution so that if we cannot leave out the whole of clause 4 we can at least leave out the part of it relating to accredited persons. Fortunately, both amendments have been selected for debate by the Chairman of Ways and Means, so it is up to the House to decide whether it prefers the entire removal of clause 4 or a modified version of it deleting the reference to the accredited persons.
Philip Davies
Has my hon. Friend any idea how often these provisions would be enforced, if his amendments were not accepted? How many times would local authorities expect to be demanding somebody’s name and address? It would be nice to know how much time our PCSOs would be expected to give to pursue this line of inquiry on behalf of local authorities.
Mr Chope
Amendment 14 is, again, a consequential amendment relating to the need to remove references to an “accredited person”. Amendment 21 deals with a different part of the Bill, but again no explanation is given as to why it is thought necessary to include the change being made in the Bill. The explanatory notes state:
“Clause 8 amends the City of Westminster Act 1996 which provides Westminster City Council with enhanced enforcement powers in relation to unlicensed sex establishments. The first amendment is a minor typographical amendment and the second amends section 8 of the 1996 Act, which relates to the service of notices. Under section 8, if notices under the Act are to be served by post, then they have to be served by registered post or the recorded delivery service. The amendments would enable notices to be served by ordinary post.”
Surely it is important that the notices should be served by registered post or recorded delivery, because that means there is a tracking service and Westminster city council will know whether or not the notices have been properly served. The idea is that the notices should be sent by what is described in the explanatory notes as “ordinary post”, but that is becoming very much below par for many people, as it is increasingly unreliable. Are we really saying that delivering a letter with someone’s name on it to a block of flats is going to count as proper service in respect of the enforcement powers in clause 8? Nowhere is it explained why it would be fair, reasonable or equitable to change the long-established way of sending out such notices, which is by recorded delivery or registered post. Apart from anything else, some of us are keen to encourage Royal Mail and give it income, and this proposal would deprive it of income that it is currently able to obtain from such notices being sent by recorded delivery or registered post. The case for this change is just not made, so my amendment 21 would remove subsections (3) and (4) from clause 8.
Philip Davies
May I tap into my hon. Friend’s legal expertise, because his amendment could well be very helpful to Westminster city council? What would happen if something was sent out by ordinary post and the intended recipient simply said that they did not receive it, whether or not that was the case? Would that nullify the provisions detailed in that letter? Perhaps he knows whether or not that would make a difference.
Mr Chope
Again, I do not purport to be an expert on this Bill, and my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green may wish to respond on that matter when winding up this debate. The explanatory notes are totally silent on this issue and to obtain the right answer one would need to have a greater knowledge than I have of the enforcement powers in relation to unlicensed sex establishments in the City of Westminster.
I have almost got to the end of this group, but I shall now deal with amendments 35 to 39 to clauses 18 and 20. I find clause 18 to be particularly offensive, because it creates a new criminal offence, stating:
“Any person who intentionally obstructs any authorised officer acting in the exercise of his powers under this Act shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.”
In other words, they would be subject to a fine of up to £1,000. There used to be an offence on the statute book of obstructing a police officer in the execution of his duty, and there probably still is. In the days when I used to practise a bit in the criminal courts as a barrister, what one might describe as an “over-enthusiastic” or “over-zealous” police officer might often throw in a couple of charges of obstruction in the execution of duty to press a point home against a hapless defendant. If that was happening with the police, how much more dangerous is it for civil liberties for the authorised officer to be able to say, “You’ve obstructed me, so I will make sure you get a £1,000 fine”? The decision about what the obstruction would be and so on would be left to the officer, and I think that goes far too far.
Mr Chope
That might be the situation. They seem just to have gone for level 3 fines, which are a maximum of £1,000, but there is no explanation for choosing that penalty, so I cannot answer my hon. Friend’s point, I am afraid.
The provision on the obstruction of authorised officers goes far too far, giving rise to the creation of an inappropriate criminal penalty.
Philip Davies
The clause actually refers to somebody who
“intentionally obstructs any authorised officer”.
Has my hon. Friend any idea what constitutes an intentional obstruction and what might be termed an unintentional obstruction?
Mr Chope
Exactly. To go back to the example given by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), somebody who sees the authorised officer with a bowler hat and heads off in the opposite direction might be regarded as intentionally obstructing the officer. Who knows? If we are going to create new offences, it is important that they should be very tightly drawn so that they can be clearly understood. The offence in the Bill is wide and vague and therefore oppressive, and that is why I find it particularly offensive.
I was amazed to see the wide terms in which clause 20 has been drafted. Without taking up too much of the House’s time, it is worth spelling out exactly what it says. It states:
“Where an offence under this Act committed by a body corporate is proved to have been committed with the consent”,
we can understand that,
“or connivance of, or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of, a director”,
again, we can understand the reference to a director,
“manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate or any person who was purporting to act in any such capacity, he, as well as the body corporate, shall be guilty of the offence.”
Subsection (2) states:
“Where the affairs of the body corporate are managed by its members, subsection (1) above shall apply to the acts and defaults of a member in connection with his functions of management as if he were a director of the body corporate.”
If the clause was the result of a competition among law students to see who could draft the most unreasonably wide new criminal sanctions against corporate bodies, the person who drafted this would probably get a capital alpha. It is drawn so widely and so unreasonably that, I would submit, it cannot have been analysed properly. I cannot believe that the promoters of the Bill really want the clause to be in the condition it is in at the moment.
Philip Davies
I totally agree with my hon. Friend. It is not only unreasonable but totally and utterly ridiculous. Can he offer any suggestion at all as to why the Bill and the clause specifically pick on secretaries? I can imagine that if someone was particularly illiberal, as the people promoting the Bill appear to be, they might want to pick on directors and managers—I can see why they would be the obvious target for people who wanted to go down this illiberal route—but can my hon. Friend think of any reason whatsoever why anybody would reasonably want to attack secretaries in particular?
Mr Chope
I can think of all sorts of reasons, but I do not necessarily want to share them with the House in response to my hon. Friend’s intervention. I would not say, as my hon. Friend did, that it would be reasonable to include a manager. A director of a company or organisation has a particular responsibility and although it might be over the top to extend the provision to them, I thought the best thing to do was to try to limit the corporate liability to a director who committed an offence directly.
Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)
I have greatly enjoyed this perambulation around local government, with bowler-hatted civil servants prodding miscreants with their money-grabbing umbrellas, but that picture bears no relation to the local government that I know. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and I have sparred on this Bill in the past—I still have the scars—but I appreciate the vigour and genuine honesty of his approach to scrutiny and to his amendments.
The Bill would not simply allow any local authority employee to prowl the streets of their borough looking for fines. Certainly, the concept that they would be able to collect £1,000 a go as they went about their business is fanciful. I understand that fixed penalty notices would have a set price and would be collected by the borough. The £1,000 fines to which Members have referred would be applied only by magistrates at their discretion and not by local authorities. I shall come back to whether my hon. Friend's amendments remain acceptable.
The Bill has been scrutinised by the Opposed Bill Committee and I am grateful to its members for their work. My hon. Friends the Members for Shipley (Philip Davies) and for Christchurch have made some valid points about civil liberties, but what about the civil liberties of the silent majority who are tired of the antisocial behaviour of a small number of individuals and corporate bodies? It is the silent majority—the council tax payers—who are having to pick up the bill for clearing up enviro-crime. This low-level antisocial behaviour plagues many parts of the country, including the parts of London we are discussing.
I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley takes a great interest in combating antisocial behaviour. Indeed, he has gone on record as supporting Mayor Giuliani’s zero-tolerance approach to antisocial behaviour and the broken window syndrome. I believe there has been a local problem in his constituency with youths ripping out flower beds and generally causing litter, about which he has called for police intervention.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend is absolutely right—I do take a zero-tolerance approach to antisocial behaviour and to crimes being committed—but as he has said, I have urged the police to take action. I have not called for the local authority to have wide-ranging powers to tackle this issue. I think that is where he and I part company.
Mike Freer
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention and I guessed that was where we would part company. I wish him luck in getting the police to deal with flower beds being turned over, litter outside fast-food establishments and litter being thrown out of cars, because I simply cannot get my local borough command to take those issues seriously. We could argue for a whole afternoon about whether these are serious crimes and whether the police ought to deal with them, but that is a different issue. The current problem is that the police in London, certainly—I cannot comment on the borough command in Shipley—will not prioritise dealing with litter and enviro-crime. Therefore, we must either leave the issue to fester or allow authorised officers of the local authority to deal with it.
On accreditation, the idea is not that every employee of a council will have the power to go out and start levying fixed penalty notices or taking people to the magistrates court to be fined. We are talking about civil enforcement officers who are already accredited and have significant training on how to prove that an offence has been committed. Councils also have environmental health officers who are highly trained and accredited on how to follow the rules of law and how to provide evidence should a case have to go to court. The notion that the town hall cat will be wandering around the borough levying fines is fanciful. We are talking about seriously trained officials who have been taught how to comply with the law and how to make sure that if there is a prosecution, evidence can be provided.
There are already a number of police civilians—not just police community support officers but accredited civilians—who have the authority to issue notices. We have talked about whether London should be exempt and be a special case, but it is often the starting point for national legislation. It is not unusual for London to set the tone and for other parts of the country follow suit, but it is not only London that does that. I do not know whether many Members are acquainted with Brunel university, but apparently its security officers can issue fixed penalty notices. This is not just about widening scope because London has asked for it—a significant number of authorised civilians can already issue such notices. What we are saying is that London has some specific problems and that specific powers are needed for accredited, trained individuals.
I have covered the point about £1,000 fines being targeted willy-nilly, which simply is not true. That would be the remit of the magistrates court. Let me make a point about the powers of authorised officers. They would be able to take action only where they believed that someone was committing a criminal offence, so the powers would not be used in respect of people going about their lawful business. Hon. Members have talked about conscientious, law-abiding citizens, but conscientious, law-abiding citizens would not be stopped and asked for their name and address and would not face the risk of prosecution. Only those believed to be committing an offence would be caught by the rules in the Bill.
The issue of people giving false names and addresses has been raised. Clearly, with matters such as littering from cars, accredited officers would have access to the registration number, which could be cross-checked with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. Many of the enviro-crimes that we see in London boroughs involve repeat offenders, particularly corporates—the large retailers that cause litter on the high street—or other organisations that cause problems on our high streets. Much dumping in our residential streets also involves repeat offenders and there may be a corporate address that officers can go back to if they believe or find out that they have been given a false name and address by the person they have stopped. Clearly, if a false name and address is given by someone of no fixed abode, that person cannot be prosecuted. That is a common problem with the current law that police officers face.
Philip Davies
I am slightly puzzled about the corporate causes of litter. Is my hon. Friend insinuating that if somebody walks into a McDonald’s, buys a Big Mac, fries and a Coke, leaves McDonald’s and drops litter on the floor, the responsibility for the litter lies with McDonald’s? Surely the only person with whom the responsibility lies is the person who dropped the litter, and the company cannot be held accountable for what its customers do.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend is, as always, absolutely spot on, and I should advise anybody in the Chamber today or listening outside to appeal if they get a parking ticket, because it is often wrong and unfair and being issued just as a money-grabbing exercise. Westminster city council is now conducting such an exercise by extending parking charges to midnight, and that is a pretty awful thing to be doing—[Interruption]—but not, Mr Deputy Speaker, as I see you, panther-like, waiting to pounce on an irrelevant comment, part of the amendments under discussion.
So I turn to clause 20, the last measure related to the amendments under consideration, and agree again with my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch that it is drawn far too widely. It has to be the people at the top who are responsible, but the clause refers to
“a manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate”,
so I am a little worried that the cleaning lady is going to be nicked by some bod coming round in unrecognisable garb, whom we do not really know, saying, “We’ll have a few quid off you.” The measure is going to be a swindler’s charter if it goes through, because people will pretend that they are these authorised officers and sneak up on us and try to get money out of us for doing something that we should not, saying, “Well, it does catch you because you are an ‘other similar officer’. I am an ‘authorised officer’, you’re an ‘other similar officer’ and, therefore, we’ll take a fine off you.”
To conclude my relatively brief remarks—though it would be possible to go on and on about this Bill, so many are its flaws and faults, so good are the amendments proposed by my hon. Friend and so wise was he to bring them forward to try, as I said at the very beginning, to make a silk purse out a sow’s ear—I am afraid to say, after all is said and done, that it is still the meat of pigs.
Philip Davies
It is always a trial to follow my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), because, as I am sure we all agree, we could happily sit here all afternoon and listen to him, so wise is his counsel and so entertaining is his delivery. I am afraid that I cannot match it, but I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) on tabling the amendments, and because today appears to have been a red letter day for him. Such was the speed at which our hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) rattled through the amendments which have now been accepted, that I struggled to keep up with them all, so my comments will be based on my understanding of the current situation, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will correct me if I am wrong at any point.
I certainly support the thrust of what my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset said about the amendments, and particularly about the position of accredited persons. My hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green made the point that such council officials and officers are reasonable people who will use the powers only when necessary and sparingly, that they would not be used willy-nilly, and that that was his experience of council officials.
My hon. Friend talked to me about my experience of my local police when investigating what might be considered petty or minor crime, and my experience of the police in Shipley is, as it happens, very good—but he must not only have had good experiences of council officials and officers, but also have come across the rather petty council officer who is a stickler for something and does not use any discretion or common sense.
I am sure that we have all come across those people. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset referred to traffic wardens who wait for the clock to tick down before they put their £70 ticket on a vehicle, and there are also those who measure up to see whether one inch of a car is parked on a double yellow line, even though the vast bulk of the car is well within the parking space. I am sure that we have all had experiences of these things.
It is completely unacceptable to give that kind of person additional powers to go about and terrorise what we would largely call law-abiding members of the public. In my hon. Friend’s part of the world there may well be very reasonable people who use their powers very sparingly. However, the rules would apply not only to the council officials whom he has in mind, and not only to the council officials in place at the moment, all of whom may be very reasonable people, but to council officials in future—and who knows what kind of people we may have running some of our local authorities in future? We should not be giving people all these powers just because the people we know at the moment seem to be okay. We have to bear in mind how they may be used, or abused, in future.
Mr Chope
I hope that we will have the opportunity to test the opinion of the House on amendment 9, because most of the debate has centred on the powers under clause 4 to require names and addresses, and the penalties associated with the refusal to provide them. My hon. Friend is addressing the same issue, which is one of the most fundamental civil liberties issues in the Bill.
Philip Davies
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I said earlier that this would be a red letter day for him, as so many of his amendments are being accepted. I am beginning to think that it is a red letter day for me too, because I appear to have persuaded him that amendment 9 is the most important amendment to put to a Division. I fear that I must now rely on you, Madam Deputy Speaker, to complete my red letter day, which would be a rarity for me in this House.
I think that I am right in saying that the sponsor is minded to accept amendments 35 to 39, the final amendments that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch has tabled to the Bill. In case I have got that wrong, I want to touch on clause 18 and amendment 35, which relates to it. The clause talks about
“Any person who intentionally obstructs any authorised officer”.
Mike Freer
I am happy to reconfirm that I have accepted amendments 35 to 39.
Philip Davies
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for clearing that up, because I had a great deal of concern about what constituted an intentional obstruction of an authorised officer and what constituted an unintentional obstruction. As he has made it clear that he will accept amendment 35, which will delete clause 18, I do not propose to waste the House’s time by going through it.
I will mention amendment 21, because it appears that my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green has not accepted it. It relates to clause 8 and the issue of postage. Given that he has been so generous in accepting the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, I am surprised that my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green has not accepted amendment 21. I will give it a whirl and try to persuade him that he should accept that amendment as well. It seems not only to be harmless, but to be in the best interests of the local authorities.
Clause 8 attempts to strike out the requirement that the council send its enforcement notices
“in a prepaid registered letter, or by the recorded delivery service”,
and to substitute for it a requirement to send them “by post”. Amendment 21 would strike out that change and ensure that local authorities had to send notices by prepaid registered letter or the recorded delivery service. It is perfectly reasonable that councils should do that, for a number of reasons. These are important matters, as I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green will accept. That is why the Bill tries to address them. If they are such important matters, surely the local authority should have to reflect that importance by sending notices out by recorded delivery or registered post.
I wonder how many of these infringements my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green expects to occur, given that clause 8 relates to the City of Westminster Act 1996, which makes provision about the closure of unlawful sex establishments.
Mike Freer
I cannot give my hon. Friend a particular number, but I can try to help him on the issue of postage. My recollection is that county court judgments, council tax arrears notices or bailiff action, penalty charge notices and speeding tickets are not issued by registered post. They are all issued through the Royal Mail. If it is good enough for the police or the courts, surely it is good enough for councils.
Philip Davies
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes a fair point, but of course the big difference between the cases that he mentions and this one is that there is quite a large volume of those notices to go out in the post, so there is a substantial cost saving to the taxpayer in having them sent out by post rather than registered post or recorded delivery.
That brings me back to my question about how many notices my hon. Friend expects to be sent out under the provisions of the 1996 Act about the closure of unlawful sex establishments. I cannot for the life of me believe that the local authority will send out hundreds of thousands of them in any given year. Surely we are talking about a handful at the most—maybe, on the generous side, 15 or 20. I cannot imagine it could possibly be any more than that. So what cost saving would there be? It seems to me that the local authority might save itself £50 or £60 if the change were made, and I suspect that that is a very generous estimate. I am all for local authorities saving money, but surely there are far bigger fish to fry in that context.
I believe that the change would not save the local authority money but end up costing it more. When somebody is sent something simply through the post rather than by registered post or recorded delivery, we do not know whether it has been delivered. When something is sent by registered post or recorded delivery we do know that, because it can be traced back through the Royal Mail. Nobody can deny that they have received the letter. If it is sent out by ordinary post, who is to know whether it has been received by the intended recipient? It may well have been, but it may not.
If the intended recipient claimed, rightly or wrongly, that they had not received it, and the council intended to pursue an enforcement notice on the back of the letter that they sent out, where would the local authority stand? Would it be able to pursue an enforcement notice if the recipient said, “Well, you may have sent it by post, but I never received it, and you’ve got no evidence at all to say that I did”? Might that be contested in the courts? Might a magistrates court or district judge say, “Well, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that this person did not receive the letter, so we’re not allowing this enforcement notice to go ahead until we can be sure that they’ve received the official documentation from the local authority”? To risk going down that road to save a maximum of £50 or £60 a year, or whatever, seems to me unbelievably ridiculous. I suspect that the change would cost local authorities more in the long run. As my hon. Friend has been so generous in accepting other amendments, I really do not see why he is not prepared to accept one that seems so very small.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case against clause 8(3) and (4). Does he accept that one problem with the proposed change is that it could well result in a lot of injustice? People could find that they faced the closure of an establishment alleged by the council to be an unlawful sex establishment, although they had not received the notice because it had been sent by ordinary post.
Philip Davies
I was describing people who would simply pretend that they had not received the notice because there would be no trace of it, but my hon. Friend is right that there would be another group—those who genuinely did not receive the notice. What happens in that situation? Does the local authority simply send people to close down an establishment even though the proprietor has no knowledge that that is about to happen? Could that happen when the proprietor has lots of customers inside their establishment, which would cause a great deal of embarrassment for them and damage any legitimate businesses they might have?
That is a totally unsatisfactory state of affairs. If someone is having their business closed by the local authority and if their establishment is deemed to be unlawful, surely the least they can expect is a guarantee that they will receive the notice that makes that clear. Surely it is this House’s responsibility to defend people’s freedoms in this country, and to ensure that local authorities have taken every reasonable step to ensure that somebody knows about an enforcement that is about to take place.
We should not allow there to be doubt as to whether someone has or has not received a notice. I am sure that Royal Mail does a fantastic job, but even it would not guarantee that every letter reaches its intended recipient. I ask my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green to think again on amendment 21 and also to think of the upside and downside for local authorities of defying it. I hope that he will reflect on that and decide, in the spirit of consensus that he has adopted, to accept it.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch on his diligence and hard work. Such things are very important to people. We see from the lack of numbers in the Chamber that other hon. Members have probably not even bothered to look at the provisions in the Bill, whereas he has gone through them with a fine-tooth comb and found where our individual freedoms are being put at risk by unnecessary local council bureaucracy and officialdom—and sometimes even worse.
I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch for tabling the amendments, and I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green has accepted them. I do not know whether he has done so tactically to oil the wheels of the Bill or whether he has been persuaded by the case made by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch. I suspect the latter. My hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green is a reasonable man who listens to the arguments, and I genuinely believe that he has been persuaded by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch.
I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green has been persuaded of the merits of amendment 21 and that he will reflect on it while there is still time. I suspect that he will not change his mind on amendment 9, which is why I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch will find a way to press it to a Division, and that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, will find a way to accept that. I can assure my hon. Friend that if that happens I will support him in the Division Lobby, because I want to support and defend the fundamental freedoms of people in this country, not least those of people from my constituency who visit London.
Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)
I very much concur with the contribution made by the hon. Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer). Far from there being a lack of support for the Bill from London Members, I remind hon. Members that on Second Reading, there was considerable representation on both sides of the Chamber and hon. Members spoke with enthusiasm for the provisions. It is very unfair for hon. Members today to suggest that the lack of Members in the Chamber justifies their stance.
Chris Williamson
I suspect that that might be part of the explanation. I regret that some of the clauses were removed in Committee, particularly the ones relating to food hygiene—the scores on the door proposals—and to houses in multiple occupation. Having said that, the Bill is still worthy of support from this House. If these measures are subject to a Division, I urge hon. Members to do the right thing and support the Bill.
The hon. Members for Christchurch (Mr Chope), for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) and for Shipley (Philip Davies) have subjected us to a range of fairly spurious and absurd criticisms of the Bill. They have enjoyed poking fun at local authorities, which is an indication of their lack of support for local government and what local authorities do in our communities. The Opposition take the view that local authorities are very much a force for good. They are a form of government that is close to the people whom they serve. Elected members at a local level—local councillors—do an excellent job in representing and standing up for their constituents. This Bill has the support of all 33 local councils across London of every political persuasion, so it has cross-party support. It gives local authorities in London the ability to stand up for their communities and the residents who elect them.
Philip Davies
The hon. Gentleman seems to be advocating a curious line of argument. Is he really suggesting that in order to demonstrate our support for local authorities, we have, by definition, to agree to give them the same powers that police officers have? To suggest that that is the only way to support them is surely absurd.
Chris Williamson
It is not absurd. It is the hon. Gentleman who has been making a number of absurd criticisms. The point is that this Bill has cross-party support; all 33 London councils support the powers that this Bill would give to them to stand up for their communities. There are very real problems that this Bill will help to address.
The hon. Gentleman talked about freedom. It seems to me that he wants to stand up for the freedom of an individual to act in an antisocial way. What about the silent majority of decent, law-abiding citizens whose neighbourhoods are often blighted by the activities of a small minority? If this Bill is passed, it will give local authorities, where it is appropriate and necessary, an ability to address those concerns of local residents. At the moment, local authorities are in many ways powerless to deal with the problems that confront them. It is important that this House gives local authorities the tools that they need to do their job.
Let us be clear about this. One hon. Member—I cannot remember whether it was the hon. Member for Christchurch, the hon. Member for North East Somerset or the hon. Member for Shipley—talked about the austere times in which we live. I accept that that is true and that local authorities are being subject to unjustified cuts. The problem is that if these measures are not agreed today and local authorities are not given these new powers, the cost of dealing with the consequences of the sorts of activities that we have been talking about will be that much higher. I cannot believe that the Government Members who oppose the Bill think it a good idea that we should deny local authorities the ability to address more effectively problems that not only blight neighbourhoods and the lives of ordinary people, but cost council tax payers in those local authority areas considerable sums. Surely it is far better to give local authorities the powers to deal with those problems and put in place the deterrent measures provided for in the Bill, which might help to stamp out problems that are a cause of considerable concern.
Chris Williamson
If I may say so, the hon. Gentleman seems to be overstating the civil liberties argument. In my view, this is not an illiberal Bill in any way, shape or form, nor does it impinge on the civil liberties of decent, law-abiding citizens. Surely he can see that it is sensible and proportionate to give local authorities the tools they need to address the genuine concerns of large numbers of their constituents about what are significant problems. Surely he can see that if we do not give local authorities the tools to do that job, the whole political process is brought into disrepute. When constituents approach their Member of Parliament or their councillors to ask for assistance in finding a resolution to the sorts of issues that this Bill would deal with, and find that they are unable to assist them, people lose faith in the political process. Surely that is a more important issue than some spurious argument about civil liberties.
Philip Davies
I am amazed that the hon. Gentleman thinks that civil liberties are a spurious issue, although that gives an insight into what the Labour party believes in these days. How does he expect his constituents in Derby to know that although they do not have to give their names and addresses to a council official in Derby, they do have to give them to a council official in London? Is he going to go around personally communicating that message to every one of his constituents, or are they expected to know by some remote control device?
Chris Williamson
The hon. Gentleman is putting words into my mouth. I did not say that civil liberties were a “spurious issue”. My point is that he and his hon. Friends are using the civil liberties argument in a spurious way.
As for my constituents coming down to London, if the hon. Gentleman reads the relevant clause in the Bill, he will see that it deals with the anxiety—if it is a genuine anxiety—that he has expressed. The Bill is clear that a designated individual from the council would have to demonstrate their authorisation to seek the information that they were requesting, so that issue is dealt with. However, the vast majority of people coming from Derby to visit our great capital would have no difficulty with council officers as a result of the Bill. This Bill is about ensuring that local authorities can stand up for the silent majority—in other words, the vast majority—of those living in London, who want local authorities to be able to respond effectively to local residents’ concerns about a range of issues that the Bill would go some way towards addressing.
Mr Chope
We have had an excellent debate. I thank all who have participated, including those who have made telling interventions. The right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) was not present for much of the debate, but I am grateful to him for his participation, although he did not go into much detail. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) for listening to the arguments and, as a result, giving notice that, on behalf of the promoters, he will accept a fair number of my amendments.
I thank my hon. Friends the Members for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) and for Shipley (Philip Davies) for supporting the amendments, thereby contributing significantly to the decision of my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green to accept so many of them. They go some way towards improving some of the clauses in the Bill, but, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset, they do not do anything other than ameliorate the Bill. They do not address some of the most fundamental issues.
My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset spoke for some time about clause 4, which contains the power to require names and addresses. He cited a number of historical precedents. I thought the Homeric example was the most telling, but the reference to P. G. Wodehouse was also very pertinent. However, underlying his argument, which he made in his inimitable and witty style, were some serious issues that touched on the reason why we have not had revolutions in the United Kingdom for centuries. We have always accepted the primary importance of allowing citizens their liberties, and we take away those liberties only if there is a strong case for so doing. Recently, however, there has been a gradual erosion of the right to which he referred—the right of a person not to tell anybody their name, address and identity unless they have committed, or are thought to be committing, a criminal offence, and even then only if that information is demanded by a police constable.
That right was jealously guarded when the House considered the legislation relating to police community support officers. The House realised that PCSOs might need to ask the identity of individuals who they thought were committing criminal offences. Even then, however, the House did not allow PCSOs to have the power of arrest. Instead, it said that PCSOs could ask someone who refused to give their name and address or whom they suspected of giving an inaccurate name and address to stay behind for up to half an hour, during which time a police constable could come along and effect the necessary arrest.
Clause 4 would significantly extend that power to borough councils and police community support officers, although as a result of the amendments that my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green has accepted, clause 4 will no longer apply to accredited persons. Obviously we are grateful for that, but we think that the power in clause 4 to require names and address, coupled with the power effectively to criminalise a person and subject them to a maximum £1,000 fine for refusing to supply that information, is wrong in principle.
It is all the more wrong that the law should apply in one part of the country and not across the country as a whole. The House should deal with issues of civil liberties on a national basis, rather than on a piecemeal basis. Nobody has made the case for why borough councils or PCSOs in London should have greater powers to obtain names and addresses and to impose penalties if they are not supplied than powers elsewhere in the country. At the heart of the provision, therefore, is a problem. It is a misuse of a private Bill to extend powers at the expense of ordinary citizens in London, especially if the same is not being done elsewhere in the country.
The hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) and the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington said, quite reasonably, that the Bill was supported by the 33 London boroughs, but that is not an end in itself. If this was simply a matter of byelaws, those London boroughs could implement them; but here we are introducing public law and criminal restrictions in London and not elsewhere in the country. It is incumbent upon the House to consider the matter not only from the point of view of a resident of a London borough, but in a national context and from the point of view of people who work in London, visitors and others.
Philip Davies
Is that not the crux of the matter? It is no surprise that local authorities are in favour of the provisions. If the House is to provide for hugely extended powers, it is perfectly likely that the bodies getting those increased powers will be in favour of them. Is it not the House’s duty to prevent such bodies from having undue extra powers at the expense of individuals in our constituencies?
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend is right, and he made a powerful speech asking why people in Shipley should be dealt with differently from people in London, and why people from Shipley who happen to be visiting London should find they are subject to a different set of laws from those that would apply if they were in their own constituency. We realise that the laws will be different if we visit a foreign country, but we do not expect that to be the case between different parts of England—such as for people from Shipley, Christchurch or even Derby—let alone the rest of the United Kingdom.