Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

Up until a moment ago I thought that I had the answer to this group of amendments, but the last contribution by the noble Lady has slightly shaken me. Perhaps I will come back to that in due course, but I have a nasty feeling that she is right. I shall first deal with this important group of amendments. Clause 44, which deals with the powers available to inspectors when investigating the possession offence in Clause 43—which is important—appears to have caused a fair amount of concern throughout its passage through Parliament, as the noble Duke mentioned, much of which we believe to be based on comparisons between this offence under Clause 43 and welfare offences under Defra’s Animal Welfare Bill. Such comparisons are flawed and are not comparing like with like. However, the Government have recognised the overall strength of feeling on this matter, and we have tabled three amendments in an endeavour to go as far as we believe sensible to enshrine safeguards. I will speak to those amendments in a moment, but I will first address the three related non-government amendments to this clause, Amendments Nos. 282, 285A and 288. Amendment No. 282 seeks to restrict the powers of entry available to inspectors when they are investigating the offence of possessing a proscribed pesticide—the Clause 43 offence—by requiring them to have obtained a warrant from a justice of the peace. Let me make it absolutely clear that inspectors acting under this clause do not have powers of entry into private dwellings without first having obtained a warrant from a justice of the peace. By virtue of Clause 44(4), paragraph 7 of Schedule 2 to the Food and Environment Protection Act—I admit that is not the easiest reference in the world—that applies to inspectors enforcing this offence as it does to inspectors operating under Part 3 of the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985. Paragraph 7 states:"““An officer may only enter a dwelling for the purpose of performing his functions . . . if a justice has issued a warrant authorising him to enter and search that dwelling." It goes on to list the circumstances in which a justice may issue such a warrant; namely, where an inspector has reasonable grounds for believing that there is present in the dwelling anything to which his functions relate and either it is not practicable to communicate with any person entitled to grant entry to the dwelling, or such a person has unreasonably refused entry, or such a person is unlikely to grant it unless a warrant is produced, or the purpose of entry may be frustrated or seriously prejudiced unless an officer arriving at the dwelling cannot obtain immediate access to it. It would in our view be inappropriate to seek to restrict inspectors’ powers of inspection to an even greater degree by requiring them to obtain a warrant before they can enter any premises. ““Dwelling houses””, yes of course; but we think that ““any premises”” goes too far. Pesticide inspectors carrying out enforcement activities under their existing powers under the FEPA are already allowed entry to land—other than private dwellings—without the need for a warrant. The purpose of the current power is to check that storage and use of pesticides are in compliance with Defra’s Pesticides Safety Directorate approvals. Therefore, we fail to see why this offence should be treated any differently from other pesticides offences in this regard. Amendment No. 285A seeks to introduce a provision for inspectors to have regard to any relevant codes of practice issued by the Secretary of State when exercising their powers. I have thought long and hard about what could possibly justify the power that we were going to take upon ourselves in regard to that. The noble Earl is, in my view, absolutely right. As the wording of his amendment may not be perfect, I invite him to withdraw his amendment today and we will come back at Report with, we hope, agreed wording. He seems to have a good point when he says that, if there is a code of practice, which there is, inspectors should have regard to it. I hope he will accept that we agree with his commonsensical attitude to that.