Terrorism Bill

: In all honesty, I cannot understand why the Minister will not accept Lords amendment No. 29. In her opening remarks she said that it seemed rather excessive, in this connection, to use the good offices of a High Court judge, but that is not what the Lords amendment proposes. In the context of England and Wales, it says that an ““appropriate judge”” means "““a circuit judge or a judge of the High Court””," while in Scotland, it would be "““a sheriff or a judge of the High Court of Judiciary””." Although I am sure that it was inadvertent, it was wrong for her to mislead the House in that way. However, even if we need to give special training to a circuit judge or two, or possibly to a High Court judge, that is all that would be necessary, as we all suspect that these orders will be few and far between in any event. I speak as a person who is fully supportive of the constabulary. My brother is a Surrey police officer and my late father was also a police officer. I have nothing against the police, but we are now asking police officers to be judge and jury in their own courts. They are highly trained to collect and collate evidence, and then to report to the prosecuting authority, which is, in nine cases out of 10, the Crown Prosecution Service. It is not in their remit to judge that evidence—although it was in days gone by, before the Crown Prosecution Service was introduced. If the Minister is suggesting that a police constable, however well trained, should be able to evaluate whether an offence has been committed—or would be committed if a site remained up—she is asking the impossible of a person who has not been judicially trained. I do not mean that in a snobby way; we all play our various roles in society and a police officer does not play that quasi-judicial role. I am sure that the safeguards in the amendments are reasonable and worthy of proper consideration. The Minister said that her main objection to the amendments was not related to the possibility of delay, but her speech was constructed around delay and I did not hear any other real reasons why the judiciary should not be involved. In any case, there would be no delay if one had at hand expert judges, available 24 hours a day, as is the case for domestic violence cases in the middle of the night or any other form of criminal or civil jurisdiction. I am sure, given the importance of this issue, somebody would be available to deal with cases without delay. I cannot understand why this extra safeguard is not being considered. The hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) suggested a brief appellate procedure, in which the constable would decide, but the decision would be passed to a judge to evaluate whether it should stand. It is all very well for the Minister to say that if someone is warned about taking a notice down, they may ignore the notice. It is not that simple, because they then lose the right to that defence. If they refuse to take down a notice, having been told to do so by a constable, the statutory defence relating to knowledge would not be available to them. That is an important step, because it would mean that if any prosecution were brought, they would be bang to rights, on a decision initially made by a police constable. That is not very well thought out. The other place has provided a safeguard and I urge the Minister, who is a reasonable person, to reconsider the Lords amendments on that issue.