Powers of Entry etc. Bill [HL]

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. I greatly admire the tenacity of the noble Lord, Lord Ashley of Stoke, and feel very honoured to follow him. The subject of his Bill, and of this Bill, merit debate in your Lordships' House. However, I suffer from a problem of understanding and comprehension. Later, I shall address remarks to the Minister. He should understand that although I speak today with audacity I do not intend my remarks to be taken personally and I make no criticism of him. Neither do I intend any asperity of speech in accordance with the 1626 rules, or whatever they were. But there is a problem. I must wrap my mind around this question of powers of entry, search, seizure and surveillance. It was first introduced to me when I worked in the Midland Bank group exactly 31 years ago. We in the banking world were concerned about our duty to our customers. We had a duty of care, to protect our customers and to know them. We were worried that legislation existed which gave government the right, through various bodies or public organisations, to enter people’s homes, take papers and possibly prejudice the responsibilities and relationship that a bank had with its customers. Through the Committee of London Clearing Bankers we consulted the then Government, who more or less said, ““You don’t have to worry, all public officials in this field have a responsibility and they know their role””. We found that it was difficult to determine how many Acts and how many regulations gave power to whom to do what. I have great regard for the House of Commons. In June 1976, Mr David Price asked a whole series of Questions about which Ministers had powers to order searches and seizures. I will not quote it now but I shall place all the relevant information in the Library. There were a few bright Ministers in the Labour Government in those days before they crossed the Floor of the House. Dame Shirley Williams was one of the Ministers who gave the most comprehensive Answers. We found that there were exactly 150 Acts or regulations. The idea was that we would pressure the Government to do something about that. The Government did not. Because I happened to be the only one who sloped off for a gin and tonic too early in the afternoon and therefore was made to work weekends, I was asked whether I would draft a Private Member’s Bill. I did so but I did not know my way round here very well; I had been here for only 13 years. I did not know about the Public Bill Office. I thought that you had to do it all yourself. So we found two retired parliamentary draftsmen who lived down in Salcombe, where I used to sail, who very kindly helped me to draft the Protection of Privacy Bill. We never did very much about it but it enabled us to monitor what was happening. Since those 150 Acts in 1976, over the past 30 years a further 262 Acts and statutory instruments have been introduced by governments. This is not an attack on any one Government: all governments have the same responsibility. I thought it was important that we should know which Acts and statutory instruments gave powers and to whom, so I tabled a series of Parliamentary Questions that were almost the same as those tabled by Mr David Price in June 1976. The Government failed dismally. They did not know the answers, but they were not prepared to say that. We drip fed a few people. The House of Lords Library is a source of almost everything. It introduced me to Professor Richard Stone, who wrote, The Law of Entry, Search, and Seizure. I obtained a copy of it and put a tick beside an extract on Defra because it had more powers of entry than anybody else. Defra told me to look at chapter 8 of Professor Stone’s book. I was then fortunate enough to be able to recruit Professor Stone, but we had already gone back into the early days of the National Council for Civil Liberties. Back in 1976 it had a very bright chairman, a certain Patricia Hewitt, who wrote a book called, The Information Gatherers, which set out the problems. It asked why people should be allowed to go into other people’s homes and take documents without permission or a court order and to whom they were accountable. With the help of Professor Stone, Liberty and others, after having asked these questions, in 2005 I tabled the Powers of Entry Bill. It contained a schedule inserted by others as I wanted to introduce all sorts of legislation that they said was inappropriate. My favourite was the Protection of Bulls in Service Act. If you overworked a bull, that had some impact on breeding and the regulations and you might wear it out. My grandfather and others always used only one bull but these days everybody uses lots. They excluded a lot of the earlier Bills—for example, the Truck Act 1874—but that does not matter. We produced the list. The idea was that it should not be debated. The Government did not really respond. Later I introduced the new Bill and sent round the same questions. The current Clerk of the Parliaments and I drafted a simple question to ask the Government which Ministers had which powers of entry. With true naval brevity, through semaphore and morse, the noble Lord, Lord West of Spithead, said that no Ministers had any such powers. We laughed. We thought that was strange and that perhaps the noble Lord did not know what his powers, or the powers of government, were in that regard. I address the Minister in a personal capacity but being an able bodied seaman and having left the navy just before he joined, I have a great respect for someone of his standing and status. So my problem now is how do we get the Government to act? It may not be necessary to push a Private Member’s Bill through, but I follow the old-fashioned rules. As soon as it was drafted I prepared a brief and wrote to each of the leaders of the various parties and to the Bishops’ Benches. I also wrote to the Home Secretary, the noble Lord, Lord West, and others and gave all the information that I had. I then thought that I would come here today to see whether I could start something moving. I apologise for the fact that I have to quote. At the same time the Centre for Policy Studies started to do some work. Suddenly I received a phone call at home, saying, ““It’s Harry Snoop here””. It wasn’t, actually, it was Harry Snook. I tried to find out who he was but he was calling from a mobile phone. In fact, he is a very bright young barrister who produced for the CPS, Crossing the Threshold, which listed 266 powers of entry. Professor Stone made a few comments in its introduction, of which I should like to read just three. He wrote: "““Under English law, the citizen’s home has traditionally been regarded as a privileged space. The courts have insisted that servants of the state cannot enter a private home without the occupier’s permission unless a specific law authorises them to do so””." The document continues: "““A number of these powers originate with European Union directives and regulations, rather than with an Act of Parliament passed by the UK’s elected legislators””." So we can blame the EU if the Government have failed. The document further states: "““As a result of the proliferation and variety of entry powers, a citizen cannot realistically be aware of the circumstances in which his home may be entered by state officials without his consent, or what rights he has in such circumstances””." There is a conflict with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which effectively says that there are overriding considerations whereby the Human Rights Act may not necessarily be applied. I am moving into territory that I really do not understand but these considerations are national security, public safety, economic well-being of the country, prevention of crime or disorder, protection of health or morality and protection of the rights and freedoms of others. Here, we already have a conflict between existing legislation or regulations, human rights and the EU. I am not sure where we go on that. The difficulty above all else is that people have a right to know what the legislation is. Hence, I produced the schedule that lists all the Acts. Since the Minister was unable to answer—except in the certain Nelsonian way in which he put his telescope to the blind eye—I wrote him a letter and provided the list of all the Acts in alphabetical and date order. I left two boxes on the left and asked him to tick which ministry was responsible for which Act and which was the Secretary of State. If he did not know, he could put ““DK””. I did not ask him his ethnic origins or all those questions that go in government questionnaires. I am sure that he will respond with gusto. That is a very worrying exercise, because in the mean time, since 1976, when it concerned only public officials, there has been a lot of privatisation and the powers may have been transferred to individuals. The Bill says, ““Look, you should not really go into people’s homes, on to their land, with or without buildings, into their property or offices and seize papers and take them away and do things with them without permission or letting them know beforehand and proving who you are””. We wanted to say originally that you should not do this at all without a court order. Then we came to the question of homeland security. I thought that homeland security meant protecting people in their own homes. That seemed far more appropriate as the key issue. Since the noble Lord is the Minister responsible for homeland security, I want to ask him how he can protect us in our own homes. It is not just the powers of entry that cause the problem; it is the fear that is often associated with a knock on the door by people who you do not know, or when you see someone walking around the garden perhaps to see that your precious Leylandii hedge is not too high or whether you may by chance have slaughtered an animal without sending it to an abattoir. I am not saying that there is abuse of this, but the thought was that in Schedule 1 there would be a list of the Acts and in Schedule 2 there would be what I wanted to call a code of conduct, but the gang—sorry, the team—said that I must call it a code of practice. I tend to think that a code of practice is a bit tougher than a code of conduct. The context was that no one should enter anyone’s property without letting them know beforehand. Of course, there must be exclusions. We took out from the nearly 400 Acts those relating to the powers of the police and those relating to the powers of the security and intelligence services, and that number dropped to 155. That may or may not be the right thing to do. In general, the police behave properly and many officials behave properly. The officials in the various bodies do not know what their powers are. The idea was that you should give notice in advance and that you should not go into people’s property except between 8 am and 6 pm, or go into their offices or places of business—such as a bed and breakfast—except when they are open. The people who go in should produce a form of identity; maybe they could use the new form of identity card with biometric data, iris scans, a recognisable photograph and all that. With their proof of identity, they should also take the rules and regulations under the powers that they had. If they took documents or materials away, they should confirm that. Those documents and materials should be stored in an appropriate way and with full recognition of the need for security. That is really what it is about. Then I thought, ““Is it not odd that as soon as we have done this and the Government seem not to want to co-operate, the Prime Minister has announced that he was going to instruct the Home Secretary to look at 266 or 250 powers of entry which effectively come straight out of Harry Snook’s Crossing the Threshold?””. I detect a willingness by the Government to do something, and I would rather like to help. I do not wish to be appointed a specialist adviser, but I willingly give them all my intellectual property free of charge. I now turn to some of the more interesting points. I suggested to the Minister that he would not mind if I repeated the questions, and he could answer them by putting the answers in the Library. After this debate, I will place in the Library my brief, without some of the light-hearted remarks, and copies of the laws of entry and of Crossing the Threshold, because they make fun reading. Will the Minister please find a way to answer the following questions? In what circumstances can officials of each government department and of public bodies answerable to each Secretary of State enter and search the homes and business premises of United Kingdom citizens? In each case, what is their statutory power? Which Acts set out in Schedule 1 to the Powers of Entry etc. Bill permit officials, from which government department and which bodies answerable to the Secretary of State responsible for that government department or public body, to enter and search the homes and business premises of United Kingdom citizens? Where and how are the records and documentation seized by officials of government departments and public officials enforcing powers of entry, search, seizure and surveillance under prevailing legislation stored? When and how are they disposed of? We come to surveillance. Once more, I ask the same question: how many public space closed circuit television cameras are in the United Kingdom? How and by whom is the information gathered and retained? Because we have many private bodies with powers of search and entry, how many closed circuit television cameras surveying public walkways or places in the United Kingdom are under the control of the private sector? How many of those CCTV cameras are registered with the Information Commissioner? This is where I end, on a slightly lighter note. I have tremendous regard for the Royal Navy, and I have a great regard for the noble admiral, if I can call him that. On Trafalgar Day, I asked him what powers of seizure the Royal Navy had over British flag vessels. Then I suddenly realised last night that this Bill relates to the United Kingdom, not only to one area. I panicked for a moment, because when I went up to my naval board, I was asked, ““How many balls does a rear admiral have?””. That relates to the fact that admirals, rear admirals and vice admirals have the cross of St George, and I suddenly thought, ““Maybe it is a bit too English””. A rear admiral has two balls, a vice admiral has one ball, but an admiral of the fleet has no balls and, more than that, his flag moves from being the flag of St George’s to the union flag. As a representative of the union, and as an independent unionist Peer, I hope that I can ask whether the Minister will, in true Christmas spirit, respond and please give some encouragement. I commend the Bill to the House. Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Selsdon.)