Policing and Crime Bill

My Lords, I should respond to the charge levelled against me by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, that I have been an admirer and supporter of the British Transport Police over many years. To that the only response can be, "Guilty as charged". I am a huge supporter of the British Transport Police and have taken part in a number of debates in this Chamber where I have defended it—particularly when there have been outside forces at work attempting either to diminish its role or to abolish it altogether. The fact that the BTP is a highly regarded force and that its recently retired chief constable is regarded as an icon of policing is a measure of how far the force has gone and how far public and parliamentary opinion has moved in its favour. I am sure that it will be gratified that a number of your Lordships are willing to stay away from their beds at this late hour to sing its praises and to consider the interesting amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. The situation is complicated and I shall try to be as brief as I can, because I am conscious that the hour is late. The BTP is the specialist police force for the railway. Its constables have much the same powers as constables of other forces. The difference is that the BTP’s jurisdiction is limited, broadly, to the railway. I use the word "broadly" with some care. Under the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003, a BTP officer has jurisdiction, ""on track … on network … in a station … in a light maintenance depot … on other land used for purposes of or in relation to a railway … on other land in which a person who provides railway services has a freehold or leasehold interest, and … throughout Great Britain for a purpose connected to a railway or to anything occurring on or in relation to a railway"." This means that the BTP’s powers already extend to many of the places that would be covered by the amendment. Station car parks, bus stops and taxi ranks will often be on land in which a railway operator has a freehold or leasehold interest. Even where that is not the case, the BTP has jurisdiction elsewhere where it is satisfied that it is using its powers for a purpose connected to or in relation to a railway. The car park in Taunton mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, would certainly be in that category. Further powers are available to the BTP under Section 100 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. Section 100(2) gives BTP constables the same powers as constables of other forces beyond the railway boundary. Unlike those in Section 100(1), these powers do not rely on the BTP receiving a specific request from another force to assist in an incident. The powers are not limited to dealing with terrorist incidents, but they are limited in other ways. The BTP officer must have a reasonable suspicion that a person has committed, or is about to commit, an offence, or that the exercise of the powers is necessary to save life or prevent injury and that securing assistance from the local force would result in serious prejudice to the incident in question. The officer must also be in uniform or have documentary evidence that he is a member of the force. I now believe that the existing legislation is wide-ranging enough to ensure that the BTP is not unduly constrained in carrying out its duties. To take a practical example, an officer may see a mugging take place on a train—possibly on a train to Birmingham International station. If the culprit then gets off at Birmingham International and makes his way to the airport, the effect of Section 31 is that the officer has the power to pursue and arrest him whether or not he is still on railway property by the time the officer catches up with him. This is not to say that there are no limits to the BTP’s jurisdiction, but I believe that, where there are such limits, they are well understood by BTP officers. My concern with the amendment is that, far from clarifying matters, it would introduce greater uncertainty. We all know a bus stop or a taxi rank when we see one but determining whether a transport link is or is not, ""in the vicinity of the station"," is much more difficult, and determining precisely how far the legal boundary extends is more difficult still for a police officer on the ground. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, referred to Reading station. Indeed, he mentioned it to me a week ago when we were considering this amendment and I made some inquiries about the BTP’s powers to police the car park, the bus stop areas and the taxi rank at Reading. The BTP reports that it polices those parts of the station and that it does so under the existing powers in Section 31 covering land held by a rail operator and land used in relation to a railway. Whether or not the noble Lord happens to see BTP officers when he is touring the car park or the bus stops is not a matter for me; it is a matter for the operational commander. However, they certainly have the power to patrol those areas, so, with great respect to the noble Lord, that is not the best example that he could have used. If we had more time, I would take a while to pay my own tribute to the work of the force. It has been around since 1825 and the very earliest days of the railway. I say only that the force has a very long record of service to the railway and its passengers, and, as I said at the beginning of my remarks, the progress that it has made has been remarkable and a source of great pride to the former chief constable, Sir Ian Johnston. I hope that it will be clear from what I have said that not only I but the Government as a whole are very strong supporters of the BTP and believe that they have a crucial part to play in helping to achieve the targets that we are setting for increasing rail use by passengers and freight, as well as meeting the objectives set out in this legislation. I hope that the noble Lord will have been sufficiently reassured by what I have said to be prepared to withdraw his amendment, even if, as I suspect, he is not entirely convinced by it. However, I am sure that we will have an opportunity to come back to this matter at some stage in the future.