Legislative Reform (Revocation of Prescribed Form of Penalty Notice for Disorderly Behaviour) Order 2009

My Lords, this order was laid before Parliament on 21 October and seeks to remove the requirement for the penalty notice for disorder—or PND, as it is widely known—form to be prescribed by law. Penalty notice disposal provides the police with a quick and effective way of punishing minor nuisance offending by minimising the paperwork and processing required from the police. It has been in existence for some time. Cases do not have to be taken to court, which also relieves the burden on the courts. Currently, all penalty tickets are in book form and issued manually. However, a number of police forces, including the British Transport Police, have developed electronic hand-held devices for front-line officers and would like to issue PNDs electronically. It has become clear that the current PND form is unsuitable to be reproduced using the latest technology and that the changes the forces wish to make to it may currently be unlawful. This is because the format of the ticket is required to be prescribed under Section 3 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001. In view of this, the Association of Chief Police Officers requested that changes be made to the current legislation to de-prescribe the form. The Government agreed, a consultation paper was issued and the majority of the respondents were in favour of making this change. The purpose of the order is to give police forces the freedom to design their own forms, should they so wish, and to remove the obstacle to the electronic hand-held issue of tickets presented by an inflexible format. Electronic completion of the forms would also improve accuracy of recording and may lead to better enforcement. However, I want to make it clear that de-prescription of the form will not affect the legal rights of recipients as the order will not change the statutory provisions of the scheme, such as the right to have a case heard in court. Furthermore, tickets will still contain the remaining six requirements under Section 3 of the Act such as details of the offence, the amount of the penalty and the rights of the recipient. We will also continue to publish detailed operational guidance for police forces, which will contain a model ticket. The aim of removing unnecessary prescription is to reduce bureaucracy and costs to forces and is in accordance with the recommendations of the Independent Review of Policing by Sir Ronnie Flanagan and the policing White Paper. The Government are convinced that de-prescription will result in efficiency savings and operational benefits, in particular to those forces wishing to automate ticket issue. I invite the Committee to support this statutory instrument. I beg to move.