Powers of Entry etc. Bill [HL]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord on this Bill. He is to be applauded for drawing attention to the huge proliferation of these powers, insidiously to some extent, because these extensions of powers of officialdom to enter private premises are not widely known and are very difficult to find if one wants to identify the particular power being exercised. The vice of these powers is not only that they are difficult to find and identify but that far too many are exercisable, not only without the consent of the occupier or owner of the premises in question, but also without the authority of a warrant. We are all familiar with warrants for the police and others to enter and search premises, look at documents and remove objects and so forth when necessary for their function, be that the prevention of crime or some regulatory function, but the notion that these powers can be exercised without consent and without a warrant—without, therefore, any judicial control—needs special and careful justification. I think it would be accepted that, in circumstances of imminent danger to life or property, there must always be rights for appropriate people, be they the police, the fire services or whoever, to enter the premises and deal with the immediate situation. Subject to that, though, there ought to be acceptance of a general overarching principle that the right of the Executive, of persons appointed by the Executive, of persons appointed by some quango or of an individual exercising some statutory authority to enter premises, to search the premises, to remove documents and do all the other various things that I have referred to should not be tolerated unless done either with the consent of the owner or occupier or under the authority of an order of the court—a warrant. There are many primary Acts that provide, in entirely unexceptionable terms, for powers of entry of the sort that are acceptable. A recent example—indeed, it is not yet an Act—is the Cluster Munitions (Prohibition) Bill, which was before this House recently. On Wednesday 6 January, just over a week ago, the House approved the enforcement provisions contained in that Bill. Those provisions provide powers of entry into the premises of arms dealers and munitions manufacturers for the purpose of enforcing the ban against the manufacturer of, or dealer in, cluster bombs. The provisions make it clear that the powers of entry are not exercisable except with the consent of the owner or occupier of the premises—the arms dealer or munitions manufacturer, as the case may be—or under the authority of a warrant granted by a court. The circumstances in which the warrant can be granted are spelt out. The case has to be made for the need to enter and search. That, in my respectful opinion, is as it should be. It would be tedious to research the whole area of primary legislation that gives similar powers in entirely unexceptionable terms, but there are Acts and innumerable statutory instruments on the statute book that grant powers of entry, search and so forth, some of which grant those powers without requiring any consent or the production of any warrant from a court. The Medicines Act 1968 is an example that I happened to look at in connection with a statutory instrument that I shall mention in a moment and which came in front of the Merits Committee, to which I had the privilege of being appointed in November. I am told that there is also a veterinary Act that has similar provisions. The Medicines Act provides a power to inspectors—to regulators—to enter any premises, including domestic premises, without consent or a warrant, but then goes on to provide for circumstances in which a warrant can be applied for. This is a formula—repeated, I think, in the statutory instrument on eggs that the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, referred to, and in four or five statutory instruments that have come before the Select Committee in the short time that I have been a member of it—that provides for a warrant to be applied for in circumstances that are comprehensive of any need to enter. These include cases where there has been refusal or there is likely to be refusal by the owner to permit the entry, cases where there is some great urgency that does not permit the risk of a refusal to be taken and cases in which the premises are unoccupied. Four situations were set out; there is one other that slips my memory for the moment. The circumstances are as comprehensive as one could expect. Why, therefore, given the comprehensive spread of the ability of the authorised person to go to the court and get a warrant, which can be done very quickly, is it necessary also to give a power to enter without consent and without a warrant? Moreover, it is a feature of the Acts and statutory instruments that contain provisions of this sort that a refusal to allow entry is a criminal offence. One could potentially have a situation in which the official knocks on the door and says, "I have a right to enter and search your premises"—let us suppose it is a dwelling house—and the homeowner, surprised, says, "Well, may I see your warrant?". The official says, "I haven’t got a warrant and I don’t need one", so the homeowner says, "That’s not good enough", and slams the door. That is a criminal offence. The authorised person can go off to obtain a warrant, come back and go in by force if necessary, but why should it be a criminal offence for a homeowner to refuse entry to someone who does not have court authorisation to enter? No doubt in the vast majority of cases, when regulators get in touch with the owner or occupier of the premises that they desire to enter, the owner will say, "Fine, come and look", but that would be a case of consent—an acceptable condition for entry, I would suppose. The vice that needs to be addressed, and which the noble Lord’s Bill seeks to address, is the proliferation of powers of entry that require neither consent nor a warrant. The noble Lord referred to the trite saying that a man’s home is his castle. The proliferation of these powers offends that principle. There may be private premises where these powers of entry without consent or warrant do not matter so much. I suppose that open land, agricultural land, moorland and woodland would fall into that category. It might be arguable that it would not matter so much if there were a right to enter commercial buildings without consent. I would not accept that argument, but it might be an argument that could be put. But to allow this power to insist on entry to domestic dwellings without consent and without a warrant under the threat of criminality if there is a refusal is something else again. This must be addressed, and the noble Lord’s Bill would address it. For those reasons, I strongly support the intentions behind the Bill. I have read it carefully. There are a number of drafting difficulties about it at present, but they can be addressed later. The Bill deserves a Second Reading.