Powers of Entry etc. Bill [HL]

My Lords, I shall speak to all the amendments standing in my name, with a certain trepidation because there is an element of concern as to whether they are right. I should like to begin by thanking the Minister. This is an unusual situation. I have introduced a Bill that is reasonable and says simply that the Government should know what their powers of entry are, Ministers should know what their powers of entry are, and people should know what those powers are. So I was knocked off my perch by the Minister when, not long ago, I asked him which Minister has which powers of entry under the schedule of the last Bill. The Minister, as you would expect from someone used to high command, said that no Minister has a power of entry. That, I must say, confused me because I wanted to know who does have powers of entry. With remarkable intelligence, the Minister suggested that I should speak to someone in the Home Office. I know that you do not speak to officials unless you have been given a permission to speak. In the past, when I have had to deal with the more difficult countries of the world, including Iraq when under sanctions, I was not allowed to go there unless I had a permission to speak. This is something produced in green and white, signed and with references to the United Nations. The Minister then suggested that I should meet with him and Mr Alan Brown at the Home Office, and gave me permission to speak. Thereafter, I found that there was a complete change in my own attitude because I had assumed that the Government were trying to hide under the table things that they do not know. I realised that they did not know what their powers of entry are, so with members of my own private team, including Professor Richard Stone, we assembled a list of the relevant Bills. Historically, this started in 1975 when we found 60 powers of entry. Each time I introduced a new Bill, the number of powers of entry had doubled and redoubled, until we now find a total of 1,208 powers of entry which have heretofore been identified. They are set out in 295 Acts providing 753 powers of entry, and 286 statutory instruments providing 455. What I had not realised is exactly what those powers of entry are. With the help of the Home Office, we produced a schedule, almost all of which was provided by the department. Having done that, I wanted to place that schedule in the Library of the House. But, of course, there is another problem in that a Member of the House is not allowed to place anything in the Library; only a Minister can do so. I should like to ask the Minister if he will go along with what I have done today. I went to the Library and told the librarians that although I am not allowed to place anything, effectively I have left the schedule on the table. Therefore I would be grateful if, following the debate, the Minister would be willing to place it in the Library. During our discussions between the private sector team and the Home Office, we suddenly found that we had a lot in common. All anyone wanted to know was what are the powers of entry, who are they available to and how can they be exercised. Some time ago we had said that we must have a code of conduct saying that people must be polite, identify themselves and so on. But in our discussions I found out that what in fact would be needed is a code of practice. I am still not sure of the technical difference between a code of conduct and a code of practice, although it was explained to me. If things are left as they are, with a schedule listing 1,208 powers of entry, every time a new power is introduced it would have to be added to it, so the schedule would have to be constantly amended. Two examples gave me some concern, partly from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott of Foscote. I refer to two statutory instruments that were about to go through: the cluster munitions regulations and what I think were the hatching of egg regulations. To my amazement I found that a cluster of munitions and a clutch of eggs had attached to them exactly the same powers of entry, although they must be at opposite ends of the spectrum. My thought was that the whole idea of a code of practice is right and proper, and that is what we come to in the first amendment. When premises are entered, someone may have to be interviewed. Proposed new Clause 1(2) provides that the code of practice to be issued by the Secretary of State will contain guidance on, ""(a) the tape recording of interviews ...""(b) the visual recording of interviews...""(c) the searching of a person not under arrest;""(d) the searching of vehicles without making an arrest;"""(e) the arrest of a person;""(f) the detention, treatment, questioning and identification of a person;""(g) the searching of premises;""(h) the seizure of property found on a person or premises"." The list includes a whole lot of things that I had not thought about, so I was immediately brought round to the fact that one of the solutions is a code of practice. I shall not read it all out, but the amendment goes on to cover almost anything that anybody could think of, along with many things I would never have thought of myself. I strongly recommend that we adopt a code of practice, and I shall move quickly on to the second clause. The second new clause relates to the tape-recording or visual-recording of interviews. The third new clause relates to one of my favourite topics historically: the question of identity. As the noble Lord, Lord West, may remember, some time ago I asked him what his full name was and told him that he did not have a legal name. Here, rather than put in the phrase "identity cards", we have added a few letters, and the heading of the new clause is now "identification cards". The new clause requires that anyone who has a power of entry—regardless of whether it is under a court order or a warrant, or is justified—will have to identify himself. The Secretary of State will by regulation establish a scheme for the issuing of identification cards to all authorised persons. The difficult question here is, who is an authorised person? Before privatisation, almost all powers of entry were related to state enterprises, corporations, government departments and so on, but with privatisation, in many cases, the powers of entry have been passed on to private companies. This is difficult. To take but one issue, subsection (3)(b) requires any logo to be included on the card. But what logo do you put on a card? You cannot put on a government or local authority logo. The only thing to do is to devise a new logo—that is, if anyone has a reasonable idea for a powers of entry logo. I would use my own family crest, "Per Mare Per Terram"—over land and sea. The regulations would specify the size, layout and format of the card so that when someone went to another person’s property and said, "Please let me in. I am authorised to come in", he would hold up a card with his photograph on it and state who he is. The same problem pertains when we apply for our bus passes: what is it; is it passport size; and what does it say on it? Equally important, what does it say about the power of entry? Which of the 1,208 powers of entry apply? That is a difficult area but I pass it by. If this kind of process was contained in a code of practice—which I now fully support—it could be included in a kind of White Paper that could be considered when the new Government return. If any legislation were to be introduced, I would prefer it to be of this kind. Anything relating to the freedoms and rights of the individual should start in a Select Committee in your Lordships’ House, where we could review it all and then pass it to the Commons. I turn to the problem of the schedule and the 1,208 powers of entry. These are not all shown in the schedule to the Bill but they are in the brief that I hope the Minister will place in the Library. It was prepared by the Home Office and is on the Home Office website. It is not perfect, but there are certain areas on which I would like to comment. Everyone has favourite Acts; mine is the Truck Act of, I think, 1871. When I first compiled the schedule I thought—many people will feel the same—that it must be something to do with transport. But, of course, we did not make road vehicles in those days, so I assumed logically that it referred to railway wagons. However, it is not that either. It goes back, effectively, to barter trade in early Norman times—though I think that the first Act was introduced in 1474—when landlords or people with land paid their workers in kind. Often they would cheat them by saying that the rate of exchange should be the retail price rather than ex-works price, and this led to a change into coyne. I researched this and when I found, to my amazement, what triggered it off, I suddenly thought, "I will not take any more truck". We cannot take any truck from the Government and I do not want to take any more truck on this Bill from the Government. That Act suddenly disappeared and I wondered where it went to. It was in one of the earlier schedules, but it seems to have passed away. I think that the last one was enacted in 1861 or 1871, and I assumed that it had disappeared or been wiped off the face of the earth. But it has not. It has been subsumed or consumed or consolidated into a wages Act introduced into this House originally by Lord Ackner. A question I shall raise when we take this further is: how many dead Acts are there that might still have some implication, and where are they hidden? I was a little confused by the word "truck". Having joined the navy only nine years before the Minister, I knew that a truck was the top of a mast. I had a fear when I was an upper yardman and had to climb one of these masts that I would be the chap at HMS "Raleigh" who had to stand on the top of the truck—a term that many people may not fully understand. My second favourite Act—I declare an interest here—is the Bees Act. I was a founder member of the Wildflower Honey Company, which set about producing logwood honey of the highest quality—Her Majesty also had a coffee plantation in Jamaica—and we studied the law in relation to honey. Diseases such as VD—varroa disease, which rots the middle of the bee and the fighting bees—is quite dangerous, and bees are an important part of pollination. I was involved under the direction of Lord Shackleton in the Noah’s Ark exercise to ship wildlife to the Falkland Islands. The fun in the Bees Act is that it gives rights that still possibly apply. If you find a bee taking pollen in your garden or on your land, it is, of course, taking raw material from your land. Again, this is Roman law, as the noble Baroness will recall. If you follow that bee and keep it in sight, you may go onto any other person’s land, without permission or court order, and when you find its nest you may take a share of the honey because the raw material came from you. This probably no longer applies, but it is one of the ingredients in the history of all these powers of entry that may cause concern. I hope the House will allow the Bill to pass so that it becomes the equivalent of a White Paper that could then be considered by a Select Committee of your Lordships’ House—perhaps a pre-legislative scrutiny committee—which could work out what should be done in the future. I cannot let this matter drop because it has got into my blood. It is a most interesting and topical subject. If the noble Baroness goes back to her Roman law, she will understand that. In Roman law, Romans had rights. However, if you did not feel you had rights you could turn to a magical source or someone who threw the bones to give you that right. I believe that it is right and proper that the Government should publish and disclose all the powers of entry that are available under prevailing legislation. The information is, of course, available on the current Home Office website. Everyone should have access to information about powers of entry so that when anyone tries to get into their home they will know that that person should have with them the correct authorised approval. That is not much to ask. That is the purpose of the amendment. I beg to move.