Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, on having picked up this point so well from her noble friend Lord Lester. I congratulate him too on putting down this amendment. I hope he will forgive me in his absence for describing him in this instance as a dog with a bone. He has come back to this issue today after first raising it following the judgment in the case that the noble Baroness referred to when the previous Government were in power. He did that in the course of a couple of Bills. At that stage Ministers, including me, I have to admit, had to tell the noble Lord, Lord Lester, that consultations would take place with the police. There is undoubtedly a point here—the noble Baroness has described it very well. This particular section of the 2003 Act was clearly intended as some sort of response to the Martin case and the Act’s purpose was really intended, or so it said, for other citizens as opposed to the police. There is some sort of at least theoretical clash, as Lord Justice Sedley pointed out in the instant case, between the position of police officers and others on arrests, so it does require an answer from Government. We said on 25 February 2010—it was me, I am afraid to say—that the consultation that we had said would take place had not taken place by that date. But of course the noble Baroness will know that her Government have now been in power for a good 13 months now—it is 15 or 16 months since I uttered those words—and I am quite sure this consultation will have taken place regardless of government. I therefore look forward to hearing her response to this small but quite important point about the 2003 Act. I presume the consultation has taken place and the Government will be able to tell us what they intend to do about the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lester.