Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-11-02
Topic: Law and Crime
Caroline Chisholm (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, these amendments principally relate to the cross-border enforcement provisions in Chapter 7 of Part 4. Those provisions strengthen the existing cross-border powers of arrest contained in Part 10 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. In particular, these provisions close a gap in the cross-border arrest powers to ensure that a person who commits an offence in one UK jurisdiction can be arrested without a warrant by an officer from the jurisdiction in which the person is found. The provisions in new Section 137A of the 1994 Act include a number of safeguards, one of which is that the arresting officer has reasonable grounds for suspecting that the suspect has committed a specified offence in another jurisdiction—that is, an offence specified in regulations. In the interests of greater clarity and to ensure that the police are able to exercise these powers as soon as possible after Royal Assent, Amendments 201B, 201C, 201G and 201T insert a list of "specified offences" in the 1994 Act, instead of setting out the offences in regulations. As a consequence of this new approach, Amendments 201D to 201F modify the regulation-making power in new Section 137B of the 1994 Act so that it becomes a power to add an offence to or remove an offence from the list of offences for the time being specified in new Schedule 7A to the 1994 Act. This revised power is necessary to ensure that the list of relevant offences can be kept up to date; for example, to take account of new offences being created or reductions in the maximum penalty for a specified offence such that it is no longer in the interests of justice for it to remain on the list. As befitting a Henry VIII power, the regulations continue to be subject to the affirmative procedure The list of relevant offences specified in new Schedule 7A to the 1994 Act includes that in Clause 67: namely, the offence of breach of pre-charge bail conditions relating to travel. The related Amendment 187A to that clause clarifies that if a travel-related breach of pre-charge bail conditions is committed anywhere in the United Kingdom, it will be regarded as having been committed in either England and Wales or Northern Ireland, depending on where the bail was granted. This will ensure that the breach can be prosecuted in the relevant UK courts and will also make sure that the cross-border powers set out in Clauses 105 to 107 are available to enforce the offence Amendments 201H to 201S relate to the rights of persons arrested under new Section 137A of the 1994 Act. New Section 137D of the 1994 Act applies certain existing statutory rights to persons arrested under the new power of arrest—for example, in respect of the information to be given to the arrestee—but includes a power to disapply or modify the specified enactments. Again, in the interests of greater clarity, new Schedule 7B to the 1994 Act, which is inserted by Amendment 201U, sets out the necessary modifications in the 1994 Act. As a consequence of this change of approach, the regulation-making power is retained but modified so that it becomes a power to add, remove, alter and disapply statutory rights. Amendment 233A makes a consequential change to the extent clause I trust noble Lords will agree that this revised approach will provide greater clarity as to how the new cross-border arrest powers will operate. I beg to move.