Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Bill [Lords]

I think that the topic has moved on from the one that was raised by the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable). I assume that the hon. Gentleman’s cogent, if not pungent, reference to 400 years of history relates to any right to enter property using reasonable force, so I shall now turn to that provision. It is very important that the Bill provides a comprehensive code for the enforcement of civil debts, judgments and criminal fines by seizure and sale, because it has been a very confused, overlapping and interwoven picture so far. I understand that some elements of the law go back as far as 1267. An enforcement agent’s powers to seize and sell goods when enforcing judgments, civil debts and criminal fines have been set out in different places, with different rules applying to different debts—for example, depending on whether the debt is a tax debt or relates to a county court judgment. That does not make much difference to the recipient of the visit from the bailiff, but the various powers have been set out in different places—very confusing. Clauses 57 to 60 and schedules 12 and 13 will replace innumerable common law rules and repeal various statutory provisions and replace them with a single comprehensive code for enforcement by taking control of goods. Everyone—creditors, debtors and agents—will benefit from clear, modernised enforcement law. Given the reference to 400 years of history, let me set out the position of bailiffs and the right to enter using reasonable force. First, the power to use reasonable force to enter premises to recover money without any specific prior judicial authority was introduced in the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004. So there is an existing right to use reasonable force to enter premises to recover money without specific, prior judicial authority—that is, on a case-by-case basis—and that power is not widened or extended at all in the Bill: it is reiterated in paragraph 18 of schedule 12. I am told that the power has been used rarely, even in situations of fine enforcement. The change proposed in the Bill will permit an application to a judge in a specific case, to permit an enforcement agent to use reasonable force to enter premises to recover a civil debt. That is, in a sense, a change of principle, so I pause to make it clear that the change proposed relates to an individual’s civil debt, rather than a debt owed to the state by a fine defaulter. The debt may be to an individual or to a state Department. There are all sorts of moral possibilities. The debt may be owed by a one-parent family, about which there has been much talk in the press today; by the owner of a big business who is refusing to pay, although he obviously has the cash or possessions to do so; or by a small sole trader who would go out of business and put his family on to benefits if it is not paid soon. It is the state, though, through the mechanism of the courts, that will totally control the use of the power, in that its use will involve an application to a judge and there will be guidance, which is currently set out in a detailed policy statement, in delegated powers as to what he must have regard to before granting the application.