Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 (Amendment) Order 2007

I do not think that the Home Office knows the meaning of the word ““silence””. This is simply another burden on practitioners and judges, who are for ever having to cope with new legislation that demands their attention, and very often with further instruction from the Home Office as to what the various criminal justice Acts and the subordinate legislation which those Acts spawn actually mean. The purpose of the order is, as the noble Lord, Lord Henley, has said, to put right something that was omitted in the original legislation. The point about a trigger offence is that it enables the police to test someone on arrest, even though no connection with a class A drug is suspected when the offence for which they have been arrested is committed. If a person is subject to a trigger offence, it can be made a condition of his release that he subjects himself to drug testing, again although there was no connection with a drug when the offence was committed. Young offenders who are released from a term of detention are subject to supervision and can be called on to be tested, again without there having been any connection with a drug when the offence was committed. The police do, of course, have considerable powers to do all these things where there is reasonable suspicion of drugs being involved. The difference between trigger offences and ordinary offences is therefore that trigger offences will bring about all this testing without any need to establish drugs as part of the particular offence. Here we have a provision that will allow the police to test someone when attempted fraud is alleged. Under the new Act, fraud is not merely a slightly broader offence than obtaining property by deception but a hugely broader offence. These greater powers are being given to the police, both on arrest and at later stages, without any consideration that it may be more appropriate to carry out testing only where drugs are thought to be involved. We must protest about this continuous encroaching on the right of privacy and the right to freedom that we all have. We do not oppose the regulation but, as I have said on previous occasions, we want to put down a warning that there must be some limit on the continual widening of the powers against offenders.