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

I am grateful to both noble Lords for their comments. The noble Lord, Lord Henley, is, I guess, right to tease us for getting something wrong, but it is perhaps only fair to remind the noble Lord that that is a drafting issue, not an issue of principle. The noble Lord may well be right about the number of Home Office pieces of legislation since 1997; I do not have a precise figure in front of me. His other figure for what had happened in the previous century was probably a bit more speculative. No doubt that data can be interrogated somewhere. I am sure that the noble Lord is also right to say that, as a consequence of having put on the statute book more Acts, there are bound to be more statutory instruments. That is the nature of legislation. We as an Administration, as a Government, believe that crime and criminality is very serious and want to tackle it. We do not claim that there is a magic bullet in every piece of legislation ever brought forward that will finally tackle the problem; we have to be persistent in finding ways to deal with those issues, which are of profound importance to our society. I make no apology for the fact we find it necessary from time to time to bring forward new legislative initiatives. I sometimes have some sympathy with the plea that we should have a little less legislation, not just for personal reasons but because it is important that legislation on the statute book is workable and effective. The noble Lord makes a good point when he says that sometimes we should leave things to bed down. I do not disagree with the thinking behind that. However, this is an important piece of legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, seems to take exception to it on the grounds that it is yet another extension of police powers of intervention. I would say that this is a benign power because, if someone tests positive for a class A drug, they are then very likely to receive treatment. The Government have proudly trumpeted our record in expanding the range of treatments available for known drugs offenders and for those who indulge in acquisitive crime—that is what the schedule of crimes relates to—which is very much linked with drug abuse. The rate of positive testing for those who have been tested under similar powers runs at between 16 and 19 per cent. So there is good thinking behind this, because those people may well end up being referred to a drug treatment programme. I cannot believe that that is other than beneficial generally. Those are the reasons why we favour this secondary legislation. The amendments will clarify the position with regard to trigger offences. That will assist practitioners, especially police and probation staff and especially those who have responsibility for conducting drug testing. On Question, Motion agreed to.