Political Parties and Elections Bill

My Lords, I feel that I should apologise to the House for intruding on a Bill in which I have not taken part, although I have followed the proceedings on it. My point is wide and could affect all government departments in due course. Perhaps the only slight reflection I have is that—with the greatest respect to the noble Lord, Lord Bach, who I think will answer my amendment—it varies so widely that I almost wish that the First Secretary of State, Lord Pooh-Bah himself, were here to answer this brief debate. My amendment is concerned with an important constitutional point, which is on the powers of entry to premises. Many will be fully aware of the Bill that my noble friend Lord Selsdon, who unfortunately is not able to be here today, introduced in your Lordships’ House in 2007 as a Private Member’s Bill that received its Third Reading on 17 July 2008. It was indicated to us that No. 10 itself—the citadel of everything, of course—was sympathetic to that Bill. The intention of the Bill was to reduce the number of provisions in legislation that included powers of entry. At least, when one says "to reduce the number of provisions", it is not so much about the reduction of them; it is to reduce the number of occasions on which people are able to enter premises without any sort of consent from the person or occupier concerned and without any sort of outside authority. We all recognise that, in the very complicated life which we all lead, with Governments inevitably involved in and having to legislate for rules and regulations covering many different aspects of our lives, it is necessary for the Executive and their agencies to be able to check and enforce the legislation. What I do not think is so axiomatic is that there should be powers of entry to premises without consent or, if consent is not forthcoming, without at the very least the same sort of consent that the police have always had to have, which is a warrant. My amendment is to Schedule 1, where it says on page 39 of the Bill: ""A person authorised by the Commission may, for the purposes of the carrying out by the Commission of their functions— (a) at any reasonable time enter premises occupied by an organisation to which, or an individual to whom, this paragraph applies"," I propose merely to add the very necessary words—they would of course only apply where agreement has not been reached— ""provided that prior approval to enter any premises and to inspect documents found on those premises has been obtained from a magistrate"." It is a very simple amendment. I am doing it on this Bill because it was very disappointing that the Government, having indicated that they had sympathy with the desirability of reducing the occasions on which officials have powers of entry without warrant, did not take the opportunity in this Bill of circumscribing the powers of entry in this case, in this schedule, in the manner that I am advocating. Unless we actually make a start on at least not extending the number of powers of entry without warrant, we will never get anywhere. I hope that the time will come when the thousands of powers of entry that exist, scattered through the legislation on the statute book, will gradually be reduced. I recognise that it is a peripheral matter to this Bill, but I hope very much that the Government recognise that it would at least show an indication that the concept of unlimited powers of entry without consent was no longer acceptable in this country. We have been talking much recently about the alienation of the people from Parliament and from Governments. If political parties of whatever side were to explain to people that they sought greatly to reduce the number of occasions on which powers of entry could be used without a warrant, it is the sort of thing that they would very much find strikes a chord. Therefore, my amendment, which in no sense damages the purpose of the basic provisions of the Bill, is modest. I hope very much—but not with enormous optimism—that the Minister may find it in his heart, if not in his brief, to give some warmth in his reply to my amendment. If, by chance, some drafting improvement could be made, then I would be perfectly happy for the Government to give an undertaking to come back at Third Reading. In the mean time, however, I press the Government firmly to take account in the Bill of the need to take this step, in the direction that I have described. I beg to move.