London Local Authorities Bill [Lords]

My right hon. Friend has made a powerful point. There is evidence that local authorities have given just such financial incentives to their officials, based on the number of people to whom they can issue tickets for offences, or alleged offences. The Bill would give those same officials an additional power to issue penalty notices. One of the weakest parts of the ““accredited person”” concept, which does not apply under the present law, is that someone who declined to give his name and address to an accredited person would be guilty prima facie of an offence, but the accredited person himself would have no power of arrest. What would he do then? Would he just wait there? If he were a police community support officer, he would be able to ask the person to wait for up to half an hour for a police officer to arrive, and the police officer could exercise his own power to arrest the person concerned for not having given his name and address. However, no such power extends to accredited persons. This provision would not work in practice, and I do not think that it has been thought through by the promoters.