London Local Authorities Bill [Lords]

At present, a council officer has no more power than any other individual. Let me cite a constituency case. Someone with a shopping trolley ran into and damaged a car belonging to one of my constituents in Christchurch. My constituent saw that the trolley had dented the car, but the person who had been pushing it then got into her own car and drove away. My constituent tried to identify the person by asking the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency for details of the registered keeper of the vehicle. The DVLA could not give her the details, however, because no criminal offence had been committed. It might have been accidental criminal damage, but it was a civil matter and therefore the DVLA could not release the details that would have enabled her to bring a civil action against the individual. That is similar to the situation before us: if somebody commits a civil offence but their identity cannot be ascertained or they were not photographed, hard luck! Nothing can be done about it. Obviously if the person is driving a vehicle, specific laws apply requiring them to give their name and address to the police. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) looks a bit perplexed and disappointed, but if he analyses the matter, I am sure that he would agree that it would be wrong to allow people to make accusations and then immediately, on the back of those accusations, require people to give their names and addresses, and to back that up with criminal sanctions for failure to give either a name and address or an accurate name and address.