Protection of Freedoms Bill

That is the point. The power of entry does not extend just to government officials. It can extend to other bodies. The danger is that the poor person at the door does not really know. As regards a business, perhaps officials have come along to seize equipment for some reason and think that an offence has been committed. That could be severely dangerous for a business, particularly if some of the equipment might be needed. A person needs to know instinctively whether the official can come in or not. The danger of any consent being involved is that it would be an excuse for bullying. We notice already that people who have regulatory functions, say, under health and safety, food safety or whatever, sometimes insist on things being done, which may not be strictly within their powers to insist on. Often expensively, people comply because they are terrified that they will get more inspections or more grief from the authority if they refuse. They also may have a feeling of, ““If I don’t let this person in, it will seem as if I have something to hide. Then I will go in a black book and they will be around again and again””. I do not like anything that relies on a consent model. I have looked at this issue randomly and I picked out hedgerows regulations, which I thought probably applies to private households. It includes a nice, simple phase which states that if someone does not let an official in or that it is difficult, they can get a warrant. It is terribly simple. I do not see why we do not classify things: basically, a warrant is needed to get entry, except, as everyone has said, in the case of an emergency. I will not try to suggest the wording because two efforts have been made. It is absolutely right. The idea that we modify every statute, Act of Parliament or regulation to bring them into line is completely the wrong way to go about it. We had this problem with surveillance, investigatory powers and communications et cetera, which is why we introduced the Regulatory and Investigatory Powers Act—RIPA—which we talked about earlier. RIPA has been made incredibly complicated, which we would not want. But why do we not have an Act which regulates all powers of entry so that everyone can see the conditions quite simply and all other statutes or Acts refer to it if there is to be a power of entry? The power should be laid down in one place, but this time it should be kept simple. At the end of the day we have to think back probably to Edmund Burke who, in the late 1700s, referred to the Englishman’s home being his castle. Yet here we are still struggling to keep a little bit of last defence there in some way. It seems that every single member of the public has access to it except the person who wants to protect it. If we cannot have any of this and it is too difficult to set it out simply in one place then I like the list of the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, or a duty for someone to have that list somewhere easily available so that, if I am a business owner or householder, I can click on the Home Office website and it will tell me exactly what I have to do. How we do that is up to the powers that be. Personally, I think having it in one simple Act somewhere else that everyone refers to would be much simpler, certainly for me and the general public.