Protection of Freedoms Bill

My Lords, I am not unsympathetic to the sentiments underlying the amendments in this group and I am not unsympathetic to the points made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scott of Foscote. Clauses 39 to 53 in Chapter 1 of Part 3 of the Bill go in the direction the noble and learned Lord would like to go. Obviously they do not go far enough as he would like to delete from Clause 39 ““may”” and replace it with ““shall””. I hope I will be able to explain this in response to my noble friend’s amendment but I think that might be going a bit too far. My noble friend would introduce a presumption that anyone seeking to exercise a power of entry may only do so either with the consent of the premises owner, which I think is Amendment 134, or under the authority of a warrant. That approach might be appropriate in many cases and that is why we want to look at all the powers we have and are asking all departments to do so. However, I am not persuaded that it would be right to adopt it as a blanket approach. One size does not fit all. My previous job before the Home Office was in Defra. There, obviously animal disease was a matter of great to concern to us. I also remember, as a farmer in the north of England not far from Longtown, the 2001 outbreak of foot and mouth. Obviously there is a need for the authorities, if we can put it like that, to be able to go into premises very rapidly, sometimes without a warrant—however rapidly the noble and learned Lord thinks that we can get a warrant. In the case of foot and mouth, speed was of the essence. It is possible that one of the reasons that the 2001 outbreak was not dealt with as effectively as it might have been was because there was initially a degree of inertia and a lack of speed. The Committee will be aware that there are a very large number of powers of entry and we discussed that in the previous amendment. We want to make sure that we have appropriate lists of them to make life easier for individuals. However, when we carry out our review into all the powers as provided for by Clause 40(2) some will obviously prove necessary, some will require strengthening with further safeguards and some we will seek to abolish. That is why the word ““may”” might be more appropriate than the ““shall”” the noble and learned Lord is suggesting.