London Local Authorities Bill [Lords]

I have the greatest sympathy with my hon. Friend's view. It can often be a mistake to give an excessive amount of power in one particular area to relatively junior people. The authorised officer who is entitled to seize a vehicle is likely to be a relatively low-paid official who suddenly has the power to go round and confiscate a car. It might be quite a nice car—possibly that Aston Martin DB5 that I was talking about a few moments ago, which somebody was trying to sell on the internet for a good price. Then some teenaged council officer comes round and says, ““I rather like that.”” Bang. He says, ““I've seen that on the internet. I'm going to issue a seizure notice and seize it.”” That does not build in the proper protections that we ought to have as British subjects. I know this is a long-winded speech and that many aspects of it are not entirely serious, but this is serious. The protection of our individual liberties ought to be the daily concern—the hourly concern—of Members of Parliament because we are the people who can do something about that. It is in the nature of Government to erode people's liberties because liberties are inconvenient. Liberties make people object to things that Governments are doing. They stop the great steamroller of Government coming down the tarmac. We as Members of Parliament are here to constrain that great urge of Government—to bind them down so that their infringements of liberty can occur only when they are essential. I find it hard to believe that it is essential for the good of this great nation that my teenaged authorised officer should be able to seize a motorcar because somebody wanted to sell it on the internet, just because he has reasonable suspicion and not with any proof or any order of a court. I said that I disliked the whole clause altogether, but if we are to have this rotten clause, let us make it a little less rotten so that we can at least have protections for the individual.