My Lords, Amendment 87A concerns the power to stop and search. I shall speak also to Amendment 94A, which concerns the power to seize and destroy substances. They are both probing amendments to try to understand why the Government feel it is necessary to include these powers to stop and search.
Originally we focused on Clause 23, which is about failing to comply with a premises order or a prohibition order, but, on reflection, similar arguments would apply to Clauses 4 and 8 in that the power to stop and search is supposed to be on the basis of suspicion that a person has committed, or is likely to commit, an offence under those clauses. These are criminal and arrestable offences. If a police officer or a customs officer suspects that a person has committed either of these offences, they would have a power under common law to stop and search that individual, having arrested them. My question to the Minister is: why is there a need for a separate power to stop and search when there is already a power under common law to do that?
Amendment 94A concerns the power for the police to dispose of seized psychoactive substances even where an offence has not been committed. Clause 46(1)(c) states that if an officer reasonably believes that an item is a psychoactive substance it can be seized and destroyed. My question to the Minister is, surely it needs to go beyond what an officer reasonably believes, otherwise legal substances could be destroyed by the police, with no comeback for the owner of the substances, simply on the basis that an officer’s reasonable belief about those substances is not well founded and is not the fact. I beg to move.