§ Lords Amendment No. 9: After Clause 4, in page 4, line 22, at end insert new Clause "B":
§ B.—(1) If a constable has reasonable grounds to suspect that any person is in possession of a drug in contravention of the principal Act or regulations thereunder or in contravention of the Drugs (Prevention of Misuse) Act 1964, the constable may—
- (a) search that person, and detain him for the purpose of searching him;
- (b) search any vehicle in which the constable suspects that the drug may be found, and for that purpose require the person in control of the vehicle to stop it;
- (c) seize and detain, for the purposes of proceedings under either of the Acts aforesaid, anything found in the course of the search which appears to the constable to be evidence of an offence against either of those Acts.
§ (2) Nothing in subsection (1) of this section shall be construed as prejudicing any power of search or any power to seize or detain property which is exercisable by a constable apart from that subsection.
§ (3) Section 14(2) of the principal Act and section 3(1) of the said Act of 1964 (which provide for the issue of a search warrant authorising any constable named in the warrant to enter and search premises in connection with suspected offences under those Acts) shall have effect, in their application to Northern Ireland, with the omission of the words 'named in the warrant' and, in their application otherwise than to Northern Ireland, with the substitution for those words of the words 'acting for the police area in which the premises are situated'; and at the end of section 15 of the principal Act (which provides for the arrest of a suspected offender who may abscond or whose name and address are not known) there shall be inserted the words 'or if he is not satisfied that a name and address furnished by that person as his name and address are true'.
§ Mr. TaverneI beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
This is a very important Amendment. At the time when it was introduced in another place it was not in any way controversial and it seemed to give rise to no disquiet, but matters in this field have moved fast and different kinds of publicity have brought forward different kinds of questions. One or two articles have been written and various comments have been made which raise questions about the new powers of search given in the Clause.
The right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes), who is extremely knowledgeable on this subject and often raises various questions in connection with it, asked whether police powers were adequate to deal with the whole problem of drugs. Inquiries were made about the reaction of the police to this question and they produced the answer that except in London where, as in one or two other places, special powers exist, they did not feel that their powers were adequate.
In London, there is power under section 66 of the Metropolitan Police Act 1839 to stop, search and detain if a police officer has reason to suspect that someone has goods unlawfully obtained. 1381 In these areas certainly the police have had power to stop and search if they have reasonable ground to suspect that someone is in possession of drugs, but this problem spreads far beyond London.
Outside London where there is no power to search without consent, it has been found time after time that those known to be traffickers in drugs know of their rights and refuse to give consent. It has proved impossible to search them. Only by knowing that they are in possession of drugs has it been possible to search them. Drugs are often removed long distances by lorries. It is felt that the position in London should be the same in the rest of the country and that we should no longer rely on an Act which, when passed, had nothing to do with drugs.
It has been found that there is little scope for effective action against pushers of drugs or for the restriction of unauthorised possession, unless the police have power to stop and search suspected persons and vehicles. The majority of the arrests made by the Metropolitan Police for drug offences were made following a search under the Metropolitan Police Act, 1839. It has, therefore, been decided to rely on a statutory provision, not one which was conceived long before the drug abuse arose, but one which deals specifically with it and which deals with the position throughout the whole country.
The Clause makes other improvements in police powers by assimilating the restrictions on the power of arrest which are imposed by Section 15 of the 1965 Act and by Section 2 of the 1964 Act and by removing the requirement in both of those Acts for the naming in search warrants of the officers who will execute the warrant.
In connection with subsection (1) it is worth pointing out that what is required is "reasonable grounds" on the part of the police officer who carries out the search. It is not a case where an officer can search without any reasonable grounds whatsoever. It is very similar to provisions which have been found satisfactory under the Firearms Act and also—I found this as a matter of surprise —in connection with the protection of rare birds. These provisions have not in the past given rise to complaint. Someone intending to use this power must be 1382 prepared to satisfy a court that he had reasonable grounds.
As to the searching of vehicles under subsection (1,b), since there was a misapprehension in one part of the Press I must explain that there is no power to search premises without warrant. It is a power to search vehicles. Again, the constable must have reasonable ground for suspecting that someone is in unauthorised possession of a drug before he searches a vehicle. The constable cannot merely search an unattended vehicle in a car park in the general hope that he may find something incriminating.
It has been suggested that the provision that the constable will no longer have to be named in the warrant will be an exceptional provision. In fact, the reverse is the case. It is unusual for the constable to have to be named in a warrant. In this respect, the law relating to drugs will be on a par with the general practice.
Lastly, subsection (3) modifies the restriction on the powers of arrest which were conferred by Section 15 of the principal Act so as to empower the constable to make an arrest if he is not satisfied that the name and address furnished by that person are in fact his true name and address. One of the major problems the police have found in the past is that a number of people, realising that they could not be searched if they gave their name and address, gave a wrong name and a wrong address and often the officer knew that the name and address were not the correct ones.
For these reasons, we thought it right to table the Clause in another place to give these extra powers to the police and to bring the law outside London into line with that inside London. The Clause was found to be generally acceptable in another place.
§ Mr. Quintin Hogg (St. Marylebone)The Under-Secretary rightly said that when the Amendment was proposed in another place it received the approval of the Opposition Front Bench no less than it did the support of the Government. No dissentient voice was raised.
Since then, a number of complaints and representations have been made to me about it to the effect that the Opposition should oppose the Amendment. At first, I was disposed to think that there was 1383 something in these doubts, partly because the right of search without warrant excites deep feelings which go back a long way in our history and partly because the Amendment, if I read it right, extends outside the scope of the Bill as it had been hitherto to soft drugs and similar substances and is not confined to the hard drugs, with which it was the original purpose of the Bill to deal, and particularly outside the realm of medical prescription, which was the main purpose of the original Bill.
However, I have come to the conclusion that the Government are right and that the House ought to accept the Amendment. Because this suggested new provision has given rise to some disquiet, in my own party circles and elsewhere, I want to record why I think so. First, dealing with the matter of search as being of the first importance, this is a right to search the person and to search vehicles, and it does not appear to be —I was glad to hear the Under-Secretary confirm that it is not—a right to search premises without warrant, which gives rise to a rather different set of considerations.
Secondly, a similar power has existed —it is not right to say that this power has existed—and has been used for this purpose by the Metropolitan Police under the Metropolitan Police Act, which has been in force for a very respectably long time, and it has not given rise to a great deal of controversy or complaint. The extent to which it is used in the Metropolitan Police District in connection with drugs is considerable. I think that about 3,000 arrests a year were made under the power and that in almost every case a search of some kind was made. If the power exists and is used usefully by the police and has not given rise to complaint, the case for extending it generally to other possible centres of drug-peddling is made out.
The fact is that drugs are easily concealed and easily got rid of. If, first, the constable is limited in his power to arrest to cases where he thinks that the person concerned is likely to abscond, which would be the case were the Amendment not agreed to and which is the case at the moment; and if, secondly, he has no power to search a person until he 1384 arrests him for that reason, a very large number of pedlars and pushers will manage in practice to escape or to get rid of the drugs they may be carrying.
My information is that this happens. Some pedlars live very rough in centres of resort of one sort or another, and not only in the Metropolis. They use their vehicles and their clothes to conceal considerable amounts of drugs. As this is both a professional and a profitable business, they are well advised as to their legal rights and manage by the skilful use of them to evade the law.
For these reasons, in spite of the doubts and anxieties which have been expressed, I believe that it is my duty to support the Government and to give my reasons for doing so. I think that they have acted rightly in asking Parliament for further extended powers in this respect.
§ 5.0 p.m.
§ Mr. H. P. G. Channon (Southend, West)I am tempted to agree with the conclusions of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg), but I do so with some doubt. It is a measure of the importance of the drug problem that we should devote the first day of our return to it, having spent a considerable time dealing with it before we rose for the Summer Recess. There is no hon. Member who is not anxious to beat the present drug wave and to end what for many people is becoming a difficult and in same cases a tragic situation.
The new Clause takes powers very much wider than those hitherto available. For example, it takes power to search people if they are suspected of having soft drugs. I raise no objection to that, but in that context can we be told when we are likely to have the report on L.S.D. and cannabis of the Sub-Committee of the Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence? If the police are to have and are to use these powers, it is extremely important that they should be backed up by an authoritative report from this Committee.
If the Clause is passed, police constables will have the power to search anyone at any time if they have reasonable grounds for assuming the suspect to have drugs on his person. These powers have existed in London for more than 1385 100 years and I do not think that there has been serious objection to them. I raise no objection to this extension, but there are two things which all hon. Members should bear in mind. It is the job of the House above all to back up the police when we deal with criminal matters. If the police have asked for these additional powers, we cannot refuse them. But it is also our job to make sure that relations between the police and public do not worsen.
Those relations are improving. It would be out of order to debate the breathalyser now, but there is a risk that that legislation may worsen the relations between the police and the public. I do not think that it has, because that legislation is being administered with great common sense. I hope that these new powers will also be administered by the police with common sense.
I am prepared to accept the new Clause, although I do so with some reluctance, because it is a major increase in police powers of this kind, an increase which the Government say that the police require and which the dangerous and difficult drug situation necessitates. I accept these arguments, but I do so with reluctance. I hope that we shall be told when the Sub-Committee's report will be published, because that report on soft drugs will be of considerable value, not only in this respect but in the whole of the prevention of the misuse of drugs by young people.
§ Mr. TaverneBy leave of the House, may I say that I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) and to the hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Channon) for their support of this provision. One must scrutinise with the greatest care any new power of search, and I would not go necessarily as far as the hon. Member in saying one must grant whatever power the police ask. One must consider very carefully whether, in fact, it is needed.
For the reasons we have given and because the power already exists in London, we feel that it can be granted. We shall not be in any way prejudicing the outcome of the work of the Sub-Committee which is considering cannabis and L.S.D. It is due to report early next year, but the content of its report 1386 is, of course, something which it would be wrong to anticipate at this stage.
§ Question put and agreed to.