ARREST WITHOUT WARRANT FOR FINGERPRINTING (Hansard, 15 May 1984)

§ Mr. Wallace
I beg to move amendment No. 61, in page 22, line 1, leave out Clause 24.

Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this it will be convenient to take Government amendments Nos. 62 and 63.

§ Mr. Wallace
Clause 24 relates to arrest without warrant for the fingerprinting of people who have been convicted of a recordable offence. A list of such offences was available in the Library to members of the Committee. Clause 24 provides statutory regulation, by instrument, of recordable offences. The second qualification for arrest without warrant for fingerprinting is fingerprints not having been taken during investigation of the offence by the police or since conviction. The third is that a request by a constable at a reasonable hour to go to a police station so that fingerprints could be taken had been made within one month of the conviction.
We welcome the Government's slight concession that enables arrests without warrant to occur within one month of conviction. We still believe that clause 24 should have no part in the Bill. We are trying to establish a balance between giving the police adequate power to detect and prevent crime, and the important rights of the individual. There must be a good case for taking rights away from the individual. There is no doubt that full fingerprinting records would be of benefit to the police, because the use of such records is an important weapon in the police's armoury to detect crime. The House must ask what the citizen must have done to justify such a serious infringement of his liberty.
In the terms of clause 24, the approximate cause for arrest without warrant would be a refusal to go to a police station within one month of the date of conviction if asked by a constable to do so at a reasonable hour. One step removed from that, and the real need for clause 24, is the failure to take fingerprints of the person at whom the clause is directed during the investigation or subsequent to conviction. The House should not allow the citizen to suffer the trauma of arrest without warrant for an essentially administrative purpose that arises not out of misdemeanour but out of inefficient police procedure. That is not sufficient ground to justify the power being given to the police. Detailed criticisms were raised in Committee about, for example, the way in which clause 24 would affect young people between the ages of 10 and 17. We therefore want to delete clause 24.

§ Mr. Dubs
As we made abundantly clear in Committee, the Labour party is also unhappy about the clause, and we support the move by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) to have it deleted.

§ Mr. Mellor
With the greatest respect to the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace), he has the wrong end of the stick, as the position is not due to the police being incompetent, careless, or any of the terms that he used. The amendment simply covers the case where, because proceedings were taken against a defendant by way of summons rather than arrest, the defendant may not have been to a police station, and so rendered himself liable to be detained. The clause 54 provisions would come into operation and fingerprints would be taken.

§ Mr. Alex Carlile
Will the Minister give way?

§ Mr. Mellor
I should like to finish the point that I am making before being told how wrong I am.
If a defendant is convicted of a criminal offence, it is sensible to have his fingerprints record available. If he is subsequently convicted of an offence and uses a different 276 name, there would be no way of linking the two offences if the relevant fingerprints are not on record. It follows that fingerprints should be available for elementary protection of the public. Clause 24 provides a back-up to the usual power, to cover the case when a person is prosecuted by way of summons. That person is given the option of cooperating with the police. The Bill makes it clear that he must be given that opportunity at a reasonable time if a request is made for him to go to the police station and have his fingerprints taken. If he refuses to do that, a power of arrest is exercisable within a month of the conviction, for the fingerprints to be taken.
With the greatest respect to the hon. and learned Gentleman, while I am more than prepared to consider those areas of the Bill where there is room for genuine concern, I am rather puzzled that there is such concern about a commonsense matter.

§ Ms. Clare Short
Will the Minister give way?

§ Mr. Mellor
We would not want to extend the number of times that a person is arrested before fingerprints must be made available. I must say to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short), who is interjecting from a sedentary position, that unless she wishes to take issue with the fundamental point, which is that the fingerprints of those convicted of criminal offences should be made available as a basic and elementary safeguard for the public in the investigation of other offences or the proving of other cases against someone brought before the court, I do not see how anyone could object to it.

§ Mr. Alex Carlile
If the Minister is right, and the intention of the clause is to enable fingerprints to be taken from those who have been prosecuted by way of summons, which I well understand in some circumstances, why does not the clause say that? If the Minister were prepared to amend the clause so that it said that fingerprints could be taken from people only when they had been prosecuted by summons, I suspect that the amendment would not be on the Amendment Paper tonight. Does not the Minister agree that the way in which the clause is drawn makes it open to a police force that has been sloppy and incompetent during an investigation and failed to take fingerprints, to go as an afterthought to someone who has already been convicted and say, "Come along, old chap. We are going to take your fingerprints now."?

§ Mr. Mellor
I understand the hon. and learned Gentleman. It would be most unusual, however, for the power to be used in any other context. In the spirit of conciliation that always grips me when I am subjected to the eloquence of the hon. and learned Gentleman and when I am tired, although I hope not emotional, as the hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Dubs) has said, we shall reconsider the provision to see whether it would be possible to make such a change in another place. I am not giving an undertaking that we shall arrive at the conclusion that the hon. Gentleman wants, but we shall consider it, because that is the intention that lies behind the measure. It is not intended to excuse, so to speak, those who fail. It would be a most grotesque oversight on the part of the police not to take the fingerprints of someone in custody who had already been convicted of an offence. We do not want to make special statutory provisions for that sort of position.

§ Mr. Wallace
I listened carefully to what the Minister said. He has given an indication, though not a 277 commitment, that he will have another look at the matter. I shall stand corrected if I have not got this right. I have looked through the relevant minutes of the Committee proceedings, and did not find the reason that the Minister gave. None the less, I believe that the Minister will bear in mind what has been said by Opposition Members. In those circumstances, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.