COMMONS AMENDMENTS (Hansard, 21 June 1982)

Lord Campbell of Croy
My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 12 and 13. As proposed at the beginning of our proceedings, it would be convenient if Amendment No. 13 were taken with Amendment No. 12. These amendments arise from the Report stage debate in your Lordships' House when my noble friend Lord Mansfield undertook to look into police powers of search and seizure. It would probably therefore be best if my noble friend on the Front Bench were to speak first on these amendments.

§ Lord Lyell
My Lords, I must apologise to my noble friend Lord Campbell and also to the House, since I find myself speaking at rather short notice, and my instructions were that the Government view needed to be stated. However, my natural deference led me to permit my noble friend to take the lead and I understand it is one of the occasions when I should have done so. This Amendment No. 12 paves for Amendment No. 13. Your Lordships will see that the new subsection (2) is rather technical. It removes a reference to previous convictions, which is no longer required now that we are doing away with the separate sets of penalites for first and subsequent convictions.
The new subsection (3) arises out of an undertaking given by my noble friend the Minister to your Lordships at Report stage. We said then that we would review Section 27 of the Act, which deals with police powers of search and seizure, as my noble friend Lord Campbell pointed out. I thought at the time that we might need to bring forward a complete new section to replace Section 27. Certainly, if we had been drafting the Act for the first time today rather than revising an existing Act, we should have come up with something rather different; but on examination we have found that the section is very serviceable as it is. We have to remember that the police do not have to rely only on the powers contained in Section 27. They also have extensive common law powers, which in general they seem to find quite adequate. Where a constable has reasonable grounds for suspecting a serious offence, he has a general power to enter land and even premises; to make an arrest and, having done so, to search the person.
We are not therefore replacing Section 27. However, there is one anomaly in it which is removed by this amendment. The powers of entry and search in subsections (2) and (4) of Section 27 relate only to offences under Section 24, the so-called "gang" offences. We have come to the view, after consultation with my honourable friend the Solicitor-General for Scotland, that the same power should extend to 865 all offences under Part III of the Act and indeed to those offences under the new Part IIIA, where police powers are not specifically indicated. The amendment has the effect of doing just that.

§ Lord Northfield
My Lords, I have very little to say on this matter, but it leaves me to make one general point since we are nearing the end of the discussion. If one looks at the complexity of this amendment—and both noble Lords have referred to that—one realises what a difficult situation we are going to be in when this legislation is through. I made the case right from the very beginning that it would have been much better to redraft the whole legislation so that we could see it in front of us as a body of new law. Instead, the procedure followed has been to amend to the point of such complexity that it will be a long time after the Bill is through before everybody knows exactly where they are with all these technical amendments.
In fact it seems absurd that after this Bill is through —and I put this on the record—we shall have to cope with no less than three Acts and at least four orders dealing with deer in Scotland. I suspect that it will be a courageous person who does out stalking in Scotland without a lawyer to accompany him to make sure that everybody knows what is and what is not permitted. I am sure there are going to be volunteers, and I can see the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, perhaps foreseeing a profitable furrow to plough, if I may mix my metaphors—but that leads me to make the serious point that somebody ought to take in hand eventually, when this Bill is through, the issue of some consolidated form of legislation so that we can see at a glance what all this complexity really boils down to. If it cannot be done by way of a complete consolidation Act, then some leaflet, pamphlet or something emanating from the Scottish Office should be prepared so as to give the interested people in Scotland a clear guide through all this muddle and technical confusion.
Of course, at the end of all that, I welcome the amendment but, my goodness! if one looks at Amendment No. 13, it reads: (3) in section 27 of the said Act of 1959, in subsections (2) and (4) for the words section twenty-four ' there shall be substituted the words Part III or section 25D(I) or (3) '.". Is anybody, other than a highly trained lawyer, going easily to understand what all that can possibly mean? Would it not have been much better if we had accepted the idea of totally redrafting the legislation in the first place instead of having all this terrible complexity?