§ Mr. Tony Banksasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) on which date or dates and in which areas the various sections of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 will be brought into effect; and by what date the Act is expected to be fully operational;
(2) what additional training custody officers will undergo in order that they may fulfil their responsibilities under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act; and what will be the nature and duration of such training;
(3) what additional training Metropolitan police officers will undergo in order that they be fully acquainted with the new powers and duties contained in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act; arid what is the nature and duration of such training.
§ Mr. BrittanOur present intention is to bring the provisions of the Act into force in three stages, commencing on 1 January 1985. The provisions to be brought into force on that date will include section 106, which requires arrangements to be made in each police area for obtaining the views of the community on policing, and a number of miscellaneous provisions which can appropriately and sensibly come into effect in advance of the major parts of the Act.
The second stage of implementation will be on 1 March 1985 and will principally include part IX of the Act: the establishment of the Police Complaints Authority and other changes to the police complaints and discipline procedures.
The third stage will include the outstanding provisions of parts I to VIII— with the exception of subsections (11) to (14) of section 37, which are dependent upon provisions of the Children and Young Persons Act 1969 not yet in force, and section 60, which provides for the tape-recording of police interviews with suspects and which will be subject to a separate programme of implementation in the light of the progress of the field trials now taking place in various police areas. In deciding on the timing of this third stage I have had regard to the need for a service-wide training programme. The Home Office's instructor training unit at Harrogate is preparing a training package for use by all provincial police forces.
The training is likely to amount to 14 hours teaching time followed by on-the-job training. This includes up to seven hours teaching of particular relevance to custody officers. A corresponding package is being prepared by the Metropolitan police for all officers serving on that force.
The date for the third stage of implementation to which I have asked forces to work is 1 January 1986, which is also the date on which I propose to ask Parliament to agree that the four codes of practice which section 66 requires me to issue shall come into force.