Lord Paddick (Non-Afl)

My Lords, while agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, on the detail that he has given, I rise to support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Hamwee—in particular, Amendments 29, 34, 36 and 37 to Clause 13, although similar arguments apply to her other amendments to Clauses 14 and 16. I apologise for not being available to speak at Second Reading because of other commitments, but that is no excuse to deliver my Second Reading speech now; I will simply address the amendments. I declare my interest, if it is relevant, as a non-executive director of the Metropolitan Police Service. Generally, in criminal law, as my noble friend Lady Hamwee said, people are considered to be innocent until they are found guilty in a criminal court. Until fairly recently, instances of reverse burden of proof have been exceptionally rare and, in most cases, the reasons have been self-evident. For example, if someone is in possession of an offensive weapon made or adapted to cause injury, such as a knuckle-duster—something with no other obvious use—the ball is clearly in the accused’s court in terms of their having to prove that they have a reasonable excuse for possession of such an article. Here we are talking about items that could as easily have a lawful and legitimate use as they might have an unlawful use as the Bill suggests; that is, for use in immigration crime. I am thinking of things such as life jackets and inflatable boats. With the police power to arrest set at a very low standard of “reasonable cause to suspect that someone may be” about to commit a criminal offence, the prospect of innocent people being arrested under this provision is clear. Someone taking an inflatable boat down to the sea containing life jackets could reasonably be suspected to be committing an offence under this provision and therefore may be liable to arrest, even if they were a leisure user of such equipment. They could not argue that they had a reasonable excuse for possession of the boat and the life jackets, because that defence, according to the Bill, is not available to them until after they have been arrested, detained and charged and appeared in court. That is clearly unreasonable. It should be open to anyone in such circumstances to be able to deploy the “reasonable excuse” explanation for their actions at the time of the incident, as my noble friend Lady Hamwee’s amendments suggest, and I therefore wholeheartedly support her amendments. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, has said, the safeguards are low, and the sentences—up to 14 years’ imprisonment—are high