---

Criminal Law (Amendment) (Protection of Property) Bill

I agree. In order to make progress, perhaps hon. Members will accept for the sake of argument that the issue is not that the number of burglaries is going up—it has been going down for some time—but that people are still concerned about what they should do and what their legal position would be if a burglary were to occur. I want to move on to the risk of injury to innocent persons. I gave the extreme example of the tourist in America who was shot dead. There are obviously many other possibilities that are much milder. In our densely populated cities, there is every chance that trespass, in the formal legal sense of the term, will happen many times a day in every city. We all have constituents who complain that youths whom they do not know have wandered into their garden. They are worried by it because they do not know what those youths, who have perhaps kicked a football over the wall or are just being insolent, have in mind. They feel uncertain and uneasy—and who can blame them? It is entirely reasonably that they should. The problem is that under the hon. Lady’s Bill any response that was not seen as grossly disproportionate would become legal. Let us consider what that means. For example, if a 14-year-old were to wander into the garden of a householder who had a history of being aggravated by local kids, and who then assaulted the child and bundled him off the premises, causing him bruising and minor injuries, would that be seen as grossly disproportionate? I am not sure that it would. Under the present law, it would certainly be seen as unreasonable, because it is unreasonable for someone to use force against a person who has merely strayed on to their property, unless they have first asked them to leave and taken all reasonable steps to get them to do so. Would it be grossly disproportionate? As a householder, I would have great difficulty in deciding whether it would be grossly disproportionate.