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Criminal Law (Amendment) (Protection of Property) Bill

I would hate to quibble with you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but the problem is that the Bill defines"““building or part of a building””" by cross-reference to section 9 of the Theft Act 1968. I have been examining that Act’s definition of a building because that is the definition that applies in the Bill. It is not my fault that the drafters made that cross-reference. I would far prefer that they had set out what they mean by ““building”” in the Bill. If we are to explore the Bill properly, I therefore have to consider how ““building”” is defined for the purposes of section 9 of the Theft Act. The work that I have been using as my bible is the seminal work on the law of theft. My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda asked about vehicles. Cars certainly do not apply. Before I come to the issue of mobile homes, though, it is important to set out the benchmark definition of a building. That was given by a former Master of the Rolls, Lord Esher, in a case that took place quite a while ago. He says that a building in the ordinary sense is a block of brick or stonework covered in by a roof, and a structure of considerable size that is intended to be permanent or at least to endure for a considerable time. He says that a telephone kiosk is not a building, that the outbuildings of a house are buildings, and that a detached garage, tool shed or greenhouse may be a building. He identifies a difficulty on building sites in that a roof will be thought necessary for a structure to be a building but says that there is no obvious answer to borderline cases. He says that one lodger may commit burglary by entering another lodger’s room, that a guest in a hotel may commit a burglary by entering the room of another guest and that on a ship somebody could commit a burglary by going into another cabin. A whole series of examples are brought into the Bill by the cross-reference from the Theft Act.