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Counter-Terrorism Bill

The Government understand their obligation to preserve the balance between the rights of citizens and the investigative tools available to the police. In that context I acknowledge the concerns of the noble Baroness and the noble and learned Lord. I restate that the police will not use this power to seize any documents they want. That is not what we aim to do, and I hope that the way the provision is phrased will stop that happening, with all the safeguards—I have covered these before and will not go through them again—that we have put in place against misuse of power and PACE code B. We do not expect officers to seize all materials simply, for example, because they are in a foreign language. We expect them to use their common sense over that. I give a silly example: if it is Hello magazine written in Arabic, I would hope he would use his common sense and not take it. They need to use their common sense when doing this. However, as the noble and learned Lord says, the officer is already required to state the object of the removal. It is removed so they can check it through and then make a decision about seizure. I think that he might put on his form that he has taken it as it was written in Arabic or something that he cannot translate. That might be added to the form. I had not thought very deeply about an audit after the event. My noble friend Lord Harris gave reasons why we have to be careful of going down that sort of route. I might want to have a think about that—not for such a provision to go in the Bill, but it might be useful and I want to think about whether it might be done practically. I am conscious that we are treading into areas where we have to be careful in that balance between the rights of citizens and the tools available, so I should like to think about it. As I say, we do not expect officers to seize masses and masses of material unless they are absolutely sure. I feel that we have dealt appropriately with these problems in the Bill. To accept the amendment would be to negate the purpose of the power. I take the potential misuse of this power very seriously. That is why we put in all the safeguards. As I say, I should like to think about the other issue, but I do not think that it would be appropriate to put such a provision in the Bill. I hope that I have been able to satisfy the noble Baroness and that she feels able to withdraw the amendment.