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Fighting Crime (Public Engagement)

I am very supportive of the idea of encouraging people—I mean robust citizens, of course, not frail or elderly pensioners—to intervene actively, and I have always been troubled by messages suggesting that they should not. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it would be helpful to have clear guidance, to which the Government and police authorities have signed up, on what exactly citizens' powers of arrest amount to? I do not believe that the public are at all clear about that nowadays. It would also be helpful to have clear guidance on the limit of permissible actions that can be taken without causing subsequent difficulties. If that were made clearer, people would not feel so constrained about intervening to try to break up fights and so forth.