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Policing and Crime Bill

I thank the Minister for his response, but I point out that the many millions of pounds-worth of prohibited drugs that have been confiscated do not seem to have had the desired effect of reducing consumption of drugs. His hope that confiscation of alcohol from young people will reduce the amount of alcohol consumed is a hope that will not be realised. I understand what the Minister says about the link between the link between this clause and Clause 30, where police have to take the name and address of the child because they need to establish the pattern for which there is an offence in Clause 30, but I am very concerned about the fact that the child on the street will not understand the implications of giving their name and address to a police officer. They will get no advice about it. Again, the Minister is expecting the police to make the sort of judgments and assessments of whether the child's welfare will be compromised that children’s services workers are trained for years to make. I will be very surprised if police officers would go through anything like the amount of training that specially trained youth workers will to make such assessments. Perhaps the Minister has understood from this debate that we are still unhappy about the clause, so he may find us returning to it, but, for the moment, I shall not be pursuing my opposition to the clause. Clause 29 agreed.