Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr. Conway, I seek the Minister's guidance on this clause. I was slightly puzzled by it when I read it. It would appear to remove the power of citizen's arrest for those who are committing, or suspected of committing, an offence of personation in a polling station. I understand that much; that would appear to be the purport of the clause. However, I made, perhaps, the mistake of reading the explanatory notes, which take us into much deeper water. Can the Minister explain to us what they mean? It starts:

''This clause maintains the current position that the power of arrest without warrant of a person suspected of committing personation inside a polling station rests with a police constable only.''

That is consonant with what I had understood. However, it goes on to say:  

''Without this provision, the amendments made by the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 to sections 24 and 24A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 would allow any person who has reasonable grounds for suspecting another person of being guilty of the offence inside a polling station to make an arrest.''

I understand that, although I am not sure necessarily that I do not want people to be detained if they are committing an act of personation in a polling station when there is no police constable around, but let us set that aside for the moment. The next sentence says:

''For personation outside a polling station or fraudulent applications for absent votes, the provisions of section 24 and 24A of the 1984 Act will, however, automatically apply because of the seriousness of the offence and the level of the penalty.''

I understand that that means that citizen's arrest is available for someone who is filling in an application form in their kitchen, and doing so fraudulently by claiming to be somebody else. Somebody could walk into that kitchen and make a citizen's arrest, but they could not do it if somebody walks into a polling station and says that if they are somebody whom they are not. I do not understand that differentiation. The notes go on further:

''The effect of this clause, and provisions in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, is to implement the recommendation by the Electoral Commission that the existing provisions relating to personation should be extended to give the police the power of arrest at any location, not just at polling stations.''

However, it does not do that; the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005—I served on the Standing Committee for that Bill, and participated in all it stages—gives the powers of arrest to a constable for any offence under any circumstances, so the police have the power of arrest for this offence wherever it occurs. The clause cannot possibly extend the police's power of arrest because even a cursory reading of the clause suggests that it is a restriction of the powers of arrest of persons other than constables. I am completely at a loss as to what the explanatory notes are explaining; I do not understand how the power of a constable is extended, because that is not the case.

I can see that the clause confirms the power of a constable, which the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 already does, to make an arrest in a polling station. I can see that it prevents a citizen's arrest happening within a polling station, but it says that it could happen at any other place; so a concerned citizen can make an arrest when the person has left the polling station if they suspect them of having committed an offence but cannot do so while they are in the polling station. That makes no sense at all.

There must be some answer to that conundrum that I cannot fathom at the moment. I hope that the Minister will be able to help me; it may simply be that the explanatory notes bear scant resemblance to the clause. That is the easiest consequence to understand in some ways, but if it is not that, can the Minister please explain to me what the clause does and how it accomplishes what the explanatory notes suggest that it does?

I am tempted to say that this is neither the time nor the place to get involved in such a discussion, but I shall attempt to address the hon. Gentleman's points; no doubt not to his satisfaction,   nor in terms of his reinterpretation of what I say when he comes to sum up. However, I shall leave that to his discretion.

The purpose of the clause is to maintain the position that the power of arrest without warrant of a person suspected of committing personation inside a polling station rests with a police constable only. It might help the Committee if I explained what is meant by personation. That is the offence committed by somebody who votes in person or by post as some other person, without that person's consent, in order to use his or her vote. If proven, it can result in imprisonment for up to two years or a fine or both.

At present, only a police officer may arrest a person who is inside a polling station and is suspected of personation. The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, on which I served as a Back Bencher, will alter the law from 1 January 2006 to provide that any person who has reasonable grounds for suspecting another person of being guilty of an offence may make an arrest if it is not reasonably practicable for a constable to make the arrest himself. The power has been limited to serious indictable offences, which will include personation. In relation to electoral law, that means that if the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 were not amended, inside a polling station it would be possible for any person, not just a police officer, to make an arrest for suspected personation.

That is the point at which there has to be a judgment call. We do not think that that would be desirable; it could be a recipe for confusion and disorder in polling stations if citizens' arrests were being attempted while others continued the important and vital process of voting. However, I can understand why that might seem a puzzling distinction to make. The judgment of the greater good is that what should continue should be the process of people voting on a particular day in the few hours that are set aside for that purpose.

We think that we should maintain the current position that only police officers may make arrests inside a polling station. However, outside a polling station—I think that this is the discrepancy that the hon. Gentleman was highlighting; it is certainly a difference—we think that the changes made by the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 should apply. That will provide a useful weapon to address personation and fraud also in relation to postal voting, which will inevitably take place away from the polling station. As has been said, it is unlikely that a police officer will be on hand to make an arrest should it be thought that an offence is being committed in somebody's kitchen.

We do not want presiding officers and poll clerks to arrest people which, without the introduction of these provisions, they could do. I accept that we are making a distinction between what goes on inside a polling station and what goes on outside it. That is to do with making a judgment about not wishing to cause undue—I am trying to think of the parliamentary word for kerfuffle—inside a polling station while people are going about, if I may now be hi-falutin', the sacred task of casting their votes. I hope that I have shed a bit of light on our position on the clause.  

First, I am grateful to the Minister. I understand what he has said, but I am not sure that I agree with him. It is certainly not what the explanatory memorandum says. I would still ask him to consider the last sentence of the explanatory memorandum on this clause:

''The effect of this clause . . . is to implement the recommendation by the Electoral Commission that the existing provisions relating to personation should be extended to give the police the power of arrest at any location, not just at polling stations.''

That is transparently not what the clause does. It does the reverse. It prevents anybody else from making an arrest inside a polling station. If it is felt that the polling process should not be disturbed by an arrest, it is hard to understand why a police constable should make that arrest within a polling station.—[Interruption]. The Minister says that there is a distinction, but not in law.

If he recalls, in our debates on the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill, the Government's proposition—not mine—was that the power of arrest should be extended to any offence, not just to a serious indictable offence, by any citizen. It was only when we defeated them on that matter that the Government changed their mind and adopted the proposition that is now in the Act. The Government's position was that anyone should be able to arrest anybody, anywhere for anything.—[Interruption.] The Minister suggests that that is a general principle and I have no difficulty in believing that that is the basis on which the Government work.

I understand why the hon. Gentleman does not want presiding officers to make an arrest, but the effect probably will be that people will not be arrested because, unfortunately, there are relatively few polling stations that have a police officer on duty as they used to. There was a time when every polling station had a constable on duty, but not now. Thus there will not be arrests for personation. I have looked again at the clause and I have become aware of something that I should have noticed in the first instance, that it would not be possible for a person to make an arrest outside the polling station because the proposal applies only

''if the offence is committed or is suspected of being committed inside a polling station.''

That is the only place where a person can commit the offence of personation, other than when filling in an application form for a postal vote. In effect, it means that a person will not be arrested for personation unless there is a police constable at the polling station. The offence will not be prosecuted unless it is possible to trace a person later without knowing who they are and why they were personating another person. If that is the Government's position, at least it is comprehensible; I am not sure I agree with it but I do not want to pursue it.

I need to clarify the issue. Most people would understand that in the confines of a polling station there is a difference between a police officer coming in and arresting someone and a candidate trying to arrest another candidate, in which case the presiding officer would have to go to   the police station. A citizen's arrest inside the polling station could cause more harm than it would prevent.

The overall effect of the clause, taken with provisions in the Serious and Organised Crime Act 2005 is to implement the recommendation by the Electoral Commission that the existing provisions relating to personation should be extended to give the police a power of arrest at any location that they currently have prior to this proposal, not just at the polling station itself.

I am sorry, but I do not accept that that is what the clause says. I will leave the Minister to read it at his leisure. I do not accept that it gives any additional power to a police constable. It is a restriction on the powers of arrest by persons other than constables. If one construes the provision in a particular way, it removes the power of arrest anywhere for a person who has committed the offence of personation. The Minister may disagree but the clause says

''if the offence is committed or is suspected of being committed inside a polling station.''

That is where the offence is committed, or is suspected of being committed. The first part of the clause states that it

''does not permit a person other than a constable to arrest''.

If someone had been to the polling station before me and cast their vote in my name, saying, ''I am David Heath,'' and there was no policeman to be seen—there will not be a policeman in Witham Friary for six months after an election because we do not have policemen there—nothing could be done.—[Interruption.] I could not arrest that person. This is not a trivial point.

The hon. Gentleman has misunderstood it.  

I am reading what the clause says. I cannot make a citizen's arrest outside the polling station.

Why not?

Because I am not a constable and, under the clause, I cannot make a citizen's arrest and arrest outside the polling station someone who commits or who is suspected of committing an offence if the offence is committed or is suspected of having been committed inside a polling station. That is where the offence has been committed. It has not been committed outside, so I cannot detain that person outside the polling station.

The Under-Secretary needs to reconstruct the clause if he intends it to read that a person may not make a citizen's arrest inside a polling station, so that it is possible to make a citizen's arrest outside the polling station for an offence that is committed inside. At the moment, however, the clause says that no one other than a police constable may detain that person as he leaves the polling station and say, ''You have just committed an offence and I am detaining you under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984,'' until a police constable can effect an arrest. That is the effect of the clause.

I do not want to strain the patience of the Committee any longer, but the Under-Secretary needs to consider very carefully what the clause says, because it does not say what he believes it to say.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 65 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 66 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Further consideration adjourned—[Mr. Brennan.]

Adjourned accordingly at thirteen minutes to Four o'clock till Tuesday 22 November at half-past Ten o'clock.