It was Tony Blair who thought up the idea of on-the-spot fines for minor offences. The proposal, floated in June 2000, conjured up images of people being frogmarched to cash machines. But it was revived the next year by David Blunkett, then Home Secretary, and introduced in 2004.

It was meant to free police to focus on more serious crimes and relieve courts of the minor offences clogging their lists. Instant fines, or fixed penalty notices, had been used only for parking and minor motoring charges. Now they covered low-level offences, such as littering and drunken behaviour. People had 21 days to pay fines of up to £80, the amount increasing by 50 per cent if they failed to pay.

There was concern from the start that they would create a class of “semi-criminals” — people who were not formally offenders — and police, driven by targets, have lent heavily on them, drawing more and more people into the justice system: 207,544 on-the-spot fines were handed down in 2007.

They are increasingly given for more serious crimes, such as violence, and to repeat offenders, and Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, wants to extend their use to cover 21 further crimes, including shoplifting and cannabis possession, although he has agreed to listen to concerns. Critics suggest that since the fines are issued in the street or at a police station, offenders’ underlying problems — such as drug or alcohol addiction — may be missed because they do not go to court.

Not going to court also means that justice cannot be seen to be done, and nor is there any check on the consistency of their use. Dominic Grieve, the Shadow Home Secretary, suggests that they represent slaps on the wrist rather than measured punishments.

There are also practical problems. Nearly 50 per cent the tickets are unpaid. The offender must go to court as a fine defaulter, attending a hearing that cannot revisit the original offence.

Yet although fixed penalty offenders do not enjoy defendants’ rights, they are being logged. Penalty notices for disorder are recorded on the Police National Computer and work is in hand for a data-sharing system for all on-the-spot fines within two years.

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