 Section 24 gives officers of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs power to detain a person for up to 6 hours to facilitate the carrying out of investigations into a criminal offence and/or whether criminal proceedings should be instigated for that offence.The power applies only to offences relating to "assigned matters" (defined in section 1 of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979 which are punishable by imprisonment.Subsections (5) and (8) set out various protections for the rights of the detained person.