Fundamental Rights and the Rule of Law

Debate between Baroness Chakrabarti and Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, with the caveat that the word “eater” on today’s list should read “greater”, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede) (Lab)]

My Lords, as the Prime Minister has made clear, the UK is unequivocally committed to the European Convention on Human Rights. My right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor has said she will champion the rule of law at home and abroad, and my noble and learned friend the Attorney-General has described it as our lodestar. We are committed to rebuilding public trust in our political system by explaining how the rule of law serves us all and by promoting human rights as British values.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister—it is very nice to be able to say that—for that Answer. The Human Rights Act 1998 was a wonderful innovation: a modern bill of rights for this country. There was very little public education and information to go with it, and that has made it vulnerable to attack and misrepresentation, including from allegedly moderate Conservative leadership candidates, even today. Will the Government therefore now use this second opportunity and every resource available, digital and otherwise, in government, to put things right?

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that question. We consider that the UK’s three national human rights institutions, each with specific jurisdictions and functions, have a role in this. They are the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and the Scottish Human Rights Commission. Each has an “A” status, as rated by the UN, and a role in promoting human rights and awareness of human rights within the United Kingdom.

My noble friend’s original Question went wider than that, to include reinvigorating an appreciation of human rights. While the bodies I have just described have a statutory responsibility, there is nothing to stop central government doing that as well. As I think I pointed out in my initial Answer, both the Lord Chancellor and Attorney-General take this matter extremely seriously and see it as central to what they are doing.

My noble friend also referred to today’s press reports. Tom Tugendhat MP said in his pitch to be leader of the Conservative Party that he is ready to leave the ECHR. That is in marked contrast to what the leadership of the Government are saying.

Public Order Bill

Debate between Baroness Chakrabarti and Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare a historical if not a current interest as a Home Office lawyer from January 1996 until the autumn of 2001. I was occasionally and habitually a happy and unhappy inhabitant of the Box.

I agree with—I think—every speech so far in this significant debate. I would go further than some in saying that I was always against this blurring of civil and criminal process from the beginning when, I am sorry to say, Labour did it. I was against ASBOs, CRASBOs, control orders, TPIMs, football banning orders and all the rest, because they were always about lessening criminal due process. That is always the intention when you blur civil and criminal process by way of these quasi-injunctive orders. Whether it is minor nuisance or suspicion of being associated with terrorists, whatever the gravity of the threat, you will catch behaviour without proper criminal due process and then prosecute people for the breach.

Although we do not always agree, I must commend the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, in particular on a devastating critique of this use of copy and paste in my former department. Computers are wonderful things—until they are not. I will not labour the point, save to quote the right honourable Member for Haltemprice and Howden, who has done his best on this Bill in the other place along with Sir Charles Walker, from the Times this morning:

“Serious disruption prevention orders, or SDPOs”—


protest banning orders—

“can be given to anyone who has on two previous occasions ‘carried out activities related to a protest’ that ‘resulted in or were likely to result in serious disruption’”—

which is not defined—

“or even ‘caused or contributed to the carrying out by any other person’ of such activities. This is drafted so broadly so as to potentially include sharing a post on social media or handing out a leaflet encouraging people to go to a protest—even if you did not go on to attend that protest. Those issued with an SDPO can face harsh restrictions on their liberty, including … GPS tracking and being banned from going on demonstrations, associating with certain people”,

et cetera—and the orders are renewable indefinitely, as we have heard.

I am sorry if I have made noble friends feel uncomfortable. Do not think about these measures as they would be employed today. Think about how they could be used on the statute book by another Government, not of your friends and not of your choosing, in 20 years’ time. That is why, in a terrible Bill, Clauses 19 and 20 should not stand part.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I open by echoing what the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said: all the arguments in all the amendments could become redundant if we support not putting Clauses 19 and 20 in the Bill. The strength of feeling demonstrated through this short debate leads me to believe that that may well be what we vote on when we come to Report.

I forget whether it was my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti or the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, who referred to this as copy-and-paste legislation. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, who gave the analogy of chicken coops being moved around to replicate these civil injunctions. But perhaps the most powerful speech we have heard was from the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, who gave six examples of SDPOs being tougher than TPIMs, which really caused me to sit back and reflect on the meat of what we are dealing with here today.

My noble friend Lady Chakrabarti said she has always been against what she called quasi-injunctive orders—civil orders—going all the way back to ASBOs. This caused me to reflect, as a magistrate, on which of those orders I deal with when I sit in courts. I deal with some of them: football banning orders, knife crime prevention orders and domestic violence protection orders—I think most noble Lords who have taken part in this debate think DVPOs are an appropriate use of civil orders. But, of course, the list goes on. That is really the point my noble friend makes: there are a growing number of these civil orders that, if breached, result in criminal convictions.

To repeat what I said, here we are meeting a very extreme situation in which people planning to get involved in protest or to help people do so can potentially be criminalised for that activity. The nature of the potential offence being committed is different.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, went through in detail, for which I thank him, the nature of the injunctions in Clauses 19 and 20, so I will not go through all that again, but I will make one point that he did not make. We are concerned that there does not seem to be any requirement for the person involved to have knowledge that the protest activities were going to cause serious disruption. That lack of a requirement of knowledge is a source of concern for us.

In the debate on the previous group, my noble friend Lord Rooker and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, spoke about the comments of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, and my noble friend quoted from them. The noble Lord, Lord Beith, spoke about the Secretary of State issuing guidance to chief police officers and how that could go down a road whose potential political implications, in a sense, I prefer not to think about.

I will quote briefly from other committees which have reflected on this legislation. First, the Joint Committee on Human Rights has said:

“Serious Disruption Prevention Orders represent a disproportionate response to the disruption caused by protest. They are likely to result in interference with legitimate peaceful exercise of Article 10 and 11 rights. The police already have powers to impose conditions on protests and to arrest those who breach them. Other provisions of this Bill, if passed, will provide the police with even greater powers to restrict or prevent disruptive protest.”


Another committee, the Constitution Committee, said:

“The purposes for which a Serious Disruption Prevention Order can be issued are broad. They can be issued not only to prevent a person committing a protest-related offence but also to prevent a person from carrying out activities related to a protest. Such a protest need cause, or be likely to cause, serious disruption to only two people. This gives the orders a pre-emptive or preventative role. Furthermore, ‘protest-related’ offence is not adequately defined in this part of the Bill nor … is ‘serious disruption’. This undermines legal certainty. We recommend that the meaning of ‘protest-related offence’ is clarified more precisely.”


The Minister has a big job on his hands to try to convince any Member of this Committee that he is on the right track. The amendments in my name—the clause stand part amendments—are the quickest way to put this part of the Bill out of its misery.

Investigatory Powers Commissioner (Oversight Functions) Regulations 2022

Debate between Baroness Chakrabarti and Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede

Thursday 24th November 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak first to the Investigatory Powers (Covert Human Intelligence Sources and Interception: Codes of Practice) Regulations 2022. This SI updates the CHIS code of practice, following the 2021 Act, and the interception code of practice. We believe the first duty of any Government is to keep our country safe. The Labour Party recognises the importance of covert intelligence and the necessary, if at times uncomfortable, role of covert human intelligence sources and the contribution they make on our behalf.

The Labour Party supports the CHIS Act but, along with a number of Members from across the House, we pushed for additional safeguards with varying degrees of success. In particular, we pushed to limit the types of criminal conduct that could be authorised and for prior judicial oversight to be sought for an authorisation; we did so without success. However, the House was successful in adding some safeguards to the Bill by securing extra protection for children and young people and ensuring the notification of authorisations to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner. I pay particular tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, who played a leading role in securing these changes.

We support the regulations but I have a number of questions. The first concerns what the Explanatory Memorandum says about Section 72 of RIPA. It sets out the effect of the code. I will read out the further explanation:

“Failure to comply with the Code does not render that person liable in any criminal or civil proceedings. However, the Code is admissible in evidence in criminal and civil proceedings, and may be taken into account of any court”.


Can the Minister give any information on this? What would be the case if there was a failure to comply with the code? What could or would be the repercussions for those breaking the code?

Further, there is a requirement for public authorities

“to ensure that any criminal conduct to be authorised is compliant with the relevant Articles of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act 1998.”

How will that be impacted by the proposed Bill of Rights Bill? My noble friend Lady Chakrabarti also raised the prospect of rescinding the ECHR even though Dominic Raab repeatedly says that he does not want to do that. Nevertheless, doubts and scepticism persist.

On children, I note that most of the consultation responses focused on protecting children and vulnerable adults. I can see that the Government have reflected on those submissions. It is right that children are authorised as CHIS sources only in exceptional circumstances, and that the duty of care owed to the children in this context is taken extremely seriously.

I have received an extensive briefing from Just for Kids Law, as I am sure other noble Lords have. Although I want to make it clear that I do not agree with its central proposition that children should never be used for CHIS, it raised a number of valid questions that I will repeat for the Minister now. Specifically, paragraph 4.14 of the draft code refers to Articles 8 and 9 of the juveniles order. It is not clear what this refers to: the juveniles order has only six articles. It would assist if the Minister could clarify what is meant by this reference.

Secondly, there is a continued discrepancy between the code and the primary legislation. The juveniles order sets out the protections given to those aged under 18 who are used as a CHIS. It is referenced at paragraph 4.4 of the code of practice. The protections in the order now differ from the protections set out in the code of practice. Will the Government amend the order to reflect the new code of practice?

My third question is about the test for the appointment of an appropriate adult for a young person. A new test has been written—this goes to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick—so can we have confirmation that the appropriateness of that test for appointing an appropriate adult for somebody aged under 18 or who is vulnerable will be kept under review? My experience of youth courts is that the guidance for appointing appropriate adults tends to be a bit rigid, so my view is that it needs to be reviewed to see whether it is being used appropriately in all circumstances.

My noble friend Lady Chakrabarti raised a couple of points. Specifically, as in the Justice briefing, the draft code of practice makes no mention of CHIS acting as agents.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I beg your pardon; what I meant was agents provocateurs.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

Right, so the point is about provoking others to commit criminal acts. What would be the view of that?

I remember the original debates when somebody—I am not sure whether it was the noble Lord, Lord Paddick—gave a very evocative example that hit home for me. It was of a 17 year-old girl being run as a prostitute by her older drug-dealing boyfriend. I understand that it was the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who gave that example and spoke about the appropriateness of engaging that girl to effect a conviction of her boyfriend. It was obviously an extremely difficult case but it illustrates the sensitivity and difficulty of the cases with which we are dealing.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick made another good point, which I will repeat. It was the question of whether the immunity that would be available to CHISs for some action would be retrospective, particularly in the context of women who have been in relationships with officers who were CHIS officers and may well be seeking compensation for those relationships. I would be interested to hear an answer from the Minister on that.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

On the point about agents provocateurs—that is, CHIS who are not just having to commit criminal acts to keep their cover but are perhaps actively encouraging others to commit crimes—the concern is not just about the 17 year-old girl in the prostitution example. There is a big concern here from the trade union movement and the protest movements that CHIS could be actively encouraging peaceful protest movements to tip into criminal acts. The concern is that the code should at least make it clear that that kind of agent provocateur behaviour would be unacceptable. Will the Minister consider adding that to the code?

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, if I might move on to the other SI with which we are dealing, we support the Investigatory Powers Commissioner (Oversight Functions) Regulations 2022. This SI provides the commissioner with oversight of compliance by members and civilian staff of the Metropolitan Police Force in relation to counterterrorism legislation, and officers of the National Crime Agency with guidance referred to as the Principles Relating to the Detention and Interviewing of Detainees Overseas and the Passing and Receipt of Intelligence Relating to Detainees. The regulations take two functions where the Investigatory Powers Commissioner currently exercises oversight on a non-statutory basis and places them on a statutory footing. This change has been requested by the IPC himself; I thank Sir Brian Leveson and his team for the work they do.

The National Security Bill has passed through the other place and will soon start here in the House of Lords. My honourable friend Holly Lynch has sought legal opinion on some of the provisions in this SI in relation to the oversight of GCHQ, in particular that the new regulations stipulate that the oversight functions of the commissioner include keeping under review the exercise of GCHQ processes for whether information about vulnerabilities in technology should be disclosed. I think the Minister made that clear in the other place so, on that basis, I welcome this extension of the oversight powers allocated to the commissioner. It is appropriate that these powers are put on a statutory footing.

Judicial Review and Courts Bill

Debate between Baroness Chakrabarti and Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede

Committee stage
Thursday 24th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, in introducing this group, I thought I would tell the Committee about my experience of sitting as a single justice magistrate dealing with Covid emergency legislation about a year ago. I dealt with fixed penalty notices handed out to people who broke the emergency legislation. The fine was £60, but if it was paid within 14 days it was £30. If that was not responded to the defendants received a letter saying that they should either turn up to court or respond to the letter or the matter would be dealt with by the single justice procedure.

I sat at my dining room table as a magistrate and I dealt with 30 trials in the morning. I convicted 29 of the 30. The prosecution case was the police officer’s note, which I had up on my screen so I could read it. There was no defence case because the defendant had not turned up. I then went on to sentence, which was a £100 fine, £100 in prosecution costs and a £34 victim surcharge, so £234 to pay and a collection order. That is what I did 29 times out of 30 last summer. It was a special time. It was a difficult procedure to go through, but we need to be very conscious of the difficulties and potential pitfalls with these types of procedures. Having said that, and given that example, I believe there are occasions and types of cases where it is appropriate.

Both my amendments make the same point in trying to build in suitable reviews of the procedure to ensure it acts fairly. Amendment 30 states:

“Within two months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must commission a review and publish a report on the effectiveness of the single justice procedure.”


My noble friend will speak to her Amendment 37. Amendment 54 says:

“Before section 43 may be commenced, the Lord Chancellor must—


(a) undertake a consultation with relevant stakeholders regarding the proposed abolition of local justice areas under that section, considering in particular the impact on the principle of local justice,


(b) lay before Parliament the Report and the findings of such consultation, and


(c) provide a response explaining whether and how such issues which have been identified would be mitigated.”


To say a few words on Amendment 54, magistrates arrange themselves in local justice areas. There are nine local justice areas in London. It is a historical way of organising magistrates, if I can put it that way. I understand that there are arguments on both sides. I also understand, from talking to the Minister and his officials last week, that there will be extensive consultation and further legislation on this matter if it is taken forward. Nevertheless, I beg to move.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, before I speak to Amendment 37, I should like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Ponsonby on everything that his public service outside this Committee and your Lordships’ House brings to our deliberations about criminal justice. The Committee needs no reminders from me of all that the eminent silks, retired Law Lords and former members of the senior judiciary bring to your Lordships’ House. The magistracy is a very important part of the criminal justice system. My noble friend brings an experience, a humility and an anxious scrutiny of the system to our deliberations which is incredibly helpful and always illuminating.

Amendment 37 is purely a probing amendment, and I hope the Minister received that message via his office. I have unashamedly taken this opportunity to put issues concerning women and girls in the criminal justice system on the map. As the Committee and the Minister will know, this is ultimately a shared responsibility with his noble friend Lady Williams of Trafford and her department. These two great departments of state—the Home Department and the Ministry of Justice—are responsible for the whole system, including matters well beyond the scope of this Bill, such as the police and the CPS. They also have responsibilities that are dealt with in this Bill, such as for the court system.

Just last year, both Secretaries of State felt the unprecedented need to issue a public apology to women and girls for their experience of the handling of sex offences in our criminal justice system. To some extent, that has led to the resignation of the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis. Perhaps more importantly still, it has led not just to terrible attrition rates for sex offences in particular, but to a real crisis of trust and confidence in the system on the part of women and girls that none of us on either side of your Lordships’ House wants to see.

I do not want to say that there should be an inquiry on the narrow grounds that happen to fit into the scope of this Bill. Rather, I want to give the Minister the opportunity to update the Committee and therefore the country on where the Government are and where they propose to be, and how quickly they can rebuild trust and confidence in relation to sex offences in particular and criminal justice in general for slightly more than half of the population.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Baroness Chakrabarti and Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede

Report stage
Monday 17th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, your Lordships’ House can be proud tonight for seeking to prevent injustices well into the future, but in seeking to support the noble Lord, Lord Best, we can try to act on injustices that are nearly 200 years old.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, we will be supporting the noble Lord, Lord Best, if he chooses to press his amendment to a vote. If I may refer briefly to my experiences as a magistrate, it is indeed true that we do not actually see this charge brought very often—of course, we do see beggars, but it really is not that often. It seems to me that there is widespread cross-party support for repealing the Act. A compromise has been put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Best, and I will be interested in hearing the Minister’s response. If the noble Lord does choose to press his amendment, we will support him.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Baroness Chakrabarti and Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Lords Hansard - part two & Report stage
Wednesday 15th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords,

“No child should suffer such appalling abuse, especially from those who should love and care for them most.”


Who said that? It is not a Christmas quiz. It was the Minister repeating a sentence what feels like a long time ago, but it was earlier this evening in proceedings on this Bill in your Lordships’ House. What if the same child victim of cruelty or neglect survives and grows to act out as a damaged little person as a result of that neglect or abuse?

I am very disappointed to hear about my own party’s position on the age of criminal responsibility, not least because I was reading David Lammy’s comments in the Guardian just a couple of years ago in relation to concern that our age of criminal responsibility, at 10, is too young. I think that we as a society are failing some of our most vulnerable children, including victims of neglect and abuse, and we should not be criminalising them. Given what we know about child development, 10 is way too young. It makes us as a jurisdiction an outlier in the civilised world and that is not something to be proud of.

Perhaps understandably, much of the debate in Committee focused on some of the most notorious cases, including that of Thompson and Venables, but such horrific and notorious cases are few and far between. More often, we are talking about offences such as criminal damage, and it is often looked-after children who are criminalised for offences of that nature. They have already been let down in their lives by their natural parents and/or their adopted parents and are looked after by the state. They then get involved in something that is treated as criminal damage in a care environment and for which neither noble Lords’ children and grandchildren nor mine would ever be criminalised.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I have dealt with that exact point in my time as a youth court magistrate. It is not just children aged 10 or 11. In the past few years—let us say the past five years—I have never seen any child brought to court for criminal damage in their care home. They used to be brought to court because it was an insurance-related issue and a conviction was needed to get the insurance money, but that has been resolved as an issue. In my experience, care homes do not charge their children for criminal damage.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend; obviously I do not have his personal experience as a magistrate but just today I looked at published statistics from 2018, which showed that a small number of children were criminalised for criminal damage.

Whether children end up in court or not, if they have criminal responsibility, they can be criminalised. They may never get to court—they may accept an out-of-court disposal—but they will be criminalised and will potentially have a conviction that follows them around for a very long time. This is amoral; it is not the way to treat a vulnerable little person who has probably been neglected and/or abused. They are not ready for criminal responsibility—they are not responsible. All the scientific evidence suggests that their brains are not developed enough at the age of 10.

We weep hot tears for these children when we see them as victims of abuse and neglect, but we do not do so when some of them manage to survive but act out in ways that children will. Some children will never be criminalised for minor theft or criminal damage because they have the protection of their privilege. Other children will sometimes be criminalised, which is wrong in principle and says something very embarrassing about this jurisdiction—even compared with the neighbouring jurisdiction north of the border, as my noble friend pointed out. I do not want to repeat what I said about this in Committee, but I thank and pay tribute to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, who have campaigned on this issue for many years to stop us being an outlier in the world.

I note that next year my noble friend Lord Adonis will bring forward a Private Member’s Bill to lower the voting age from 18 to 16—something I will support but I suspect the Government will resist. The Government will insist on 18 for voting purposes and the age of majority, and perhaps take the view that children and young people are not mature enough to vote until they are 18, but heap criminal responsibility on them at the age of 10. That is a mismatch of eight years. Of course. children and young people—indeed, all people—develop slightly differently. Personally, in an ideal world, I would support 16 as a decent compromise. However, that is not the point.

The amendment in the name of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, to which I have added my name, settles on just 12. I am afraid that the fact that neither the Government nor my own party can support that, despite report after report from the UN on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, is an embarrassment. We are choosing some children over others. These difficult issues about children and criminality are always about other people’s children. However, the difference between believing in and promoting human rights and not doing so is whether you care about other people’s children, and not just at Christmas—and not determining, as a noble and learned Lord said earlier, who is naughty or nice but caring for everyone’s children and all children.

With that, I will spare your Lordships any more of my thoughts on this issue—I feel very strongly about it. I wish your Lordships and your children and grandchildren a very good Christmas when it comes.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Baroness Chakrabarti and Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 276, to which I have added my name. Suspicionless stop and search is a significant problem for community relations in this country. It is a significant problem for trust in the police. In recent days, we have rightly given a great deal of time and attention on all sides of your Lordships’ House, including in this Committee, to trust and confidence on the part of women, and young women in particular, but we must not forget other aspects of broader trust and confidence, including the issue of young black men and policing.

Decades after the Lawrence inquiry, we still need to keep returning to this issue. No power or set of powers has probably done more to weigh against the strides made by the late Sir William Macpherson and by everyone across politics, including former Prime Minister, Theresa May, to try to address problems with stop and search. No power has been more problematic than that of suspicionless stop and search in general and Section 60 in particular.

This is really not a partisan issue. Your Lordships know that, long before I came to this House, I was a civil liberties campaigner and not popular with Governments of either stripe in relation to powers such as these. In my view, there has been an authoritarian arms race about law and order in this country for too long. No Government are perfect. No Opposition are perfect. This is a good moment to look at stop and search. There is no better parliamentarian to be leading us in this conversation than the noble Lord, Lord Paddick.

The problem with suspicionless stop and search is this. No human is perfect; therefore, no police officer is perfect. Stop and search, conducted by humans of other humans, even with reasonable suspicion, is problematic, but there is no choice if we want to combat crime and investigate offences that have happened or that might yet take place. We have to have powers to stop and search. They are problematic, even when based on reasonable suspicion because what is reasonable suspicion? Who do we think is going equipped? Who do we think meets the profile of somebody who committed an offence a few hours ago? Of course, it is hard for any citizen, including constables, to rid themselves of all the baggage that comes with being in this—or any—society. Those problems are so compounded when reasonable suspicion is taken out of the equation.

Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act gives the power—which is triggered by a senior police officer, but a police officer none the less—effectively to change the criminal law in an area for the period in which that power is triggered. In that particular part of town, there is effectively a suspicionless stop and search zone. We are often talking about urban areas, and areas with a very high density of people from certain communities. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, can correct me if I am wrong. Within that area, young black men in particular know that that is a stop and search zone. Their first encounters with the police service are often very negative.

Because of the rise of the internet, mobile phone use and videos of incidents, this material is now there to be viewed. I have seen some very disturbing scenes of quite young boys being stopped and searched, without suspicion, on streets not many miles from here. These young boys and men do not have the protections that they have post-arrest in the police station. Arrest is based on reasonable suspicion. Officers usually stop a young man. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, gave the statistics. If you are a young black man you are many more times likely to be stopped and searched than if you are a young white woman, let alone a middle-aged woman like me.

Sometimes officers will be situated in a particular place. I understand their reasons. They are worried about knife use, for example. Some young men are being stopped on a routine basis. Sometimes big, burly officers make a human wall around a boy of perhaps 13 or 14 years-old. I have seen the pictures. People in that community—bystanders, if it happens in the daytime—will be trying to remonstrate with the officers. They will be held back. This young man—13, 14 or 15 years-old —is having his first encounter with the authorities. He is frightened. He is behind this human wall of big, burly officers. There is not even reasonable suspicion that he has done something wrong.

It seems to me that this is very dangerous—and it is not an occasion where I can even blame the police. It is an occasion when I have to look to the statute book itself, because this is about legislators, not police officers. I have been critical in other debates, and I am afraid that I will have to be critical about some decisions that the police have made. But this is a legislative problem, because legislators from both major parties have allowed this regime to be triggered for suspicionless stop and search, and it has created problems over many years. It really is time to address this.

This seems like a radical probing amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, but if Section 60 were removed from the statute book, what would be the consequence? There would still be ordinary, democratic, rule of law-based powers to stop and search with reasonable suspicion. That is a fairly low threshold in any event, I would argue, but this ability and power to designate particular areas—everybody knows where those areas are and who is affected in them—would go. I cannot think of a more positive signal and progressive step for any Government, any party and any legislator who cares about race relations in this country, and cares about rebuilding trust in policing and the rule of law.

So once more I find myself thanking the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and I feel that I will do so again a few more times in this Committee.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I have some questions for the Government on Amendment 129, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb.

Drugs policy and the drugs trade have come up in our debates on this Bill as part of the debate on the serious violence reduction duty, particularly regarding child exploitation and county lines. It will come up again shortly when we look at the groups of amendments on road safety and dangerous driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol. There is a complexity of links in multiple areas of policy, be they poverty, health or criminal justice. On the serious violence reduction duty, the Government’s stated aim is to reduce serious violence through a public health approach. So my question to the Minister is: what work is being done alongside those plans to look at a coherent public health approach to drugs policy? As with serious violence, there needs to be a focus on what reduces harm, not just what deals with the symptoms.

Amendment 129 is specifically about removing the power of the police to search people for drugs for personal use only. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, gave a very informative history lesson, if you like, on his part in the “no arrest” policy in Brixton. I thought I might update what he was saying with my perception as a magistrate who sits in criminal and youth courts in London. I can say with reasonable confidence that I very rarely see in front of me, for the possession of class B drugs alone, either a youth or an adult who is of good character. I really cannot remember the last time I saw that in a court in which I was sitting. In my experience, when that is charged, other matters are charged as well, or the amount of drugs found on the person is at a much higher level but, nevertheless, the CPS chooses to charge that person only with possession rather than possession with intent to supply. Nevertheless, it is an interesting amendment, and the noble Lord raised a number of interesting points about the appropriateness of that power of the police under Amendment 129.