Policing and Crime Bill

Debate between Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen and Lord Blair of Boughton

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 7th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blair of Boughton (CB)]

My Lords, it is an unusual pleasure for me to agree completely with the noble Lord, Lord Paddick.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has again argued for the maritime enforcement powers in the Bill to be restricted to the enforcement of serious offences. As I indicated in Committee, we do not believe it is necessary to limit these powers in this way. The Government believe that we should trust the operational judgment of the police to determine when it is appropriate and proportionate to exercise their powers at sea. For example, we do not believe that the police would commit resources to interdict a vessel in international waters where there had been a theft of an item of, say, confectionery from a gift shop—which, incidentally, would be an indictable offence.

However, a police officer on, let us say, a UK-registered ferry should be able to act when the vessel is in international waters where a person commits a common assault on another person, or where a person exhibits threatening or abusive behaviour. In both cases, we are talking about summary-only offences and in both cases the noble Lord’s amendment would prevent the police acting, even though the law of the land applied and the actions of those individuals might none the less be triable in the courts of England and Wales. We do not impose restrictions on the categories of offences the police can investigate where they take place on other modes of transportation, so, again, I am unclear why we should treat maritime vessels any differently.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I think that I will have to get back to the noble Lord on that point.

[Lord Blair of Boughton]

This is about the difference between a bus, a train and a ship. The ability to stop a ship and push it into harbour is a completely different level of activity from saying, “We’re going to stop the train at Reading because somebody has been assaulted”. I have listened to the argument made by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and I completely agree with him. It cannot be right that a single police officer can decide to turn around a cargo ship or a cruise ship in the Irish Sea for a summary offence. I accept that, as the Minister said, there are complications around theft, with the theft of some sweets from a shop being an indictable offence in some circumstances, but we have to make a definition somewhere. This is about being utterly reasonable, and I do not think that the Government are being reasonable here.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

The police are professionals and they must have operational discretion as to when to exercise their powers. I know that a ship at sea is not a bus, which can just move into the side of the road, but a serious offence could have been committed. The police should be able to know when they need to exercise their powers. In answer to the noble Lord’s question, there are currently no powers to take effective enforcement action in such circumstances, other than in relation to modern slavery and drug offences.

Policing and Crime Bill

Debate between Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen and Lord Blair of Boughton

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard - part one): House of Lords
Wednesday 26th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blair of Boughton (CB)]

I am slightly concerned about the phrase “provisional findings”, because it does not define when that is in an investigation. I should declare an interest that I was head of the complaints investigation branch of the Metropolitan Police Service, the subtitle for whom was the “Prince of Darkness”. One knew the provisional findings, but one had that word “provisional” in front. It slightly worries me that we are pushing a process forward where the complainant is given information that new information then changes. It feels an odd thing to be doing. I would like to know why it has been withdrawn in this Bill, as it may have been withdrawn on quite sensible grounds.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

My Lords, the current process for keeping complainants and other interested persons updated on the handling of their complaint is overly complicated, with Sections 20 and 21 of the Police Reform Act 2002 heavily prescriptive on what exactly a force, or as the case may be the local policing body or IPCC, must do and when. This often results in a box-ticking process and perverse outcomes rather than any genuine consideration of what is best for the complainant.

The Bill simplifies this process. Clause 14 amends Sections 20 and 21 of the 2002 Act to create a broad statutory duty on forces to ensure that they keep relevant parties updated on the progress of the handling of the complaint, the outcome of the complaint, and any right of review. This allows for many of the various notification duties on appropriate authorities currently scattered throughout Schedule 3 to the 2002 Act to be consolidated into one place, and for Sections 20 and 21 of that Act to be extended beyond just complaints where there was an investigation.

This broad requirement is in line with the wider changes to the complaints system where the various routes for resolving a complaint—for example, disapplication, discontinuance and local resolution—have been replaced with a general duty to consider the reasonable and proportionate response to a complaint. Greater discretion for forces in deciding how to keep the relevant parties updated on progress reflects the wider intention to trigger a culture change in forces in the handling of complaints. We want a system that encourages proper consideration to be given to the needs of the complainant, rather than officers simply following a very set procedure regardless of the nuances of the case.

I want to reassure the noble Lord that the Government fully expect that where there has been an investigation into a complaint, updating complainants on the progress of the handling of the complaint will include forces informing them of any provisional findings of that investigation. In keeping with the overall intention to simplify the complaints system and to empower forces in how they deal with complaints, this is not something we consider is necessary to prescribe in primary legislation. Instead, it is for the IPCC to consider whether what is meant by updating on the progress of the complaint is better explored in IPCC statutory guidance. Guidance may be able to better reflect best practice and the principle that all cases need to be treated slightly differently.

The noble Lord, Lord Harris, asked about keeping victims of crime informed on progress. He makes a valid point about victims of crime, but this is not a matter for these clauses. We have a later amendment about the rights of victims of crime.