Small Boats Incident in the Channel

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, we do not want a child to get on a boat if they can find a trafficker. I assume that is why those children are there: someone, somewhere, hopes they will find a trafficker to bring them to the UK. We have mechanisms for bringing unaccompanied asylum-seeking children here. We are not bound by the European Union now; we are bound by our obligations to the whole world. I know that the House and the noble Lord still refer to the EU, but we are focusing on vulnerability from across the world.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, the Home Secretary’s Statement referred to the work of the National Crime Agency and using it to “take down” smugglers. Can the noble Baroness give the House any information about smugglers based in the UK, as distinct from those based in France or elsewhere in northern Europe, which is the impression we have of where they are based? Secondly, on the issue that people should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach, can the noble Baroness confirm that “should” is government policy, rather than international law?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Smugglers have a fairly international reach and are not necessarily based in the UK. Quite often, they are based in eastern Europe or the Balkans and they ply their trade across the world. Where they are based is almost irrelevant; their business model is based on people smuggling and multiple types of crime. Claiming asylum in the first safe country is a long-established international policy.

Migrants

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, the tragedy was predictable and predicted. I really hope that nothing is off the table, but at the centre of it should be a commitment to and delivery of safe routes, including resettlements, with a good big target for that; expansion of the family reunion rules; humanitarian visas to enable people needing protection to travel safely; recognising, as does the refugee convention, that many asylum seekers have no option other than an irregular journey; and efficient decision-making, not blaming the asylum seekers for clogging up the system.

It distresses me how easily language is adopted. People are not “illegal” and neither is seeking asylum. The narrative is that the channel is full of people who should have known better, should have produced documents—leaving aside whether they are likely to have them—and should have booked a ticket on a regular flight. Are there flights from Iran, Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan? The narrative is also that they should have gone through one of the UNHCR or IOM schemes, which are good but inevitably too small.

We are told by the Home Secretary that 70% of those in the boats are young men who are economic migrants. My understanding is that these young men are often at particular risk or seeking to join family members, or they have travelled because they are more able than others in their family to cope with the appalling conditions in the miles and months on the way. They are not hulking young men. By the time they reach France they are often very skinny—or so I gather from the charities who want donations of small- size jeans.

I also understand that the number crossing the channel by all means in aggregate is broadly as it was. It is not a good number, but there we are. To quote directly from Home Office figures published today:

“In the year ending June 2021, Germany received the highest number of asylum applicants (113,625) in the EU+”—


which is the EU plus the EEA and Switzerland—

“followed by France … When compared with the EU+”—

as the Home Office calls it—

“for the year ending June 2021, the UK received the 4th largest number of applicants … This equates to 8% of the total asylum applicants across the EU+ and UK combined over that period, or the 17th largest intake when measured per head of population.”

We are 17th because so many stay in the countries they travel through or reach on the way, which are closer to their country of origin. Of course, this is not a matter only for the Home Office. There are also issues of climate change and unresolved conflicts, and upstream investment is essential.

I am not sure what the legal basis is for turning back small boats. We are told there is one, and my big question today is to ask the Minister to explain—if I say this is not an exam question, she will understand the reference to yesterday’s debate—the legal basis for turning back small boats.

Those who are so desperate as to pay smugglers are not accessories to the crime, although by being called criminals that is what they are badged as. How about advocating at home the benefits that refugees bring? They bring skills and diversity to our gene pool, which is good, like diversity in most things. Internationally, with France and globally—because we are global Britain, after all—we should be seeking co-operative, constructive partnerships in responding to refugees. I acknowledge that the EU was not notably successful at this when we were a member, but let us look to the future.

What are we doing with policy? The new plan for immigration has drawn such criticism from the UNHCR, to which the Government look to identify the refugees we will take.

I hope that the table will hold everything—everything according to the Prime Minister—and that it will turn into a new drawing board.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th November 2021 Lords Chamber

The Government have introduced a series of measures which seriously call into question civil liberties in this country, in particular the right to protest. They have done so at a massively late stage in a Bill, and begun the discussion at midnight. If the Government had any sense of decorum, or wished to show some respect to this House and, more to the point, to the people of this country—who may demand action but also demand that the people who govern them act with care and consideration—they would let their legislators properly scrutinise the things that they put before them. We have not been given that chance. The Government should withdraw these amendments, and if they insist on bringing them back, doing so in a form that can be properly debated by both Houses of Parliament.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, gave some well-deserved compliments to my noble friend Lord Paddick, but he was not trying to improve these proposed clauses. He was trying to show why they should not go forward, and he did.

There are many points that puzzle me, but I will ask about two. First, on prevention orders, is the phrase “causing or contributing to” used elsewhere in legislation? Certainly, “contributing” is a vaguer term than I have come across elsewhere. Would it extend to financial contributions? Is a response to a crowdfunding appeal caught by it?

The second point, to which my noble friend Lord Beith referred, relates to Amendment 319J. It refers a person who

“intentionally obstructs a constable in the exercise of the constable’s powers”.

How does that fit with the advice given after Sarah Everard’s abduction and murder about requiring another constable to be called, flagging down a bus, and so on? I simply do not understand the policy.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Monday 22nd November 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Hamwee]

292: After Clause 170, insert the following new Clause—
“Automated decision-making: safeguards
(1) Where data is being processed for a criminal justice purpose, section 14 of the Data Protection Act 2018 is to be read as if the amendments in subsections (2) to (7) had been made.(2) In subsection (1) after “solely” insert “or significantly”.(3) In subsection (4) after “solely” insert “or significantly”.(4) In subsection (4)(a) after “solely” insert “or significantly”.(5) In subsection (4)(b)(ii) after “solely” insert “or significantly”.(6) In subsection (5) after paragraph (a) insert—“(aa) provide to the data subject all such information as may be reasonable regarding the operation of the automated processing and the basis of the decision,”(7) After subsection (5) insert—“(5A) The controller’s powers and obligations under this section are not limited by commercial confidentiality claimed by the provider of equipment or programmes used”.”

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, changing the subject, the Data Protection Act 2018, reflecting the GDPR, in Section 14 provides that “decisions based solely”— solely—“on automated processing” are “subject to safeguards.” Such a decision

“produces legal effects concerning the data subject, or … similarly significantly affects the data subject.”

The decisions are subject to safeguards under the Act, notification of the data subject and the right of the data subject to request reconsideration or, importantly, a new decision not based on automated processing. Noble Lords will appreciate the potential importance of decisions affecting liberty and that the use of artificial intelligence may well involve profiling, which does not have an unblemished record.

This amendment would alter the term “solely,” because “solely” could mean one click on a programme. The term “significantly”, proposed in the amendment, is not the best, but I think it will serve the purpose for this evening. I do not claim that this is the best way to achieve my objective, but I did not want to let the moment pass. The Justice and Home Affairs Committee —I am not speaking as its chair—has had this issue raised a number of times. The Information Commissioner is one who has raised the issue. Elizabeth Denham, before she left the office, said it should not just be a matter of box-ticking. The guidance of the Information Commissioner’s Office provides that there should be the following three considerations:

“Human reviewers must be involved in checking the system’s recommendation and should not just apply the automated recommendation to an individual in a routine fashion; reviewers’ involvement must be active and not just a token gesture. They should have actual ‘meaningful’ influence on the decision, including the ‘authority and competence’ to go against the recommendation; and reviewers must ‘weigh-up’ and ‘interpret’ the recommendation, consider all available input data, and also take into account other additional factors.”


The Minister will, I am sure, refer to the current government consultation on data, Data: A New Direction, published in September. We dealt with this issue by putting the amendment down before then but, even so, the consultation questions the operation and efficacy of the Article 22 of the GDPR, which, as I said, is the basis for Section 14. I appreciate that the consultation will have to run its course but, looking at it, the Government seem very focused on the economic benefits of the use of data and supportive of innovation.

Of course, I do not take issue with either of those things, but it is important not to lose sight of how the use of data may disadvantage or damage an individual. Its use in policing and criminal justice can affect an individual who may well not understand how it is being used, or even that it has been used. I was going to say that whether those who use it understand it is another matter but, actually, it is fundamental. Training is a big issue in this, as is, in the case of the police, the seniority and experience of the officer who needs to be able to interpret and challenge what comes out of an algorithm. There is a human tendency to think that a machine must be right. It may be, but meaningful decisions require human thought more than an automatic, routine confirmation of what a machine tells us.

The government consultation makes it clear that the Government are seeking evidence on the potential need for legislative reform. I think that reform of Section 14 is needed. AI is so often black-box and impenetrable; even if it can be interrogated on how a decision has been arrived at, the practicalities and costs of that are substantial. For instance, it should be straightforward for someone accused of something to understand how the accusation came to be made. It is a matter of both the individual’s rights and trust and confidence in policing and criminal justice on the part of the public. The amendment would extend the information to be provided to the data subject to include

“information … regarding the operation of the automated processing and the basis of the decision”.

It also states that this should not be “limited by commercial confidentiality”; I think noble Lords will be familiar with how openness can run up against this.

Recently, the Home Secretary told the Justice and Home Affairs Committee twice that

“decisions about people will always be made by people.”

The legislation should reflect and require the spirit of that. A click of a button on a screen may technically mean that the decision has a human element, but it is not what most people would understand or expect. I beg to move.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, with the leave of the Committee, I will speak briefly. In my comments on the previous group on which I spoke—the one beginning with Amendment 278—I did not mean to suggest that the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, was filibustering. I tried to inject a little humour into proceedings, bearing in mind the wide range of issues that we discussed in the debate on that group and the length of that debate. I joked that it was beginning to look like a filibuster. I have apologised to the noble Lord but I wanted to include that apology in the official record.

We support this important amendment. As my noble friend Lady Hamwee said, Section 14 of the Data Protection Act 2018 provides some safeguards against important decisions being taken by automated processing. It allows a human review on appeal with the subject having been told, but only if the decision was “solely” taken automatically, rather than “significantly”, as my noble friend’s amendment suggests. Experience in the American criminal justice system of using algorithms shows that bias in historical decisions is replicated, even enhanced, by algorithms. We therefore support this amendment.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for explaining this amendment, which relates to automated decision-making. Let me first say that the Government are committed to maintaining high standards of data protection and agree that the clarity of safeguards relating to automated decision-making is important. The Government are also aware of some of the difficulties faced by organisations in navigating the terminology of these automated processing provisions.

As all noble Lords have noted, to address this issue the Government are currently seeking evidence via a public consultation, which is being run by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. As the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, noted, that consultation closed only last Friday. He also mentioned Article 22. The consultation is looking at the need for legislative reform of the UK data protection framework overall, including GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. It covers Article 22 of the UK GDPR, including organisations experienced with navigating the solely automated processing and similarly significant terminology. As I say, that consultation closed on 19 November.

In examining the responses to the consultation, the Government will consider the safeguards in respect of automated decision-making that involve personal data in the round. We will address this matter in the government response to the consultation, which we expect to publish in the spring. We also look forward to the report of the inquiry by the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and will take its conclusions and recommendations into account when bringing forward our proposals for legislation. In the meantime, with apologies for being brief, I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful for that reply. This amendment and this concern are about far more than navigating terminology. It is actually a fundamental point, but I do not intend to keep the Committee any longer. I think I have made it clear that I am probing but, I hope, probing to an end. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 292 withdrawn.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

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

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness has referred to the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, which I chair. It is currently undertaking an inquiry into the use of new technology—I stress new, by which I mean artificial intelligence—and the application of law. I do not wish to pre-empt whatever the committee may recommend. We will certainly look at issues of so-called hard or soft regulation. We will also look at procurement standards, transparency—by which I mean intelligibility both to those who use AI and to those who are the subject of it—and accountability. The list of issues seems to increase with every evidence session. At a recent session, a witness said

“certain things with AI will always be the same. We will always have a data issue, a bias issue and an explainability issue”.

I do not think it appropriate to go into any detail this evening, other than to say, “Watch this space”.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, we support the principle of the amendment the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, has tabled. Picking up a theme here, facial recognition technology is an example of where officials are concerned. For example, the guy who is responsible for the regulation of CCTV has very serious concerns that the technology is running ahead of the regulations and that this needs to be addressed. As my noble friend Lady Hamwee said, the use of artificial intelligence is another new and developing area where Parliament should at least consider whether these new technologies need to be subject to debate in Parliament and regulation.

However, I am not sure about the example of drones, which are sort of a replacement for police helicopters. I left the police in 2007; 14 years ago, with something not very imaginatively called “heli-tele”, police helicopters could pick out people’s faces from however many thousand feet they were up in the air and transmit those images to officers on the ground who had television monitors in front of them. It was extremely useful to see where crowds were moving in a fast-moving demonstration situation. Clearly, you can have a lot more drones than you can have helicopters, because they are a lot cheaper and so forth. The increased use of drones may be of concern, but the way in which they are being used is no different from what huge helicopters have been doing for years, whether members of the public were aware of it or not.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, talked about the Mayor of London and water cannon. Again, I think it was Theresa May as Home Secretary who refused to allow their deployment. Unfortunately, if the Mayor of London had actually listened to experts in public order policing, they would have told him that they are more or less useless for the sort of things he was hoping to use them for. I think he felt that water cannon would be useful following the widespread riots across the country. In fact, in that scenario they are completely useless. They are lumbering giants of things that cannot possibly keep up with marauding gangs going round and looting and so forth.

I think my noble friend Lady Hamwee has hit the nail on the head—it is new technology that needs to be considered and regulated, or at least debated in Parliament to see whether it needs to be regulated. To that extent, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Wednesday 27th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, I applaud my noble friend Lady Bertin’s eloquent speech about something so sensitive and dangerous.

During the passage of the Domestic Abuse Bill, we had lots of discussions about stalking. I rise to speak because my name is on Amendment 56. It saddens me that we are still battling in this area, which is so fragile and misunderstood by the agencies that are there to protect. I congratulate my noble friend the Minister, who listens to our speeches all the time and takes them on board, but I reiterate the seriousness of what my colleagues have said. We are talking about human lives. We are not talking about figures or money; we are talking about human lives that are being brutally lost.

This is where we need to gain some perspective on what we are doing in legislation. Legislation is important to legal people, politicians and your Lordships’ House but, on the outside, how does it protect an individual who is being stalked or is losing their life through domestic abuse? Where do we draw the line in saying, “Enough is enough, we’re going to protect you”? As we have heard, Dr Jane Monckton Smith’s report says that stalking sits at point five of eight on the homicide timeline due to the fact that risk to the victim escalates at the point of leaving an abusive relationship. We need to include stalking in my noble friend’s Amendment 55 because that is the only way in which the serious violence reduction duty will guarantee robust prevention work being rolled out consistently across the country. We talk about localism and centralism but, for everybody on the street, that is not language that they understand. This is about their safety and agencies understanding the issue.

In the dictionary, stalking is like a cat chasing a bird. Put simply, that is what is happening to these people. There is a delicate line in proving it when people are traumatised and are being brutalised in their home, in their workplace and wherever they travel. If we cannot get this right in the Bill, we simply are not listening to the figures on the human lives that are being lost every day. As we speak, somebody is being stalked and going through that. I ask my noble friends the Minister and Lady Bertin: please can we look at this? I would love to have this issue included at the end of Amendment 55.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, Amendments 57A and 59A have been grouped here. I am always hesitant to follow with a small, perhaps technical, point on important points such as have been made this afternoon.

My amendments are intended to inquire of the Minister the place of online activity in this issue. The clauses that we are looking at are very much place-based—this part of the Bill refers to “area” almost throughout—but what prompts the violence may not be place or area-based. Given the statutory requirements for the assessment of the criteria, my amendments probe whether the role of online activity has a place in that assessment. Grooming and other activities may be generated in one geographical or police force area but directed more widely.

There are examples, obviously, of violence online intended to prompt copying, which this amendment is not specifically directed at. I dare say that the answer to that will be the online harms Bill. But I would like to ask the question, perhaps in another way, of how this legislation is to work together and to be assured that we are not at risk of missing opportunities or leaving gaps.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, support Amendment 55 in the name of my noble friend Lady Bertin, and I pay tribute to all the work she has done in this area. This is a relatively straightforward amendment which would send a very strong message to police forces, local statutory agencies and the public that domestic abuse and sexual violence are priorities to be both prevented and tackled.

Too often, our response to these types of crime comes too late for the victim. The benefits of this duty would be to ensure that we have a robust preventive approach that brings together a range of different partners and ensures that police forces are considering domestic abuse and sexual violence within the definition of serious violence for the proposed new statutory duty.

I, too, congratulate my right honourable friend the Home Secretary on calling for the HM inspectorate report following the tragic death of Sarah Everard. The report, whose authors I also congratulate, points to

“the co-ordinated and bespoke multi-agency response that is needed specifically for VAWG.”

It also says that the current drafting of the proposed serious violence prevention duty in the Bill does not go far enough.

The Government have already made significant progress on tackling domestic abuse through the Domestic Abuse Act, and I pay tribute to my noble friend the Minister and her team for all the dedication and hard work that have gone into that landmark piece of legislation. There is still more to be done. I think this amendment could be the missing piece of the puzzle to help maximise the approach in regard to domestic abuse, homicide and sexual offences.

I understand that the Government have some concerns that Amendment 55 could undermine the flexibility of the duty, but it simply clarifies the nature of the definition. It does not bind local areas to that definition, but it would require them to take this issue more seriously and would, I hope, prevent some of the dreadful acts we have heard about today and at Second Reading. This amendment is supported by the domestic abuse commissioner, and I join in the thoroughly deserved praise that the commissioner and her office have already received. I hope that my noble friend on the Front Bench, who I know cares passionately about these issues as well, will listen to the strength of the arguments on this amendment.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Monday 25th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kakkar (CB)]

My Lords, I support the principles of the amendments and declare my interest as a registered medical practitioner.

The debate in Committee has been most interesting in this regard, because it raises a delicate and deeply sensitive issue for any practising clinician—any practising healthcare professional—with the suggestion that something that is considered absolutely sacrosanct, the duty of confidentiality, may be in some way undermined.

That is, of course, not to neglect or fail to understand the fact that there are clear circumstances provided in the context of well-recognised and frequently applied professional guidance in which confidentiality may indeed be breached. But there is a suggestion that the way the Bill is drafted, there may be a deeply undermining impact on a very important principle, one that is so well recognised that it is protected in both data protection legislation and, as we have heard, common law. I wonder whether the Minister can explain why it is so important to achieve what are important objectives in the Bill that we need to undermine the common-law effect of such an important principle—confidentiality of medical information—and why they need to be promoted in the way proposed in the Bill. Have Her Majesty’s Government considered other ways to achieve their important objectives without creating this deep anxiety and uncertainty, because the full implications are clearly not well understood by the regulator or by professionals more generally, and which, we must therefore all feel, has the potential to be attended by consequences that could be deeply unhelpful to the nature and solidity of the doctor-patient relationship?

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I am well aware that we have some of the most senior lawyers in the country in the Committee today, and very senior doctors who have grappled with these issues, so perhaps I should put my point as a question. If the legislation provides for something that a doctor “regards”, is not the concept of reasonableness implied in that proposition, so the doctor must be reasonable in what he regards?

[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, I am sorry to intervene again, but it may help the debate if I address some of the issues raised. I should have mentioned in my speech—but I deliberately did not—my personal experiences when I was approached on four occasions by the police to give some information about patients. I refused, because I followed the guidance of the General Medical Council, and at no time did that threaten or harm the health of the patient nor anyone else—relatives or any members of the public. On one occasion, I voluntarily informed the police about a patient who had approached me for completely different reasons, but I had noticed that harm was being done to her and, on subsequent occasions, it became quite clear that it was becoming a serious issue. Therefore, I disclosed information to the police; again, following the GMC guidelines.

The common law may have soft edges, but if a doctor follows the common law and the guidance the GMC issues, it works. On what happens when a doctor refuses to give information, despite the fact that the patient is being harmed or that the patient may cause harm to other people, then the doctor will be wrong in his or her duty, and therefore can be overridden. That is the only point I would make.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Monday 25th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I lend my support to Amendments 34, 60 and 65 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, to which I have added my name. I do so particularly in regard to the Bill’s effects on local authorities, having 28 years’ experience of having served on one.

Local authority officers, especially those working in social services, are the most collaborative people possible—they have multiagency working written into their DNA—but within proper professional limits, especially concerning the guardianship of personal information. Their focus is always first and foremost, properly, on the welfare of their client—in the case of serious violence, often young people living in the twilight zone between potential offender and, at the same time, potential victim. Of course, the risk in these provisions is that the disclosure of information provisions in Clause 15 changes the relationship between social worker and client so as to drive the latter away from services that could in fact divert them from serious violence.

What I do not fully understand and has not been made explicit is whether Clause 15 alters or expands the existing legal and professional constraints that social workers operate under in relation to the release of information to the police. If it does not, what is the point of it? If it does, will my noble friend say in what way and to what extent it does so, and what the rationale is? It may be that my noble friend can satisfy my concerns about this, but in the meantime the amendments proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, particularly Amendment 65 requiring depersonalisation of data, go some way to address those concerns, and I support them.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, this group enables me to raise a concern that will not be new to the Committee or to the Minister but has not been resolved as a general issue and is possible as the Bill is drafted. It is the reluctance of immigrant women—it is usually women—suffering domestic abuse to go to the police for help because they fear that information will be shared with immigration authorities.

Last week, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner published a report entitled Safety Before Status, and one of her recommendations is that

“the Home Office should introduce a firewall between police and immigration enforcement, accompanied by safe reporting mechanisms”

I cannot resist saying that it continues

“and funded referral pathways to support.”

Perpetrators can use a victim’s insecure status as a component of coercive control. They can use status that is not insecure, but the victim is led to believe that it is. If victims are to come first, it is essential that they know that they can seek support without putting themselves in danger of deportation. I was going to ask noble Lords to imagine what this means, but I am not sure any of us can: not only the financial and accommodation implications considerations but, in some communities, shame and abandonment by the family in the country of origin. There are a number of very difficult consequences—that is putting it too mildly.

The commissioner’s report says:

“Immigration abuse and insecure immigration status as a risk factor is not always identified in local safeguarding protocols, and often the risk faced by victims … is misidentified.”


She goes on:

“Information sharing with immigration enforcement undermines trust in the police and public services”—


a point that has been made this evening—

“and enables perpetrators to control and abuse survivors with impunity. A key reason why staff in public services share information with immigration enforcement is for the perceived purpose of safeguarding a victim. Data sharing in this capacity, however, can put the victim or survivor at risk … and, even where enforcement action does not take place can compound the experience of immigration abuse, pushing victims and survivors further away from support.”

I could not let this group go by without raising that issue.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I will briefly but wholeheartedly support the thrust of all the amendments in the group. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, as a former policeman, put it very well: if everyone tries to be the policeman society is the poorer, but effective policing is also harder to achieve. To crystallise it, let us say that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, is the policeman and I am the teacher or youth worker. If I am under any kind of duty, or perceived to be, to hand over my notes on an automatic basis or on demand to him, there is a significant problem not just for education and youth work but for trust and confidence in civil society, and indeed for my ability to go to the noble Lord when I have a specific overriding concern about an individual young person or student.

I understand where this comes from—it comes with the best intentions, because Governments of all persuasions have gone increasingly down this road of big data for many decades. It is not a party-political point, because when you are in government you are told, quite rightly, that central government is indivisible and that there is one Secretary of State. That is a very important central government constitutional principle, yet even central government is supposed to hold data for specific purposes.

There is an obvious attraction to creating a purpose that overrides all others on a wholesale basis, especially when it is something as important as combating serious violence. However, if it trumps not just other government purposes, such as tax collection or healthcare, but begins to trump local and professional confidential duties, we are really in trouble. As I said, with the best of intentions, this will undermine trust and confidence in a number of vital services and will, I believe, undermine the role of the police. When you are looking for a needle in a haystack, do not keep building an ever greater haystack.

--- Later in debate ---

I hope I have been able to provide some reassurances to the Committee about the nature and purpose of the information-sharing provisions in this part of the Bill and the safeguards in place. I have already indicated in response to previous amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that we will consider further the issue of patient information and, on that basis, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, will be happy to withdraw her amendment and support Clauses 9, 14, 15 and 16 standing part of the Bill.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, of course I would be glad to be updated, but I think that the Minister will recognise that, as the Bill stands, the position I spelled out would be possible: information could be shared with immigration authorities—and, of course, the Data Protection Act has an exemption in that regard.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her explanation. I did not quite understand when she seemed to suggest that this was all facilitation and to enable different authorities to share information—and that there was no compulsion to do so. Could she therefore explain Clause 17, where it says that,

“if the Secretary of State is satisfied that … a specified authority has failed to discharge a duty imposed on it by section 7, 13(6), 14(3) or 16(4), or … an educational authority, prison authority or youth custody authority has failed to discharge a duty imposed on it by section 14(3), (4) or (5)(b) or 16(4)”,

then

“The Secretary of State may give directions to the authority for the purpose of securing compliance with the duty”


and can enforce that requirement by a mandatory order? In what way is that voluntarily facilitating the exchange of information? Clause 17 is all about the Secretary of State forcing authorities to share information.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Wednesday 20th October 2021 Lords Chamber

As we know, this Government are committed to an ambitious levelling-up agenda. For the UK to truly level up, to build a society where everyone is able to flourish and reach their full potential, no matter the circumstances into which they were born, we need to be far more proactive in breaking the cycle of exploitation and intervening to give our children a chance to thrive. Can the Minister confirm that the challenges that these vulnerable children face will also be addressed in the forthcoming levelling-up strategy?

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I agree very much with the concerns that have been expressed this evening, and I would because I have an interest which I should declare as a trustee of Safer London whose work is directed to deterring young people from becoming involved in crime. Giving young people the tools they need to resist being pulled into crime is a very wide agenda. As is obvious from the name, the work is confined to London, but it is needed all over.

As well as that, I remember the debates during the passage of the Modern Slavery Bill on what is meant by “exploitation”. I take the point about people—it is not just children—who may be perceived as criminals but who are actually victims, so I understand the calls for much better understanding of child criminal exploitation. I hope that what I am about to say is understood to be support for, not opposition to, the thrust of what is being proposed.

Amendment 52, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, on training is absolutely to the point. If all agencies and authorities were trained to recognise what they are seeing but not recognising, in a way that would answer all the other points that have been made. If the prevention and reduction of crime, which is what these clauses are about, means anything, surely it must include safeguarding. That is prevention. Safeguarding is not defined, which does not surprise me because it is comprised of an awful lot of component parts and is different in different circumstances. I would be interested to know whether the Minister call tell us what is already on the statute book in this area. Are we talking about bringing together provisions that should be brought together that are scattered, as can be the case, or are we talking about something new in statutory terms?

I do not think that we can leave the issue without referring to resources. If there were the resources to extend the excellent work being done by various organisations far more widely, both in the voluntary sector and to statutory authorities, I do not think we would be talking about all this. But I am quite convinced that it comes back to training to recognise what should really be in front of people’s eyes. I know it is easy for us, standing up in the Chamber, to say that, and I would not like to do the job that some police officers, teachers, health workers and so on do. But the training should support the achievement of everything that noble Lords are seeking this evening.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, there are a number of general points I need to make about the new legal duties to support a multiagency approach to preventing and tackling serious violence. I will try to make them in the appropriate group of amendments, but I hope the Committee will accept that there is a great deal of overlap.

The overwhelming response of the non-governmental organisations I have met with which have concerns about this part of the Bill is that, as drafted, it is actually about forcing agencies to support a police-led enforcement approach to serious violence—not a public health approach, or even a multiagency approach, to preventing and tackling serious violence. The Government’s own consultation on this issue gave three options: a new legal duty on specific organisations to effectively share information with the police; a new legal duty to revise community safety partnerships, the existing and well-established mechanism where local authorities and police forces work together to prevent and tackle crime, and where the local police chief and local authority chief executive are equal partners in doing whatever each partner and others can do to reduce crime and disorder; and a voluntary non-legislative approach. There was more support for a legislative approach than a voluntary one, but more respondents favoured enhancing community safety partnerships—40%—compared with a new legal duty to provide information to the police—37%—and, tellingly, the police supported equally options one and two.

Even the police, the sector most likely to benefit from a police-led enforcement approach, were ambivalent as to whether it should be a truly multiagency approach by enhancing community safety partnerships or a police-led enforcement approach. So why did the Government opt for the latter and not the former? A police-led enforcement approach was the Government’s preferred option from the beginning. These amendments, which we support, are the first manifestation of challenging that police-led enforcement approach, in that the legal duty does not sufficiently recognise that many young people, particularly those involved in county lines, are victims of criminal exploitation rather than free-acting criminals. Henry Blake is a former youth worker who draws on his personal experiences of working with at-risk young people in his powerful film, “County Lines”—a drama about one young man who is drawn into county lines drug dealing. I would highly recommend this film to any noble Lord who is unaware of the realities of county lines.

Many young people lacking family support and living in poverty find themselves groomed by adults who appear to show them the love and concern they desperately seek, and who treat them to meals in burger restaurants and buy them new trainers—something their often lone parent cannot afford. They promise them money, not just so they can afford the latest designer clothing that they need if they are not to be bullied by gangs, who see those who do not wear designer labels—even Nike and Adidas—as targets. It is not just so they can go to McDonald’s whenever they want, but so that they can help their mum put food on the table and make sure their younger sister has decent clothes to wear. I hope noble Lords can see how easily vulnerable young people are drawn into criminality, not just for pecuniary advantage but for the sense of belonging and the sense that someone is at last paying them some attention. For many, it is as much an emotional need as a financial one.

Of course, the reality is very different. The adults exploiting these young people take the vast majority of the profits of the drug dealing in which they are involving these young people whom they have groomed, and the youngsters take all the risks, often ending in violence from rival drug dealers. These young people are victims of criminal exploitation, and each one of us is to blame—not them. It is our fault that their single mothers have to do three minimum wage jobs to pay the rent and put food on the table and so, through no fault of their own, can rarely be there for their kids as most wish they could be. It is our fault that too many people do not have a decent place to live, because they cannot afford private rents for an appropriately sized home in a good state of repair, and that there is a shocking shortage of social housing and much of what exists is in an appalling state of repair. It is our fault that, as the cost of living spirals upwards, we take away £20 a week in universal credit from those most in need. The Government’s response is to force other agencies to divulge information that makes it easier for them to prosecute these victims of criminal exploitation.

That is why the Bill needs to radically change from a police-led enforcement approach to preventing and tackling serious violence to a truly public health and multiagency approach, starting with—although this is only the beginning of the changes needed—putting the safeguarding of children involved in serious violence in the Bill. That must include, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, suggests in his Amendment 50, and as both Barnardo’s and the Children’s Society have suggested, including a statutory definition of child criminal exploitation in the meaning of exploitation in Section 3 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, suggests in her Amendment 52, training for police officers in particular, to ensure that they are aware of child criminal exploitation and actively seeking evidence of such exploitation.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 14th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I am not sure whether the knocking sound behind us has been someone trying to get in or someone trying to get out of the Chamber.

The House recently established a new Justice and Home Affairs Committee, which I am lucky enough to chair. We are currently looking at new technologies and their application in the law—wider than the Bill, but very pertinent to it and to crime prevention and reduction, and to policing and sentencing. Artificial insemination—

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

Oh!

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

I hope Hansard does not repeat that.

Artificial intelligence has huge potential benefits and raises huge concerns, and it is not anticipating the work of the committee to refer to them this afternoon. For instance, collaboration between authorities—Part 2 of the Bill—requires the sharing of information. Will this contribute to profiling and predictive policing? Predictive policing algorithms identify likely crime hot spots; officers are deployed there, and so more stop and search takes place and more crime is reported. It is a feedback loop; a self-fulfilling prophecy which can teach the algorithm to alert the user to particular geographical areas, communities and ethnicities. It has been put to the committee that it is important to involve at a very early stage of the process, and in a meaningful way, members of the communities that are likely to be at the sharp end of these algorithms, and not to leave it to people such as the witness or me—a white, middle-class, university-educated person, who is unlikely, one hopes, to be profiled as a future risk—because even with the best will in the world, we might not spot some of these problems and risks. A tick-box exercise is not enough.

Trust in systems translates to trust in authorities and in government itself—or, of course, the converse. The Bill permits the disclosure of data, but who owns it? What consents are required? Who knows about disclosure? We all expect some information—for instance, that between us and our medical professionals—to remain confidential. Transparency is important at an individual level, as well as more broadly. A defendant, or indeed someone questioned, will find it difficult to establish what technology—what combination of facial recognition technology, number plate recognition, predictive techniques—has led to his being identified as a suspect. If he cannot identify it, he cannot challenge it. How are we to ensure governance, regulation, accountability and scrutiny on an ongoing basis in the case of machine learning?

The technology has to be procured, and it will be procured from the private sector, whose interests are not the same as the public sector’s, and it is differently regulated, if at all. How can we be sure that purchasing authorities in the public sector understand what they are procuring? In the US, some police departments accepted a free trial of body-worn cameras, but they came with an obligation to be part of the manufacturer’s data ecosystem, including an obligation to use that company’s software and store data on its servers.

It is said that we need “human override”, but humans can get it wrong too. Human operators need to understand the limitations of particular technology to avoid overreliance on it or misinterpretation; they need to retain their critical factors.

These issues apply to identification, the extraction of information from electronic devices, monitoring and more that is in the Bill. They are the context for the development of policing and sentencing, such as the new cautions; for scrutiny, both general and in particular cases; and for our assessment of ethical considerations. We should be clear that there are clear principles to be applied. The National Audit Office has just reported on the national law enforcement data programme from a value-for-money point of view, of course, but there are other costs. The NAO mentioned, as I have, trust and the cost of damaging it. AI impacts society, communities, democracy and individual rights. We must be clear about what we are doing and why.