Public Libraries

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD)]

My Lords, I have time only to ask the Minister what she can recommend we do for the Catterick, Richmond and Colburn Community Libraries—the acronym is CRACL—which are a charitable trust, of which I am patron. They are mainly run by amazing volunteers, who put in more than 634 hours last year, although that is a wild underestimation of the actual hours worked. How do we strengthen that volunteer network? Also, North Yorkshire Council is responsible only for the books, roofs and walls of the building; CRACL is responsible for all the maintenance, heating, boilers et cetera. This year, heating alone will cost £18,000 and much-needed new windows will cost £30,000. This is unsustainable for a charity. A far better understanding of the importance of libraries to our communities is desperately needed.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

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

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, I call the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, who will speak remotely.

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I declare an interest in that my son works in retail. I have added my name to that of my noble friend Lord Dholakia on Amendment 114 in this group. This threshold needs removing from the Anti-social Behaviour Act, and here we have the perfect opportunity to do it.

Retailers keep UK plc going. They provide us with the goods we need to live our lives, no matter what. They are key workers, but they do not have the key support they need. It is shocking that retailers lose £770 million a year to retail crime. Between the 307,000 shops, this comes to an average of almost £2,500 per shop, per year. Noble Lords may say that this amount of money could easily be a sunk cost for our supermarkets —but not for our independent shops. Assuming an 8% margin, retailers such as those belonging to the British Independent Retailers Association would have to make sales of almost £32,000 for a small shop just to make back what they have lost to these criminals. This is while the level of retail crime is still increasing: by 19.1% between 2014 and 2018, compared with 4.96% between 2010 and 2014, before the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act was given Royal Assent.

As only one in 20 of all shoplifting offences are now prosecuted, it cannot be a shock that such odds are likely to give any wily criminal the feeling that their crime does not matter and that they can do what they want with little or no consequence. Is it any wonder that retailers feel that, while they are being punished, perpetrators of retail crime are not? This needs to change. Retailers need to feel that they have the Government’s support and that they are not the ones being punished when someone steals from their shop. I therefore support this amendment from my noble friend Lord Dholakia.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Kennedy. I shall speak to my Amendment 104FB, which would require the Secretary of State a year hence to carry out a review of the adequacy of police resources devoted to assaults on retail workers. Like the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, I always had very good relations with USDAW in my many years as—I suppose you could say “a retail boss”—an executive at Tesco.

I start with an enormous thank you to my noble friend the Minister for arranging a meeting with the retail industry bodies, USDAW and several parliamentarians, including myself, with a star cast of the Deputy Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Attorney-General. We all felt, for the first time, that we were having a high-level and constructive discussion on what could be done across the board about violence and abuse of retail staff. That is against a background of 455 security incidents a day, according to the BRC, and very few prosecutions.

The police response to these incidents has historically been inadequate. We need to ensure that the police have the right resources and can put a higher priority on prosecuting these retail crimes. This is particularly important given the role of retail workers in enforcing Covid restrictions such as masks, but also in addressing knife crime and shoplifting, as the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, explained, which in my experience is often caused by the need for individuals to get drugs, so it feeds into drug crime as well.

At the Zoom meeting, the industry welcomed the fact that the Government had recognised the seriousness of the issue and tabled Amendment 84, which we have heard about from my noble friend. This would mean that the worst offenders could see tougher sentences. The industry also very much welcomed the new relevant instructions from the Home Secretary and from the Attorney-General.

However, it is important to ensure that this new measure has the desired effect in terms of police effort. I believe there should be a regular review to monitor its effectiveness, hence my amendment proposing a review in a year’s time, which I hope the Minister will feel able to support.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part one & Committee stage
Monday 1st November 2021 Lords Chamber

My noble friend Lady Harris of Richmond has Amendment 110A in this group. The Police Superintendents’ Association quite rightly points out that if someone fails to surrender to police bail or fails to comply with the conditions imposed by the police, there is no sanction against the individual. I support this amendment in principle, although I believe there needs to be something in any amendment about the bail and any conditions imposed having to be necessary, proportionate and reasonable before an offence could be proved. I beg to move.

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]]

My Lords, my Amendment 110A is grouped with my noble friend’s amendments, as we have just heard, and is about bail principles. I bring it forward at the suggestion of the Police Superintendents’ Association and thank it for its help in doing so. In particular, I thank its president Paul Griffiths, with whom I have worked over a number of years, including on this issue in a previous police Bill; sadly, nothing has changed.

At the heart of every investigation is the requirement on police to collate, review and examine the evidence that is gathered. This should be without prejudice and the police are expected to pursue lines of inquiry that gather the facts, whether the facts support the victim’s account or that given by any suspect. For those investigations that require CPS authority, the information presented must allow the full-code test to be applied so that a decision can be made by the CPS as to whether or not the case progresses through the criminal justice system.

To ensure that the investigation is effective and efficient, it should be free from interference from factors that would seek to pervert the course of justice or cause a victim, witness or suspect to provide false evidence to the police, whether under duress or otherwise. The imposition of proportionate, appropriate, legal and necessary pre-charge police bail allows for the protection of the victim, suspect, witnesses and the general public, Correctly applied and checked, police bail is vital in ensuring that the investigation can progress fairly and comprehensively. It should be used only to protect and never to punish. Its imposition should be subject to appropriate review and audit procedures to ensure that the system is fair and maintains public confidence.

Currently, as we have heard, the breach of pre-charge police bail does not constitute a separate offence for the purposes of the PACE custody clock. If a person is arrested for breach of bail, the police will have to use the remaining time on the custody clock which relates to the substantive events for which they were bailed.

The current proposal in the Bill is that the custody clock will pause if a suspect is arrested for breaching police bail. In the majority of cases, the police will not be in a position to make a decision about whether that person on bail is charged for the offence for which they are on bail. The outcome is often release from custody with the same conditions, simply with a reiteration that the bail conditions should not be breached. Currently the police have less time to investigate the offence, and the risks to the investigation remain. The police would ask that any breach be regarded as a separate offence that can be charged on its own merit, if appropriate, using the established rules of evidence for offences.

Imposing pre-charge police bail can be significant in its impact on the human rights and liberty of a suspect and, as such, there must be a process that allows challenge and review. The primary decision-maker should always be the custody sergeant, as they are independent from the investigation. They are also responsible for the welfare and treatment of detainees, and they work on systems that allow for a clear and auditable rationale to be recorded and scrutinised.

The suspect and/or their legal adviser should always have the right to object to conditions, as they do with PACE reviews or extensions, and to have these objections noted on the record with the rationale clearly communicated. They should also have the conditions altered or amended if circumstances change, and that can be done in writing to a custody inspector. The suspect should always have the right to ask the courts to review bail conditions that they feel are inappropriate.

We have previously discussed appropriate authority levels for the time that a suspect remains on police bail. That should reflect the requirements of modern-day investigations such as forensic and e-forensic evidence.

I reiterate that pre-charge police bail should be imposed only where it is necessary and proportionate and protects individuals, the public and the investigation. Police should ensure that it is for the minimum time necessary to complete the investigation, that the rationale is clearly communicated to parties as appropriate and that an appeals process is in place—in addition, with a review process to ensure that the investigation is being carried out diligently.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, the two noble Lords who have spoken have fully introduced their amendments. Amendment 110ZC, from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, would provide that a bail period could be extended only for a period of six months at a time, and not nine, so it would reduce the potential extension period before referral to a magistrates’ court.

I remind the Committee that I sit as a magistrate, and I occasionally do those hearings where I am asked to extend pre-charge bail. It is an interesting process for a magistrate because you see far more serious cases than you would in the normal course of events; it is the extremely serious cases where the police are looking for an extra period. They are often computer-based cases, in connection with child pornography-type offences. One common scenario that I see as a magistrate is that the police have made no progress in their investigations. That may be through a lack of resources or through them having other priorities, but, either way, there are often requests to extend the pre-charge bail period, sometimes for a matter of years, where the court or the magistrates making this decision are not given a particularly good reason. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response to that amendment because it would inevitably put further pressure on the police to make progress on any individual case before it was brought to the magistrates’ court.

The noble Lord’s Amendments 110ZA and 110ZB would require custody officers to record case-specific reasons why bail and bail conditions were necessary and proportionate. I recognise the scenario that the noble Lord gave, of a cut-and-paste approach, and I would be interested in the Minister’s response to the points that he made. The final amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, is Amendment 110B, requiring the police to publish annual statistics on the number of people released under pre-charge bail and the number released under investigation.

The noble Baroness, Lady Harris, spoke to her Amendment 110A, which would create an offence of breaking the conditions of pre-charge bail. It would supplement the powers of arrest available where conditions were broken, and the offence would be a summary offence. The noble Baroness went into some detail, which I thought was persuasive. She quoted the Police Superintendents’ Association, which said in evidence to the Commons Committee that

“bail conditions are imposed and then suspects continue to breach those bails. Of course, those bail conditions would be there to protect victims or even the wider public. It could be extremely useful to us for that to be an offence in its own right.”—[Official Report, Commons, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill Committee, 18/5/21; col. 31.]

This matter was raised in the House of Commons, where it was spoken to by my honourable friend Sarah Jones in the context of Kay’s law, a well-known domestic abuse case where an abusive partner killed Kay while he was on pre-charge bail. I will not rehearse the speech that Sarah Jones made but it was very powerful.

The Minister’s response to the request, which we see here in Amendment 110A by the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, was that she wanted to look at a wider review of civil orders that could potentially be put in place as well as greater data collection, rather than specifically making an additional criminal offence. It is interesting to note that the Centre for Women’s Justice came out with a specific proposal whereby a breach of a bail condition triggers the presumption that the police will impose a domestic abuse prevention notice and apply to court for a domestic abuse prevention order. Of course the breach of a DAPO would be a criminal offence, so it would effectively create a “two strikes and you’re out” process.

The Minister, Victoria Atkins, whom I have always found very helpful when I have spoken to her about these and related matters, spoke about reviewing a greater array of civil orders, such as a stalking protection order or sexual risk order. It would be helpful if the Minister could say how long that review is likely to take and whether we are going to get any proposals at later stages of the Bill. I acknowledge that there are a number of potential ways of closing this loophole and that the amendment put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, is a particular proposal and there is a wider context. However, there is an urgency to this issue. There is an opportunity in the Bill to address that lacuna, if I can put it like that, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

Tabled by

[Baroness Harris of Richmond]

110A: Schedule 4, page 213, line 39, at end insert—
“35A After section 46A (power of arrest for failure to answer to police bail) insert—“46B Offence of breaking conditions of bail(1) If a person who has been released on bail under section 30A(1) breaks any of the conditions of their bail without reasonable excuse they are guilty of an offence. (2) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (1) is liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months or to a fine or to both.(3) In any proceedings for an offence under subsection (1) a document purporting to be a copy of the notice given to the person under section 30B and to be duly certified to be a true copy of that part of the notice is evidence of the conditions imposed.(4) For the purposes of subsection (3) the copy of the notice is duly certified if it is certified by the custody officer who took the decision or a constable designated for the purpose by the officer in charge of the police station from which the person to whom the notice relates was released.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would create an offence of breaking conditions of pre-charge bail. It supplements the powers of arrest available where conditions are broken. The offence would be a summary offence.

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am immensely grateful to my noble friend Lord Paddick, who has absolutely perfectly put my case again, and to the Police Superintendents’ Association. I will reflect on what the Minister has said but I am really disappointed because we have been here before. However, the Home Office is going to get more data, which is a very good thing. I will put this to the Police Superintendents’ Association to see what it has to say, because it has been banging on about this for a very long time. In the meantime, I am not moving my amendment.

Amendments 110A and 110B not moved.

Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I apologise for repeating much of what your Lordships have already heard. Most, if not all, of your Lordships have received an enormous amount of mail, both written and by email, and I have been moved by many of the stories told. The vast majority of people have appealed to me to support this Bill, and I will indeed do so.

All we want for our loved ones is a peaceful death. One letter I received catalogued the appalling death of the writer’s mother. She was in a wonderful hospice, but her end was shocking, as the drugs she was given to help her deal with her pain did not work. I have heard from specialist palliative care doctors, who say that they know of many people dying every day in extremis, because the drugs that should have given them that gentle death simply did not work. We have heard much of this during the debate today. The drugs did not give them that gentle death, not because they were not cared for or loved, but because not all pain-easing drugs work on people in the same way. A GP, one of many who wrote to me, said that the choice is not between living and dying; it is between dying on one’s own terms or the possibility of dying in a way they do not want.

Lack of dignity, which almost invariably accompanies protracted end-of-life care, has a profound impact not only on the dying patient but on their families. One lady told me that her children still have nightmares having watched the desperate deterioration of their father before he died. Another letter from a gentleman in his 90s begged me to support the Bill, saying that he was becoming increasingly frail, and that added urgency to our deliberations. He wanted the choice about how to manage his death. Many other letters talked about having to sit beside a dying loved one, who only wanted their suffering to end. I believe it is our duty to address these heartfelt and heartbreaking stories.

A peaceful death, which by definition is pain free, should not be a fluke of individual medical circumstances. Too many die in horrific pain, and this should not be the case in the 21st century. Palliative care is still simply not good enough, and I have not heard any practical suggestions on how this might be improved to such a level. Assisted dying laws have proven track records overseas, and the high standards and safeguards put into laws there should be available to our citizens too, as the Bill proposes.

The Bill offers stringent safeguards so that no one should be concerned that, because of disability, mental health or other debilitating illnesses, anyone would be forced into requesting assisted dying—quite the contrary. It will allow terminally ill and mentally competent adults to request life-ending medication that they can choose to self-administer. That is the word: choice. I hope that your Lordships will allow the Bill to go through its legislative stages and that finally it will pass into law.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

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

In this group of important amendments, we seek further clarification from the Government on how the covenant will work and how we will make it a success. We all want the covenant to be what the police services of our country deserve and we can bring that about through the legislation that we pass in this Chamber.

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is a very great pleasure to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, to this policing debate and to hear of his antecedents. I added my name to this amendment and, with your Lordships’ indulgence, will speak to Amendments 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7, to which I have also put my name. These all deal with the many associated issues in this group, as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, just outlined.

I have been extremely concerned at the growing number of police officers and former police officers who have turned up at the police treatment centres run by the charity of which I am president with clear mental health issues alongside whatever physical injuries they might have. In the year 2019-20, we provided 3,600 hours of one-on-one counselling. Some 1,200 patients received well-being support through the psychological well-being programme, well-being weekends and recharge days. This is a 19% increase on those attending in 2018. To facilitate this growing area of work, we have provided a new clinical wing at PTC Harrogate, in association with Police Care UK, another police charity.

In its latest research, Police Care UK found that 90% of police officers will be exposed to multiple traumatic incidents during their career—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker—and that one in five serving personnel are currently living with symptoms of PTSD.

While they do an amazing job at the St Andrews centre, the new clinical wing will be of enormous extra benefit, having two new wings with two floors and adding 20 bedrooms to the estate. It will give four additional counselling rooms, one nursing surgery room, six therapy rooms, three workshop spaces and a community room. Noble Lords can see how necessary these will be; we can only hope that the extra facilities will be enough to meet the increasing demand for well-being provision for the officers who need it.

The impact of trauma is deeply debilitating and for many years officers felt that they could not speak out about it. But we have now seen clearly how damaging that can be. We absolutely must take the mental health of our police officers seriously and give them the support they need by including this requirement in the covenant.

In supporting Amendment 2 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, I declare an interest as an honorary member of the National Association of Retired Police Officers—NARPO. Why should former police officers not receive help and support and access to training when they require it? Many go on to do valuable work in other careers and the community and often need help with access courses.

My Amendment 6, which is an amendment to Amendment 5, as we have heard, seeks to insert the National Association of Retired Police Officers to the oversight board. I believe it is essential, as many of those former officers still need support. I have spoken on a number of occasions about the impact of being a police officer on an individual’s mental well-being, both during their time in the force and when they have left. The Bill will make it mandatory for the Home Secretary to publish a report on the police covenant each year outlining the work that has been done to protect officers and ensure that they are properly supported following the sacrifices they have made to be part of the force.

It is important that this report is considered by an independent oversight board, which can hold the Government to account on the work that they are doing around the police covenant, and they are not simply left to mark their own homework, as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has said.

Among those organisations that oversee the report, there must be an organisation which represents the police officers of the past, who, as I said, often continue to live with the effects of their job long after they have departed. Police officers bear witness to some of the most traumatic events and sacrifice so much, placing themselves in danger in order to protect society. It is therefore absolutely vital that their contribution is also acknowledged and any support that they need is given throughout their life. Placing the National Association of Retired Police Officers among the organisations giving oversight to the covenant ensures that officers past and present are supported in the continued challenges that a life in policing can bring.

Finally, I turn to Amendment 7. Every year, it costs £5 million to operate the two police treatment centres; 89% of that income is generated by donations from serving and retired police officers. The remainder comes from various sources: fundraising events, legacy donations, hospitality and lottery money. Noble Lords will note that not only do the PTCs save the NHS huge amounts of money by treating our police officers who present with trauma injuries; they treat psychological trauma as well. The PTCs are a charity—they do not get any money from the Government or the NHS. There should be some acknowledgement that the work that they do not only saves the NHS money but enables police officers to return to work much more quickly than they would otherwise have done if they had had to wait for NHS appointments—for physiotherapy, in particular. Have your Lordships tried to get an appointment with an NHS physiotherapist recently? Officers may also need mental health services appointments urgently. My amendment addresses those concerns and urges the Government to tell health providers that they must address the needs of police officers and ensure that they get the same recognition for treatment as that for members of the armed services.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Fullbrook, on her maiden speech. I was sorry to see the gracious Speech did not mention anything about the health and well-being of injured police officers, especially as the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is being considered by Parliament at the moment and was touched on in the gracious Speech. For many years I was a trustee of the Police Rehabilitation Centre at Flint House in Oxfordshire, following which I was invited to become president of the Police Treatment Centres, which are in Harrogate and Auchterarder in Perthshire. So, I declare that interest and also my other interests as set out in the register.

The PTCs are a two-centre police charity, founded 120 years ago, delivering first-class treatment to police officers and retired officers who have been injured on or off duty, or who need special support. Attendance on the psychological well-being programme alone has increased 87% in five years—an indication of the increasing need for such support as our police officers face ever more serious and traumatic incidents. The PTCs cost about £5 million each year to run, and 90% of those costs come from individual officer donations. The rest of the money comes from commercial activities run by the charity and fundraising. Of course, it has been extremely difficult this year. Some forces also give us grants, and I would particularly like to mention the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which gives large grants to us every year, again from its own officers. However, we estimate we have lost income of around £400,000 since 2020 to date.

The Government do not give any grants or provide any financial support to the PTCs, unlike that which is given in huge amounts to the military charities, running into tens of millions each year; nor does the NHS give us any money, unlike that given to Combat Stress or Help for Heroes. Yet we save it considerable amounts of money by providing treatment that it would otherwise have to provide for these officers. Independent reports by Robert Gordon University on the efficacy of the PTCs, in 2017 and 2019, suggested that they delivered a cost benefit of £3.80 for every £1 spent, in terms of value back to taxpayers, which translated into a saving for forces and taxpayers of over £16.7 million. In 2019, we treated 3,777 police patients, of whom 2,935 were serving officers and others were retirees or day patients.

Our excellent CEO, Patrick Cairns MBE, a former senior army officer, has commented that from his personal experience, and speaking to thousands of police patients every year, he believes we deliver career-, relationship- and life-saving treatment. Some officers who contemplated taking their own lives have been helped so successfully that they have credited their stay as a turning point in their battle, after suffering extreme psychological trauma. Officers and patients who are entitled to treatment come from all over the United Kingdom. The demand for support from the centres increases every year, with a 7% increase in attendance from 2018-19 alone. The Government should be putting regular funding into the PTCs, so I hope the Minister will recognise that this is an exceptional charity which enables the return of more police officers to the front line as a result of the intervention and support given. I hope she will take this proposal back to the Secretary of State for consideration.

Independent Office for Police Conduct

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

Tuesday 16th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, so far as the Mail’s investigations are concerned, I would make three points. First, the message must go out that if you deliberately lie about sexual abuse, you will go to prison for a long time—in this case, 18 years. Secondly, as the noble Lord said, people make mistakes. The MPS made mistakes, it has learned, it needed to learn, and it is continuing to learn. Thirdly, however, the message must go out: if you are a victim of child sex abuse, even if it is historic, come forward. We have successfully prosecuted and obtained over 5,000 convictions, and in every case we will seek to ensure that justice is done, whether that be a conviction or an acquittal.

[Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]]

My Lords, one of the major recommendations of Sir Richard’s review was that the Met’s media communications policy should be amended to avoid any details of age or geography being released to the public in relation to the arrest, search, interview or bail of any suspect. Is the Minister satisfied that this recommendation is being followed and monitored to ensure that deviation from it will constitute a disciplinary offence?

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, in her letter to the Home Secretary dated 15 February 2021, the commissioner set out that the MPS will follow the College of Policing media approved professional practice, which I set out to the House a few moments ago. Whether a breach of that is a disciplinary matter must be a matter for the police and for the IOPC.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames]

My Lords, the purpose of this amendment is quite simply to remove the power proposed in the Bill by Clause 6(3) to provide that the power to impose an electronic monitoring condition be mandatory. Amendment 14, which is also tabled in my name, is consequential upon Amendment 9.

The Committee will no doubt quite understand that the effect of subsection (2) is to amplify and explain the Secretary of State’s power to impose an electronic monitoring condition on the release on licence of prisoners. That is a desirable and sensible condition to be imposed where appropriate. The idea that by subsection (3) a new Section 62A is added to the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 giving the Secretary of State power by order to make it compulsory to impose an electronic monitoring condition evades explanation, I regret to say. The power under Section 62 already gives the Secretary of State power to make rules about the conditions for the imposition of such a condition. I simply invite the Minister to explain why the fetter on the Secretary of State’s future discretion is needed.

There may be cases where an electronic monitoring condition is not required or is inappropriate. I take as an obvious example the case of a prisoner who is disabled or is to be hospitalised on release. That is recognised in Section 62 as it stands. Making an electronic monitoring condition compulsory seems a retrograde step depriving a Secretary of State who brings it in by order and any future Secretary of State of the power or the right to exercise discretion not to make such a condition in appropriate cases. The amendment is a simple one, and the issue is a simple one. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Harris of Richmond) (LD)]

My Lords, if Amendment 9 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 10 to 12 inclusive by reason of pre-emption.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, tagging—or electronic monitoring, to give it its official title—is potentially a useful tool in cases where it is necessary to protect the public by, for example, prohibiting contact with named individuals, imposing a curfew or restricting access to particular places. Even so, we are all conscious of the appalling experience with the Government’s favoured all-purpose contractors, G4S and Serco, which resulted in the repayment by those companies in the end of £214 million, roughly equivalent to the total of a year’s savings engendered by cuts to legal aid. Clause 7 takes us, as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Marks, into new territory with the extension of the use of this system to prisoners on licence, and that on a mandatory basis. The Chief Inspector of Prisons has been highly critical of this proposal, since in the absence of evidence of absconding or committing offences while on licence this is not, in fact, a significant problem. What is the evidence on which this proposal is based and what is the cost of the equipment and the necessary monitoring? The impact assessment states:

“Though benefits likely to arise from the increased use of ELM have been identified, we are not able to quantify these benefits at this stage … As such, we are unable to calculate impact”.

That is an extraordinary basis on which to import into this legislation a mandatory requirement. It seems, as an approach to legislation, to be matched only by the Home Office’s approach to record keeping.

Dan Jarvis MP, my honourable friend in the Commons, has identified some significant risks. They include the possibility that the technology might not be capable of delivering the service at an economic cost. The use of tagging might not have the anticipated deterrent effect. The new licence conditions might lead to an increase in breaches, such as not wearing the tag, which could lead to more prison places being required. On the latter point, the impact assessment rather weakly admits that the number of additional prison places required, “cannot be accurately estimated”. If ever the Government’s own impact assessment has made the case for properly piloting a provision, this is clearly such a case. Moreover, there is widespread concern about making this a mandatory condition, something that is at odds with the whole purpose of release on licence, which is to help offenders reintegrate into society. One has to ask whether making it mandatory is a provision dictated by the potential contractors’ need for an assured case load and associated financial returns rather than any substantive merits of the procedure.

There is also the unacceptable position that the Secretary of State may impose a code of practice especially about the data acquired through the process without parliamentary approval. The Joint Committee on Human Rights regards safeguards in relation to the collection and storage of such data as crucial. Where are we in relation to the drafting of a code? Amendment 12 deals with this issue.

Amendment 13 calls for an early review of any scheme in order to assess its actual impact on individuals, on reoffending, and on cost. Amendment 11, which we seek to repeat in Amendment 44 applying to secure colleges, would make the contractors subject to freedom of information procedures. Last year, the Information Commissioner asked the Justice Committee, in this respect, if more and more services are delivered by alternative providers which are not public authorities, how do we get accountability? This is particularly relevant in the context of the justice and penal systems, where there have been too many worrying failures and instances of quite disgraceful treatment of prisoners and detainees by such contractors. If, as is quite right, state prisons are subject to the Freedom of Information Act, what possible reason could there be for excluding other providers, including those who are to provide the tagging mechanisms here?

I hope that the Minister can deal with some of these questions, as well as the points of substance raised by the noble Lord, Lord Marks. It is absolutely impermissible for these powers simply to be imposed by order, and on the basis of such flimsy evidence as the Minister produced, to support the extension in the way that the Bill prescribes.

Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Baroness Harris of Richmond Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty]

Are we on Amendment 25?

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Harris of Richmond)]

Amendment 22.

[Lord Whitty]

I beg your Lordships’ pardon.