Police: Deployment of Workforce

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 5th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they expect serving police officers to be moved from front-line roles to cover back-office functions of civilian staff who have been made redundant.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Neville-Jones)]

No, my Lords. As Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary has established, one-third of the police force—that is, 80,000 people—are not on the front line. There is significant scope for major savings in reducing bureaucracy and increasing efficiency in such matters as procurement and IT without touching the front line. Furthermore, in its recent report, Demanding Times, HMIC shows that front-line officers can be deployed much more productively. There is “significant variation between forces” in the visibility and availability of officers and PCSOs. Some constabularies manage to have only 9 per cent of their officers on the street at any one time; and the average is only 12 per cent.

[Lord Rosser]

I thank the Minister for that reply. However, in the light of the disclosure that in Warwickshire, full-time police officers are being removed from the front line to fill back-office vacancies caused by the government cuts; the finding by Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary that 68 per cent of police officers and civilian staff combined are involved in the front line and will be very hard to retain in the face of the 20 per cent cuts; and the statement by the chief constable of Lancashire, who is the ACPO lead on police performance management, that with the scale of the cuts being experienced, they could not leave the front line untouched; can the noble Baroness confirm to the House that the undertaking by the Prime Minister that front-line police services will not be cut, but will be protected, still stands?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The Government believe that front-line services will not be affected by the savings that have to be made. As HMIC has established, there is considerable room for savings to be made without touching the front line. I have given some illustrations; many more could be given. To give one example, at the moment, the average percentage of available officers who are at any one time visible on the street is 12 per cent. That is 18,795 officers. If all the forces were to reach the best practice available, which is that of Lancashire, that would amount to 26,627 policemen. Very big increases in efficiency can be made.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, work is rightly going on by police forces and by the Home Office on reducing bureaucracy. Has any assessment been made of what savings can be made from consequent reductions in back-office requirements as a result of savings in bureaucracy?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, this is just the kind of work that needs to be done. It is not easy to make those head-count calculations until one has an idea of how each force is going to make the savings, but there is no doubt that if, for instance, one procures much more efficiently than we do at the moment, considerable savings can be made.

[Lord Imbert]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that this Question need not have been asked at all if only a proportion of the £200 million-plus which is planned to be spent on the election of police and crime commissars was to be spent on real policing?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I think that the figure for the election of PCCs is £50 million, which will be every four years. It has been provided for in the spending round; it does not relate to the police budget.

[Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate]

My Lords, will the noble Baroness give the House her definition of a front-line police officer, and does it include officers working under cover for some length of time?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I think we can rely on HMIC, which has given us a definition of front-line police officers—I am just looking for it. The inspector has said that it is indeed those officers on the street and also those officers who provide support, which he calculates as being the 60-something per cent that was mentioned. We now have a definition of front-line policing that the Government are happy to accept.

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, may I press the Minister on her definition to make quite clear that she is giving an assurance on front-line policing of those who are police community support officers? Will she affirm the huge value that those members of the police give in preventive action in terms of crime that otherwise might occur within the community?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, we entirely agree on the value of PCSOs as well as that of warranted officers. Crime prevention is a very important part of policing, which is one of the reasons why the Government attach so much importance to police officers being visible on the streets.

[Lord Mawhinney]

My Lords, I am sure that the whole House is impressed by the efficiency of the Lancashire force, referred to by my noble friend. What power do the Government have to require other forces to get themselves in line with what is happening in Lancashire?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, the Government are not able to “require” forces, but would very much encourage it. HMIC leads the way in the assessment it does and the recommendations it puts to police forces about the way in which they can improve performance.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, as a Lancashire resident and formerly for 20 years a member of the Lancashire Police Authority, I am very proud of the service we achieve for the people of Lancashire. Will the Minister accept that, although she referred to money coming from different pots, it is my experience that the people of Lancashire would prefer to see their service maintained at the current high level rather than money being used to bring in a new system, for which I have yet to meet a single advocate in Lancashire?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, as I said, the police budget is in no way affected by the cost of the election of PCCs. I think that when the inhabitants of Lancashire have experience of elected PCCs, they will find that it turns out to be an extraordinarily satisfactory system and better than the one they have now.

Draft Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc) Act 2004 (Remedial) Order 2010

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Monday 4th April 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved By

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

That the draft order laid before the House on 20 December 2010 be approved.

Relevant document: 9th Report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Neville-Jones)]

My Lords, the purpose of this draft remedial order is to abolish the certificate of approval scheme to prevent sham marriages. A certificate gives migrants written permission from the Home Office to marry. I am grateful to the Joint Committee on Human Rights for its support in this matter.

In its first report on the order published on 16 November 2010 the JCHR agreed that the scheme should be abolished. It also agreed with the Government’s approach in using this order to achieve abolition. The Government laid a revised order in December 2010 making minor technical changes recommended by the JCHR. In its second report published on 14 March the JCHR recommended that Parliament now approve this order.

The Government want to bring this order into force subject to your Lordships’ agreement. We are doing so for two reasons. First, the domestic courts have declared that the scheme is incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. Abolishing the scheme will remove this incompatibility. Secondly, changes made following rulings from the domestic courts have weakened the scheme and the Government do not consider it any longer to be an effective method of dealing with sham marriages.

The certificate of approval scheme was introduced in 2005 by our predecessors to protect the immigration system and marriage laws from abuse, in particular from those entering into sham marriages. The scheme did not and still does not apply to Anglican marriages taking place in England and Wales and this different treatment for non-Anglicans is at the heart of the judgments against the scheme. The House of Lords ruled the scheme unlawful in the case of Baiai by making a declaration of incompatibility relating to the discrimination between civil and Anglican marriages.

The scheme has been modified in several ways to comply with court rulings. This included allowing people who had been excluded from the original scheme to apply for permission to marry—for example, illegal immigrants—and we also suspended the application fee. However, the current scheme is now frankly a shadow of its former self. It is ineffective as a means of preventing sham marriages and we believe that there is no merit in continuing with it. The Government therefore intend to end the scheme, subject to approval, on 9 May. Your Lordships may ask what the effect will be. Indeed, it is hard to know. There is a risk that reports of sham marriages from registrars will rise when the scheme ends. Common sense indicates that this could well be the case. The Government will do their level best to combat the risk with the remaining powers at their disposal, which I am about to outline.

Reports of sham marriages are already rising. In 2009, there were 561 reports of suspected sham marriages; in 2010, there were 934 such reports. We do not know the extent to which this constitutes a real rise or simply better reporting. Either way, there is a problem here to tackle, which must be of concern to everyone in this House. Therefore, when the scheme is abolished, the UK Border Agency will use the powers it still has to tackle sham marriage abuse. It is looking at ways in which it can use them more effectively to stop what is obviously covert immigration. It will obtain sham marriage information from the register office.

The registrars will play a very important role in the future. It is already a key role and it will become even more important. Civil registrars will continue to exercise their duty to report any suspicious marriage to the UK Border Agency, under Section 24 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. The existing rise in the number of reports reflects the work that is already being undertaken by registrars to focus on tackling this abuse. This work will be intensified. It will also ensure that migrants will still be permitted only to give notice to marry at one of a number of designated register offices throughout the UK. This will mean that the UKBA can focus resources on a limited number of locations.

The UK Border Agency will also act on information so that immigration officers will be able to disrupt sham marriages scheduled to take place in churches. The UKBA is building on existing relations with the Anglican Church so that suspicions about sham marriages are reported by clergymen and clergywomen. The UK Border Agency has developed training for members of the clergy to help them identify potentially suspicious marriages. Immigration officers and police will continue to work together to arrest facilitators, brides, grooms, witnesses and guests—anybody who is involved—at ceremonies across the country that are, in fact, sham.

The aim will be to destroy a criminal business if one is taking place. We have already had some notable successes. In the north-west, for instance, seven Czech nationals were recently sentenced to between 16 months and five years for their part in facilitating sham marriages, some of which were also bigamous. Two of the group also received custodial sentences. An operation in the Midlands has so far seen 13 people convicted, with sentences totalling 20 years. Last month the agency mounted its largest sham marriage operation to date, which saw officers swoop on geographically spread addresses in London, Birmingham, Nottingham, Devon and Kent, while a simultaneous operation took place with the Dutch police in Rotterdam and Tilbury. There have also been a number of successful operations where churches have supplied information when they believed a marriage might be suspect. This included the conviction of an Anglican vicar, Alex Brown, and his two co-conspirators, who were recently found guilty of facilitating more than 300 sham marriages.

The UK Border Agency will also prevent a person who has entered into a sham marriage acquiring any immigration rights. The legal position is clear. Those who enter into sham marriages are not able thereby to rely on that marriage to obtain leave to remain or to acquire the right to reside in the UK as the spouse of an EEA national. Third-country nationals wishing to enter the UK on the basis of a marriage to a British citizen or person settled here are and will remain subject to our Immigration Rules. If we believe a marriage to be a sham, an application for leave to remain under the Immigration Rules will be refused. That still has to happen. Those who are discovered taking part in, or facilitating, sham marriages will be prosecuted.

We are closely scrutinising the marriage route to the right to remain and looking at measures to tighten it. We have already announced that we intend to consult on extending the spouses’ probationary period before settlement beyond the current two years. An additional period would allow a longer time to test the genuineness of the relationship. As I said, the Government will do their best to combat the abuse of immigration through sham marriage. I commend the order to the House.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, of course we welcome this order, which corrects a serious error of judgment by the previous Government. We also welcome the Minister’s careful explanation of its purpose and consequences. She said that there was evidence of an increase in the number of sham marriages in the figures for 2009 to 2010. If I have the correct figures, the number of sham marriages increased from 561 in the first of those years to 934 in the second. However, is it not a fact that people do not acquire any additional rights to remain as a result of a marriage when they have entered the country for some other purpose? It would be interesting to find out what the subsequent immigration experience of the people was whose marriages were reported as possibly being sham. I am sure that the UK Border Agency carefully followed up all the reports that the Minister has mentioned. For future reference it would be useful to know how many of the people were subsequently prevented from remaining in the country because it was established that the marriages were not only suspected of being sham but were actually false.

The Minister also spoke about the experience of the police in detecting particular cases. She mentioned the Czechs who were convicted and sentenced to between 16 months and five years for facilitating sham marriages, and said that in some cases those marriages were proved to have been bigamous. Obviously, an offence was committed by those people quite apart from the immigration offence and they would have quite properly been convicted for that reason.

When the Labour Government introduced certificates of approval for marriages between people, either or both of whom were subject to immigration control, there were immediate warnings from those with experience of immigration law and the European Convention on Human Rights that the scheme was discriminatory. The Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association briefing to your Lordships for the Third Reading of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act said that the provisions on sham marriages did not apply to those who marry in the Church of England and were therefore discriminatory against all other religions, a point that was taken up by the Joint Committee on Human Rights in its report of 30 June 2004 and by every single court that subsequently ruled on the matter.

The incompatibility with the convention was identified by the domestic courts as early as 2006, so the remedial order that we are now considering, which is intended to be “fast track” corrective action following a declaration of incompatibility, has taken five years to mature. Not surprisingly, the Joint Committee on Human Rights regrets the substantial delay. Having set out their intention to use a non-urgent remedial order under Section 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998, this Government acted as quickly as possible to abolish the certificate of approval scheme in response to the House of Lords judgment in the case of Baiai, which had been delivered on 30 July 1998. Will my noble friend say whether it would have made any difference if the matter had been treated as urgent? Does she think that there is any way of speeding up the process generally in any future cases, of which, fortunately, there have been very few so far?

The lesson to be learnt from this episode, however, is that it is dangerous to rush solutions to immigration problems through Parliament towards the end of the proceedings on a Bill without any consultation and in the face of reasoned criticism. The clauses embodying the certificate of approval scheme were introduced on recommitment, a wholly unsuitable mechanism for radical proposals that affect the very institution of marriage, as we said at the time. We were not satisfied that the scheme was effective, proportionate and compatible with the ECHR. The failure of the previous Labour Government to listen to the warnings by the Liberal Democrats, the JCHR and the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association has cost the taxpayer perhaps hundreds of thousands of pounds in litigation and compensation, and there may be further claims still to come. In particular, there is one case before the European Court of Human Rights, and the JCHR proposed in its 31st report of Session 2007-08 that where there are multiple claims for compensation, the Government should adopt an approach that minimises the burden on the court and expense for the taxpayer. The Government do not consider that there is a significant risk of multiple repeat cases because potential litigants have had plenty of time to challenge the certificate of approval scheme since it was ruled to be unlawful.

There was a scheme for reimbursement of the certificate of approval fee of £295, or £590 where both partners to a marriage were subject to immigration control, but only where the payment caused the applicants real financial hardship at the time of payment. Of the 1,213 requests for repayment of the fee, only 170 had been granted and 49 remained outstanding at the end of January this year. In his letter to the JCHR of 21 December 2010, the Minister said that ILPA was wrong to say that the test for repayment was difficult to satisfy, because anyone able to meet the financial hardship test would qualify. However, the point that ILPA was making was that there was a four-and-a-half year interval between the introduction of the scheme and the date on which the UKBA first made arrangements to reimburse those who had suffered financial hardship. Most people do not keep records for that length of time and might well be unable to produce the evidence required. It does not seem to have occurred to the Minister that this could partly explain the relatively small number of applications for repayment and the 82 per cent failure rate of the ones that were made. I would be grateful if the Minister could comment on that measure.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, a number of points have been raised. I will deal first with those raised by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. He is right to say that no additional rights are acquired by this conduct. On the question of the measures that we might be putting in place to deal with the absence of the certificate, I will say two things. The noble Lord asked whether we could have done this more speedily. We laid the orders within three months. The other thing is that it is wise, in order to limit the extent of the abuse and the absence of having the certificate scheme, to intensify and put in place really effective measures. One of the things we have been doing during the time between laying the order and being able to bring it to the House is ensuring that the measures that we have in place are as effective as we can make them. So the time has not been wasted. We have been as fair as we can be about the question of payments and when there has been a question of hardship the money has been refunded. The reason why there are relatively few applications, as the noble Lord said, is that people have had good warning. We do not believe that there is going to be a great splurge of demands following the repeal of this order.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, misquoted me and then asked me to approve a whole lot of assertions that I had not made. I did not say that I had a strong belief or confidence that our remaining powers would be effective. It is most unfortunate that the previous Government put in place, as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, rightly said, a scheme which they were warned would be discriminatory and which has now been struck down. It would have been better if they had put in place one that was capable of continuous implementation. What I said was that it was hard to know what the effect of the abolition of the certificate would be. I also commented that we did not know the extent to which the rise in numbers was attributable to better reporting or to increases.

[Lord Rosser]

The quote I gave was actually from Mr Damian Green, the Minister for Immigration, who is on record in Hansard as saying that the increase in the reports of suspected sham marriages in 2010,

“shows that the certificate of approval scheme was becoming less effective, as well as the success of our crackdown on sham marriage and the subsequent publicity”.—[Official Report, Commons, Fifth Delegated Legislation Committee, 29/3/11; col. 4.]

So the person to whom I was attributing the success of the Government’s measures was not the noble Baroness but Mr Damian Green, the Minister for Immigration.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My honourable friend in another place was pointing to the efforts that the Government are making to compensate for the absence of a scheme that, had it not been discriminatory, might still exist. Great efforts are being made to ensure that the hinge position now occupied by registrars will be effective. That is why the links between UKBA and registrars’ offices are being increased and intensified, why guidance is being issued to the clergy and why registrars’ offices are being given training to ensure that they can recognise an application for a suspicious marriage if it comes their way.

We have to intensify all those methods. It is difficult to know at this stage whether that will be effective. The Government will do our very best, because it is important and in the public interest that this should not be a route for covert immigration, which it has been becoming—people have been engaged in what we can only call organised crime to get people into this country via that route. We have conducted two publicity campaigns, as my honourable friend in another place mentioned, designed to alert both those who enforce and those who may try to abuse the system that measures are being taken against that.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Martin, that in Scotland all register offices are designated, so the issue of having to travel does not arise. Only the application has to be made through approved offices. For people who marry abroad, other immigration rules still apply, including an English-language test, so not all the barriers against abuse fall away as a result of the absence of the certificate scheme. The answer to the noble Lord’s question—is a failed asylum-seeker subject to continuing immigration control?—is definitely yes. Anyone without status that enables them to stay will certainly be subject to immigration controls.

No other route will arise from the absence of the certificate scheme that will make it easier for people to abuse the system. We are doing our very best to ensure that the absence of the certificate scheme does not render either the sham marriage route—the suspect marriage route—or any other route to abusing the immigration system any easier to operate. As a general proposition, I think that the House would agree that there is increasing effort both to publicise the fact that the Government intend to act against abuse of the system and to put in place effective measures to ensure that, having said that we will do that, that is the outcome.

Although there is some anxiety in the House, which I share, about our ability to control the situation, we will be monitoring it carefully and making our best efforts to ensure that that route is not used. I hope that the House will feel it necessary to abolish the scheme and, on the basis of the Government putting in place the best methods that we can to control this, approve the order.

Motion agreed.

Human Trafficking: EU Directive

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they have received asking them to help stop human trafficking by opting in to the European Union Directive.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Neville-Jones)]

My Lords, the Government received a range of representations, including from parliamentarians, members of the public and non-governmental organisations. We said, referring to the opt-in, that we would make a decision about the finalised text at the end of the process, rather than at the beginning of the drafting. This is what we have now done. The Minister for Immigration has written to the parliamentary scrutiny committees in both Houses, seeking their views on our intention to apply to opt in.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that Answer. I pay tribute to the Government, who are doing the right thing, although I regret that it has taken too long. I also pay tribute to the Anti-Slavery International petition, women’s groups and other campaigners, who have clearly brought to bear a great influence on the Government. The National Working Group for Sexually Exploited Young People has found that there are only 38 areas in the UK with a specialist service in place. What are the Government doing to ensure that there is effective intervention and consistent local delivery of these services around the country; and how will these nationally important functions be managed under the Government’s proposed politicised policing framework, as set out in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I can hardly accept the last point made by the noble Baroness. As regards the quality of the services that the Government wish to see in place, there are certainly some excellent boroughs that can act as best practice models, including such places as Hillingdon. The Government’s aim, obviously, is to ensure that all boroughs and local authorities operate at the level of best practice. There is constant consultation between the Government, local authorities and the NGOs involved to achieve that result.

[Baroness Goudie]

My Lords, I am very pleased that the Prime Minister has now done a U-turn and stated that human trafficking is a terrible crime. Will the Minister ask the Prime Minister whether he will put the issue on to the G8 and G20 agenda for November? As she knows, human trafficking is a now global issue and it should be on these international agendas. That is the only way in which we will see the end of it in our lifetime.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I do not think that the Prime Minister has made any kind of U-turn—he has made a very clear statement of the Government’s position on the evils of human trafficking. I will take back the point about the desirability of having this on the G20 agenda.

[Lord Boswell of Aynho]

My Lords, will my noble friend also consider the extreme importance of effective police co-operation in dealing with this vile practice? I cite in particular the very constructive relationship that has been formed between the Metropolitan Police and the authorities in Romania. It is very important that people should understand that this is a matter not just of one or two criminals but of very organised gangs who are quite prepared to clean out the young people in a particular district in an exporting country and to disseminate them round the richer countries of the world, under their orders and making profits for their vile trade.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My noble friend is quite right: human trafficking is a concern for all constabularies. It is also a concern for the Serious and Organised Crime Agency, which operates internationally. He is right to say that this is a global issue. It is also a matter in which the police take a lead in our ports of immigration, most particularly in places such as Heathrow and St Pancras, ensuring that when there is suspicion that a child has been trafficked, the suspicion is picked up immediately and the arrangements to handle the case are put in place.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, what discussions are ongoing between the Government and the organisations concerned with the trafficking of women and children into this country? How will the identification of the number of people trafficked, which is very vague, be improved? How will the Government tackle situations involving employment and housing, rather than just prosecuting people?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I think that the noble Baroness is referring to the desirability, with which the Government agree, of having, in effect, an end-to-end process in which one is able, through contacts abroad, to understand the systems for trafficking; to pick up the children being trafficked as and when they arrive in this country; and then to be able, with the local authority, to ensure that proper care is taken of them. That, in fact, is the Government’s aim, and we are trying to bring together a system that ensures that that happens. We are in very close consultation with those NGOs that take a strong and constructive interest.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I am sure that the Minister will agree that the end-to-end process must include healthcare. Many of the people who have been trafficked will have been very damaged by the process. What are the Government doing to support good healthcare for them?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The local authorities have overall responsibility if a child has been taken into care, and the local health authorities are involved in the process that they put in place.

[The Lord Bishop of Exeter]

My Lords, I am sure that the noble Baroness will be aware of the sterling work which has been undertaken by my friend the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York in consistently pressing Her Majesty’s Government to achieve a united front across Europe for tackling this evil of human trafficking. But is she also aware of the Tearfund report, Silent No More, which was launched this Monday at Lambeth Palace with the support of both Archbishops, and which highlights the largely untapped potential of the church in preventing and reducing the impact of sexual violence, and the associated task of improving attitudes to women in many parts of the world? Will she join me in welcoming and commending this important report?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I pay tribute to the very notable work done by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York. It gives me great pleasure to be able to welcome this church initiative.

Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, has come in behind an amendment that I put down. I hope that this is one of many occasions when the noble Lord will come in behind amendments that I put down in this House.

I am very interested to hear from the Minister—the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones—why the Government have decided to join the Opposition on this amendment. Both at Second Reading and in Committee, I raised concerns that there are real risks of allowing criminality to return to an industry that has cleaned up its act dramatically in recent years. I have always felt it to be reassuring when you go into a venue and meet security personnel with credentials on display that show that the individual has reached a certain standard, had a Criminal Records Bureau check and is deemed to be a fit and proper person to undertake this kind of work.

Maybe the Minister will tell us that the Government are prepared to delete this body from the Bill, but will work behind the scenes and bring something back in the future. If that happens, I am sure that this House will give it the line-by-line scrutiny it deserves. It is important to ensure that we take the industry with us; the industry does not want to see the criminals return. Security checks on individuals who want to join the industry remain. A common approach to a problem that has largely been solved, but may need to be reviewed and updated as things change, could command support across the House if handled properly and built on what has been achieved in recent years.

I will leave it there; I do not wish to detain the House longer than necessary. I am eager to hear from the Minister.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Neville-Jones)]

My Lords, the amendment removes the Security Industry Authority from the list of public bodies that the Minister can abolish by secondary legislation. Some noble Lords may wonder why the Government are supporting an amendment which is the same as one which the Opposition put forward a few weeks ago and which we then resisted. If I go into the Government’s reasoning behind our approach to the Bill, it will then become clear why we are now supporting this amendment.

First, our willingness to accept the amendment does not represent a change of policy; it remains the Government’s intention to abolish the SIA in its present form. We have, however, decided that this will be best achieved through a different piece of primary legislation. As noble Lords know, it was announced on 14 October as part of the public bodies review that the SIA would no longer be a non-departmental public body and that we would take forward a phased transition to a new regulatory regime. I went through the reasons for that during the Committee debate on 28 February, and I do not intend to detain the House at this hour by going over that ground again. I am sure that noble Lords will welcome that.

Home Office Ministers asked the SIA last October to consult key stakeholders, including the industry, and to produce a detailed plan of how the phased transition to the new regulatory regime could be achieved. As the House will know, the chair of the SIA, the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, and its chief executive, Bill Butler, presented their plan to the department on 16 February and there has been a subsequent meeting with the Home Secretary on 14 March, so there has been close dialogue between the SIA and the department.

The key points that emerge from the proposals are that: regulation will shift from licensing individuals to registering businesses, which will have to meet a comprehensive set of conditions set by the new regulator; the regulation of individuals will become the responsibility of registered businesses, which is an important point; the new regulator will have the power to impose sanctions, including removing the right to trade in the private security industry on the part of businesses that fail to comply with the conditions that it sets for registration; and the Government’s aim is for the new regulatory regime to be in place by the end of 2013, using a phased approach to ensure a smooth transition.

We have decided to support the amendment to remove the SIA from the Bill because Clause 1 includes only powers to abolish bodies and transfer functions via secondary legislation. It does not include powers to set up new regulatory bodies, and it has become clear that primary legislation will be required to establish a successor self-regulatory body that will have the power to impose sanctions on businesses that do not comply with set standards. If I understood the noble Lord’s point, he attaches importance to the idea that the regulatory body should have teeth. The Government agree—in other words, it must have powers that will enable it to enforce sanctions against companies that breach standards.

We have therefore taken the opportunity to review, and decided that references to the SIA should be removed from the Bill. The same primary legislative vehicle that will establish the successor regulatory body will also be used to abolish the SIA, so we will put it all in another Bill. I am sure that noble Lords will understand that I cannot give further detail on that legislation today, except to say that we will bring it forward when parliamentary time allows.

A final point: the Home Secretary has also written to Ministers in the Scottish Government and in the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland to advise them of this amendment. Regulation of the private security industry in their nations is a policy decision for the devolved Administrations to make. We are working with them to ensure that transitional and subsequent arrangements meet the needs of all UK Administrations.

Accepting the amendment does not constitute a change in policy; it is a change to the vehicle that the Government will use to deliver that policy. There is wide agreement between the Government and what I understand to be the points made on the opposition Benches regarding the substance. It is still the Government’s intention to abolish the existing body and replace it with another body for the private security industry that is self-regulatory. I therefore support the amendment.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I apologise that I did not stand up before. As the name of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, is on the amendment, I wanted to see what the noble Baroness was going to say in response before I could intervene. I have a couple of questions further to her speech.

The Minister suggested that we are thinking very much along the same lines; I think that that was what she said towards the end of her speech. Let me be clear that we do not agree with the Government about the future of the SIA because we believe that it is essentially doing a good job as it is. As we understand it, the industry itself is content with the present situation and willing to pay for the present system.

I return to two issues that were raised in the debate that we had in Committee. One was the attitude of the police. As all noble Lords will know, when we brought forward the primary legislation, one of the main bodies in favour of primary legislation being introduced were the police themselves, who felt that the security industry when unregulated was rather a dangerous industry, not just for the people working in the industry themselves but also for the wider society. It was as a means of protecting wider society that the legislation was introduced.

I will be grateful if the noble Baroness can tell us whether or not a consultation with the police and other concerned bodies will take place before a Bill is introduced. I will also be grateful if she can tell the House when a Bill is likely to be introduced. One of the issues that concerns these Benches is the fact that, in future, it is hoped by the Government that the regulation of individuals working within the security industry should become the responsibility of the security businesses themselves. That is precisely why primary legislation was introduced in the first place. The industry was not properly investigating or in charge of the individuals who were working in the industry and this led to endangering some of the people who depended on the security industry—for example, the young in nightclubs.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, raised a question about prisoners in the last debate on the subject. At the moment where prisoners are moved from prison to prison, the wherewithal to do it is provided by the security industry. That is an extremely important part of the industry that needs to be properly regulated. Will the Government consult with the Ministry of Justice and everybody else who has anything to do with the movement of prisoners and the wider care of prisoners? As I understand it, people who work within the security industry are sometimes employed within private prisons. It does not seem a sensible move or good idea to reintroduce some form of self-regulation rather than to have proper regulation for an industry that is extremely important for the well-being of our society.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I am slightly puzzled that the noble Baroness says that the opposition Benches do not agree with the approach that I have just outlined. Before the Government came to office, the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, herself was moving towards a more self-regulatory regime. She has seen the Home Secretary and other Ministers and is working with the Government on a transitional regime to a new body. I find it difficult to see why there should be such a problem for the opposition Benches.

On the question of the attitude of the police, we are consulting ACPO, which supports the approach. The police attach importance to effective regulation. That is precisely why I made my third point, in relation to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, in the previous debate. This body will have power to impose sanctions on businesses that do not comply with set standards. There will be set standards in a number of areas. Certainly, the whole question of custody will be one of those areas of set standards. I have to say that the differences are more synthetic than real. I hope that in due course, when we introduce and come to debate the legislation—I am not, unfortunately, able to give the noble Baroness a date for that because it depends on the crush of parliamentary business—there will be cross-party agreement.

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, my name is also on this amendment. Indeed, it was my amendment in Committee to which the noble Baroness responded. The Government, understandably, are a little diffident towards the Opposition tonight. The fact is that there has been, if not quite a U-turn, definitely a bit of a C-turn on this—quite rightly, too. Under the Bill as printed, the Government were going to abolish this body. They were not going to substitute statutorily backed self-regulation. What existed in the SIA was going disappear. The regulation of the industry and the personnel within it, and the standards and the great improvement in those standards that we have seen since the SIA was set up, could have been seriously endangered.

Just before the previous vote, the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, met a certain degree of scepticism from these Benches when he said that the Government were a listening Government. At least on this amendment the Government have listened to some degree.

Passenger Name Records: EUC Report

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Neville-Jones)]

My Lords, I join noble Lords in expressing my gratitude to the European Union Select Committee for organising this debate. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, for acknowledging the Government’s willingness to give practical effect to the procedural undertakings that they have given. As a result, we have had a discussion on the Floor of the House at an early stage of consideration. The Government will take very serious account of what has been said today.

One of the things that has emerged from the debate is that the European Union Committee, the Government and a number of noble Lords are in agreement that there is concrete evidence of the utility and benefits to be derived from the analysis of PNR data in terms of passengers’ security. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, put the case for the directive containing intra-EU PNR data as well as data on third-country flights as least as cogently as I could, if not more so. Therefore, I do not need to go over why the Government consider this to be an important part of the legislation, and why they wish to continue to strive to get it included. We have consistently argued that the directive should contain this information and that it should cover intra-EU routes.

I note what my noble friend Lord Hodgson said—that this is a “nice to have” rather than a “must have”. However, I shall seek to explain why the Government take a different view for two reasons. First, the argument that it is possible to evade the information that this provision might yield by choosing another form of transport may be valid. However, that is not itself a compelling argument for not obtaining the information if you believe it to be necessary to inhibit terrorism. Secondly—this is the major point—we have had ample evidence since earlier drafts of this legislation that aviation is a major terrorist target. We cannot ignore that. Therefore, it is right, consistent with individuals’ right to privacy—I entirely take the points that have been made about that and will return to them—to provide and maintain the maximum security that we can for passengers on aircraft, otherwise aircraft may well be blown up before they reach us.

[Lord Dykes]

Further to that point, with which I agree, does the Minister agree that it is remarkable that, although the security procedures at airports are extremely irritating for most passengers and that we all suffer, there is a high degree of psychological support for those measures among passengers, who know how vulnerable air flights are?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The noble Lord’s point is entirely well made. One of the things that the Government are nevertheless trying to do, with international co-operation, is to reduce as much as possible the burden of those procedures—a lot of them are physical. The more information we have that enables us to alleviate some of the other constraints and put them together in a package, the safer we will be and the less intrusive the security procedures will be.

The noble Earl, Lord Erroll, made various points. API information is already collected and it is possible to know with whom you are travelling. He is quite right to say that extra information will be collected. It is precisely because that information includes details of how the ticket was paid for, which is a major indicator of the kind of passenger with whom you are dealing, that it is thought wise and helpful to have it. This directive will go no further in the information that it asks for than that which is already contained in the agreements that the EU has negotiated with third countries, such as the United States, Australia, Canada and possibly others. I repeat that the Government’s first duty is to ensure the security of their citizens.

The UK has tabled an amendment that it hopes may form part of the negotiations. Our view is that the directive should allow member states—not oblige them, if that is unachievable—to require carriers to provide PNR data. That will increase effectiveness and help us to ensure that our borders are adequately protected. The committee and the House will entirely understand that this is a key consideration regarding our decision on whether we opt in.

We have been lobbying hard on this issue for some considerable time. I am pleased that an increasing number of member states are being persuaded by the arguments involved. However, I have to say that we do not yet believe that we have reached where we need to be to ensure that such a requirement becomes part of the directive. A great deal of work remains to be done. Even if we obtain the support we need in the Council, the Government are also conscious that many Members of the European Parliament hold strong views on data protection and on whether the proposed measure is proportionate. I know that many noble Lords have connections with Members of the European Parliament, and the Government would be extremely grateful if noble Lords, if they had occasion to, were able to persuade those MEPs of the merits of our case and reassure them on any concerns they may have.

I say to the noble Earl, Lord Erroll and others that the Government will take the whole question of the safeguarding of this information extremely seriously. There is a whole section of the proposed directive that addresses that issue, and we will scrutinise that as carefully as anyone. We understand and believe in the necessity of allowing security and privacy to ride together, and not allowing them to be put in opposition to each other. We believe that the directive is proportionate, and that it would continue to be proportionate if it included intra-EU PNR.

The House wishes to know whether the Government will be able to opt in. As I said, further work must be done on the directive and we must do more lobbying in order to get to the place where we feel we need to be. There will be further discussion of the directive at an important home affairs Council on 11 April. We are striving to ensure that the Council, in its final statement, will send a strong signal that intra-EU PNR will be the common position. If we can get that signal, it is likely—and that is a very positive “likely”—that we shall want to opt in to the directive from the outset.

I hope that the House will accept that at this stage the Government need to maximise their negotiating leverage. They will reflect very carefully on the points that have been made today before they reach a final decision; they take the points made by noble Lords extremely seriously. There may be points of detail between us, but not fundamental points. We will of course communicate our decision to the House as soon as it has been made.

Sex Offenders Register

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the statement repeated by Baroness Neville-Jones on 16 February (HL Deb, cols. 714–15) on the sex offenders register, to what extent the statement took account of ministers’ duty to uphold the independence of the judiciary under section 3 of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Neville-Jones)]

My Lords, Ministers are fully mindful of their duty under the Act. HMG took account of their duty to uphold the independence of the judiciary by taking steps to remedy the incompatibility identified by the court.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that Answer. It is clearly right that we do everything we can to protect the public from sex offenders, but does she accept that the Home Secretary went too far when she described an eminently reasonable judgment of the Supreme Court as appalling? Has her right honourable friend the Home Secretary been reprimanded by the Lord Chancellor and, if not, why not?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I should like to make two points in response to that. First, there was real public anxiety about some of the potential consequences of the judgment, which was being reflected by the Government. The Government have taken appropriate action to meet the court’s judgment and to protect the public interest. Secondly, the Lord Chancellor has no doubt spoken to his colleagues.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure for us on the Cross Benches when the pot calls the kettle black. No doubt the Minister will recall that it was a Labour Home Secretary, Mr Blunkett, who wrote in the Evening Standard that he would not give in to the judges. Would the Minister therefore suggest to her right honourable friend that she would do better to follow the line taken by another Labour Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, who, when asked to comment on an adverse court decision, of which there were a great many, would only ever say that he was disappointed?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, it is not a question of giving in to the courts; it is undoubtedly a question of the proper implementation of court judgments and the role of Parliament in making legislation.

[Lord Howard of Lympne]

My Lords, we all respect the independence of the judiciary, but does not this case illustrate one of the difficulties caused by the Human Rights Act, which requires judges to go beyond their traditional role of interpreting the will of Parliament and to substitute their own views on proportionality? Is it not that which justifies the concerns of those of us who believe that these matters should be decided by Parliament?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I am sure that the whole House recognises the importance of proportionality and it will note the important point that has just been made.

[Lord Corbett of Castle Vale]

In light of the decision of the court on the right of sex offenders to be able to appeal against their place on the register after 15 years, why did the Government come to the view that it was right to exclude a mental health tribunal or any other judicial body from that review process? It is fatuous for the Minister to say, as she did, that a policeman—she meant a police officer, I am sure—will know far more about the person whom he has been supervising than anyone else. Does she not realise that police officers, like offenders, move around? We cannot expect police officers to be as independent as professional and experienced people. A police officer can have a role in going to a tribunal to put a point of view. Will she think again about this?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, the Government do not accept that the procedure being proposed is fatuous. Police officers concerned have a much better idea than many others about the nature of the conduct of the defendant, both in prison and later, and they are appropriate people to take a view on this. Moreover, they will do so in consultation with other agencies, as the MAPPA process, in which other specialists will be involved, will be taken into account.

[Lord Macdonald of River Glaven]

Does the Minister acknowledge that there is great disappointment on these Benches too at the tone of the Home Secretary’s Statement and that we had hoped that that sort of language had been left behind by the coalition Government. Can she explain how the Prime Minister’s statement in connection with the same case, that the Government would do the “minimum necessary” to comply with a judgment of the United Kingdom Supreme Court, was calculated to encourage respect for the rule of law?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I think that the Government should be judged by their actions. In this instance, they have put forward a reasonable, proportionate and effective proposal to meet the judgment of the court.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, would the noble Baroness not agree that the making of judgments, not just about matters of proportionality but also about reasonableness, is an inherent part of the judicial process, which is not just a matter of mechanistically interpreting the law?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I am sure that the Government and the House would agree with that sentiment.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that it is right that the judge’s ruling should be observed by the Government and that they should take steps to implement such rulings which are in accordance with our present law? There is no question of the judges usurping the responsibilities of Parliament because of the way in which the Human Rights Act is framed, but we have an obligation, as a matter of treaty and convention, to obey the provisions of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The Government accept that the convention has to be observed and that the Act has to be interpreted and they will act on their duties under both.

Prostitution

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Neville-Jones)]

My Lords, the Government are looking at the approaches taken towards prostitution in different localities throughout England and Wales in order to identify effective practice in terms of policing, minimising harm, multiagency working and enabling people involved in prostitution to leave it. Practical guidance for local areas will be published later in the spring. As the noble Baroness will be aware, the Government have accepted 21 of the 23 recommendations of her recent review. I should like to thank the noble Baroness, particularly on behalf of the Home Secretary, for the wisdom and hard work that she has brought to this issue.

[Baroness Stern]

I thank the Minister for that extremely encouraging reply and for her very kind remarks about the rape review. Does she recall that after the conviction following the horrible murders of three street prostitutes in Bradford, the Association of Chief Police Officers called for a review of the laws on prostitution and for a dialogue on better ways to manage the problem? Does she accept that the current law is far from ideal? It does not protect prostitutes from danger, it does not help—as it should—those who want to exit prostitution, and it does not help the police to manage the problem. Does she intend to have a dialogue with the Association of Chief Police Officers about this?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My understanding is that it was one particular member of ACPO who commented recently on the subject and that his remarks focused more on management issues—in particular, the establishment of the database, how we fund it, how we get at information about how people are led into prostitution and what we then do about it—than on changing the law. The Government’s attitude to the legal situation is that given that there has been a recent change in the law, about which my party had some misgivings, we should now let the change settle down and see how it operates. However, we are doing that on the basis of very close evaluation of its effectiveness.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

Is the noble Baroness aware that women and children who are trafficked end up in prostitution? What is being done to make sure that the people who are trafficking women and children are prosecuted, rather than the women and children?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, trafficking people is a very serious offence, in which the Serious Organised Crime Agency takes a particular interest. I assure the noble Baroness that we are aware of the degree to which prostitution is fed by traffickers, and we will tackle it both at the trafficking end and the prostitution end where women unfortunately become involved. We entirely agree about how serious this is.

[Baroness Trumpington]

My Lords, is there any liaison between the Minister’s department and the Department of Health? As she may be aware, I made known my views on brothels during the debate last week on International Women’s Day. For a long time I have argued that it would be good to have brothels registered so that doctors could do regular inspections. That would help with health and liaison with the police over crime.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, there is a great deal of multi-agency working in this area. I am afraid that I am not aware of the detail of the relationship between the Home Office and the Department of Health, but I will write to the noble Baroness on that subject. I entirely agree that the health aspect of prostitution is an extremely important angle. Her point is well taken.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

As a co-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Human Trafficking, I will take up the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen. Is the Minister aware that if these women who are trafficked from overseas are processed too quickly and sent back to their homes, many of them are very likely to be retrafficked? That is particularly true if they are sent back to villages in China and Romania.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The noble and learned Baroness has just told me something of which I was not aware. I do not know whether the department is aware of it, but I will certainly take the point away because it is extremely salient.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester]

My Lords, following the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, does the Minister agree, without commenting on any case currently before the courts, that a woman working in the sex industry who claims to have been assaulted by men should expect protection from the police and from society, rather than face prosecution for brothel keeping?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

She is certainly entitled to protection from the police in cases of violence. We still have the legal situation, but she is certainly entitled to protection against violence.

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of the considerable work done in Ipswich after the dreadful murders of five prostitutes in 2006? Does she agree that the Ipswich prostitution strategy, which brings together all partners such as health, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Trumpington, referred, local authorities, police and probation, is an excellent example that should be implemented nationally?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

Schemes of that kind are examples of best practice that the Government wish to foster. We must tackle prostitution at a local level if we are ever to be effective in any of the measures that we take against it.

Drug Use and Possession: Royal Commission

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Neville-Jones)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Norton for the thoughtful way in which he introduced this debate on a subject of very considerable public import that, precisely because of the harms associated with it, excites very considerable strength of feeling and, I have to say, disagreement. There is a broad consensus on some of the damage that it does; where those who are informed as well as those who are uninformed part company with each other is on what we do about it.

I would like to respond to the points raised and set out the Government’s thinking as it has developed on the drug strategy. Between us and those advocating decriminalisation, which I have to tell noble Lords the Government are not going to engage in, there is common ground on some of the things that we consider need to accompany a policy that continues to classify drugs and criminalise the taking of them. Do we believe in an evidence-based policy? Most certainly. Do we think that the law can do it all by itself? Certainly not. We certainly think that both education and treatment need to be integral parts of policy. Do drugs contribute to global crime at all levels, violent as well as organised? Yes, absolutely they do. Do we need therefore to take action? Clearly, we do.

The example of Portugal has been mentioned, and I shall come to that in a moment, because the conclusions that you draw from the evidence in front of you is going to influence what you say about what should happen next. The picture that emerges from Portugal is somewhat more complex than some noble Lords have allowed.

Let me say something about how the Government’s thinking is developing and then I shall return in the light of that to some of the comments that have been made. As the House will be aware, in December last year the Government launched their new drugs strategy, whose component parts include: reducing demand; restricting supply; building recovery; and supporting people to live a drug-free life. The supporting part is very important.

The strategy has two high-level ambitions, one of which is to reduce illicit and other harmful drug use. I might say that we do take a dim view of alcohol abuse, which we also believe needs to be tackled. Some of the treatments that accompany that are much like those for the abuse of drugs. It is for the reason that alcohol abuse is certainly going up that we are clamping down on below-cost sales of alcohol and restricting their sale to young people, and so on. We do think that that needs tackling—so there is nothing between us on the subject of the evils of alcohol abuse. However, we do not believe that because alcohol abuse is going up, that is somehow reason for not being tough about drugs as well.

Our second ambition is to increase the number of individuals who are able to recover from their dependency on drugs or alcohol. In delivering these ambitions for the next four years, we are committed to an evidence-based approach, and we will undertake evaluation of the policy as we go along. We are not suggesting that we will pursue this policy irrespective of what the evidence shows that its results might be. I assure and promise noble Lords that constant evaluation will be an integral part of the approach that we pursue, and we will take into account the wider evidence available. I have to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, that I have asked whether we have any social research on the stocks at the moment. I fear that the answer is no, and I think that is something that we should take away.

High-quality advice on this complex field is obviously of the utmost importance. We value greatly the work of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, and the proper consideration of its advice is at the heart of enabling us to deliver this strategy. We are developing with it an evaluation framework to assess the effectiveness and value for money of the drugs strategy. We will redo that on annual basis and from that annual review we will then develop further initiatives and actions as the programme develops. That I hope will give us the necessary flexibility to respond to changes in the drugs scene and the nature of the trade and based on the outcomes that we are managing to achieve.

The Government are also ensuring that our policies complement each other and build the necessary links between the strategy itself and sentencing, welfare and public health reforms so that we optimise the outcomes and the cost-effectiveness of individual policies.

A number of noble Lords have mentioned the whole question of impact assessment. I have some sympathy with this notion. It is very hard, however, to know what you are measuring. One reason is that it is extremely difficult to disaggregate the interaction of various phenomena. Two honest people can measure an impact and come out with a different answer. I hope the House would agree that we have to tackle the complexity of the interaction of various factors. I hope if we are able to do that it will give us a better clue as to how to proceed.

I suppose I need to say at this point that, although we are going to go through evaluation, we do not intend to go for a thoroughgoing review. We do not consider that that is warranted. What we want to do is to give the strategy that we are outlining, which contains new components of policy, a good try to see what it delivers. We are not a Government who will take no notice of the results of policy, but we certainly think that the case at the moment is made for proceeding with the policy on the basis of constant review.

As I said, we have decided that we are not going to decriminalise, but we are going to deal with a lot of the features of the scene. The four decades of the Misuse of Drugs Act have provided the UK with a coherent legislative framework. Although some noble Lords seemed to think that we could somehow duck our international obligations, we do not believe that is actually the case. We have to engage in policies which restrict the availability of drugs and their misuse and which protect public health and welfare. We will continue to try to do that.

We will engage in a number of positive features in our policy—I think it is important to do that—but before I come to that issue I want to say something about the relationship between the level of crime and drug use. The findings from the British Crime Survey 2009-10 show that drug use among young people in the 16 to 24 age group has fallen to 20 per cent, from 29.7 per cent when the survey began. That is quite a significant drop. The latest figures from the NHS Information Centre’s annual survey of drug misuse in England, which was published earlier this year, confirmed the downward trend of the past few years. That is why I mentioned the complexity of interaction. That is an encouraging phenomenon and we would like to know exactly why that is happening.

We want to empower young people to steer clear from drugs rather than encourage their consumption. In due course we shall be debating the Government’s proposals in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill for the introduction of temporary banning measures, which was mentioned by a number of noble Lords. We believe that it is right and proper to have measures in place to be able to ban such substances. The experience of methadrone convinces us it is the right thing to have done. The ban had an impact on attitudes—consumption went down. We are certainly not of the view that it is wise to give the impression that, because a drug is legal, it is therefore safe. Indeed, some of those drugs are extremely damaging.

As part of reducing the demand strand of the drug strategy, we want to help people resist the pressures to take drugs and the encouragement that may come in their lifestyles and we want to make it easier for those who have taken drugs to stop. This is key to reducing the huge cost to society. We will focus in our strategy on early years prevention, particularly for families who have complex needs, and we will provide high-quality drug and alcohol education and information to young families and parents through schools, colleges, universities and the Frank service. Education was stressed by a number of noble Lords. We certainly intend to lay a lot of emphasis on that. We will provide intensive support to vulnerable young people to stop them becoming involved in drug and alcohol misuse.

We also wish to give discretion to the police on whether to prosecute in given circumstances and to the judiciary to take into account all the circumstances of an offence. In practice, the law enforcement element is one that we wish to see used judiciously. It is fair to say that some of the results in Portugal, where it has been said that legalisation has taken place, do the opposite in that they put people into treatment, which is what we want to see happen here. However, some of the picture in Portugal is not so good. It is the country in Europe, I think, that has the second highest level of HIV. There are relationships between these various phenomena.

Very few custodial sentences are imposed for simple possession offences and a fine is the most commonly imposed conviction.

[Baroness Meacher]

Before the Minister sits down, will she explain why she will not have a review of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971? It has obviously now been in place for 40 years. Whatever may be said about Portugal, the reality is it had a very high level of HIV before decriminalisation and now has a very good record. Most importantly, young people there are now less and less likely to go into drug addiction. In view of this evidence, will the Minister explain to the House why the Government will not even look at and evaluate, whether through an impact assessment or a royal commission, their own policies? We have very high levels of drug use in this country, and we are not doing well.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am afraid that we are out of time.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The noble Baroness is doing us a slight injustice. I did not say that we would not look at anything; I said that we were going to base our current policy on constant evaluation. We understand that we need to look at how successful our policy is being. We do not believe, on the basis of the strategy that we wish to pursue, which has new elements to it, that the moment has come for a thoroughgoing review, but we are going to continue to evaluate the effects of our policy. I hope that that will convince noble Lords that we are not going into this absolutely blindly.

I would like to say one or two other things, but I must conclude. The Government will put resources, energy and ambition into pursuing a policy that we are endeavouring to make broader in its scope and more effective in its outcomes.

Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 (Continuance in Force of Sections 1 to 9) Order 2011

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved By

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

That the draft order laid before the House on 3 February be approved.

Relevant documents: 15th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, 8th Report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Neville-Jones)]

My Lords, the purpose of the order before the House today is to renew Sections 1 to 9 of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 pending their repeal and replacement with an alternative regime. These sections expire after one year unless renewed by order subject to the affirmative resolution of both Houses. The effect of this order will be to maintain the control orders powers until 31 December 2011, and I emphasise that this is a limited and temporary renewal. As the Home Secretary said on 26 January in another place, this allows us to bring forward the legislation introducing a replacement system. In due course the House will obviously be able to debate the new legislation in detail.

By way of a preliminary I should like to set out the context for the proposal before the House. Sadly, I have to say that the threat to the United Kingdom from terrorism is as serious as we have faced at any time, and it remains assessed by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre as “severe”. Since the beginning of the year, there have been a number of major terrorist attacks that have resulted in the deaths of many innocent people. These attacks have occurred in different countries from Russia to Afghanistan to Yemen and to the Philippines, and they show that a large number of fatalities still result from terrorist attacks. This country has been well protected, but nevertheless in the UK we have witnessed a number of significant terrorist plots that have been uncovered over the past year, and recent investigations and trials show that terrorist networks are continuing to plan and to attempt to carry out attacks. The threat we face continues to evolve, and I do not think that it is going to diminish or change to any material extent in the near future. That is the background against which we have to look at the temporary legislation and the new regime.

The coalition’s commitment to redress the balance in our counterterrorism powers was made in the run-up to the election and we therefore conducted a review of the counterterrorism and security powers. That review included consideration of the necessity, effectiveness and proportionality of control orders. On behalf of the Government I thank the independent oversight given to that review by the noble Lord, and now my noble friend Lord Macdonald. The review underlined that the Government’s absolute priority is to prosecute suspected terrorists in open court and that imposing restrictions on suspected terrorists who have not been convicted in open court should be the last resort. I want to emphasise that prosecution is our objective. Where restrictions are required they should, as far as possible but given the need to protect the public, continue to support the primary objective of prosecution.

The review concluded that for the foreseeable future there is likely to continue to be a small number of people in the United Kingdom who pose a real threat to our security but who, despite our best efforts, cannot be prosecuted or, in the case of foreign nationals, deported. Our reluctant conclusion is that there will therefore continue to be a need for a mechanism to protect the public from the threat of such individuals.

Noble Lords may be aware that the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, reached the same conclusion in his most recent and, indeed, his last independent report on control orders, and the other statutory consultees support the proposal to renew the control order powers. I should like to say to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and I am sure that other noble Lords will want to join me in this, that the Government thank him for his very thorough work over the past 10 years on the review process. His reports have been a model of clarity and succinctness and a great aid towards everyone’s understanding of what was at issue.

I am aware that a number of Members of this House and members of committees have said that they would have liked to have been able to see, at the time of the renewal of this order, the legislation that we are going to bring forward. I have to say that we will bring forward that legislation as soon as we can. We regard it as extremely important to get it right. We do not want to get ourselves into a position where subsequently we are reviewed and changed in our intentions through court action.

However, it is only right, as we have already done, to give the highlights of the provisions that we intend to bring forward, which mark real changes in the regime. It will provide, among other things, a two-year maximum time limit on the measures, which will clearly demonstrate that these are targeted and temporary. It will be possible to impose a further measure on an individual only if there is evidence of new terrorism-related activity after the original measure was imposed, which of course is different from the current situation. Measures will have to meet the evidential test of reasonable belief that a person is or has been involved in terrorist-related activity, and this of course is a higher threshold than the test of reasonable suspicion of such involvement, which of course exists under the current control order regime.

The police will be under a strengthened legal duty to inform the Home Secretary about their ongoing review of a person’s conduct with a view to bringing a prosecution. A more flexible overnight residence requirement will replace the current curfew arrangements. Forcible relocation to other parts of the country will be ended. Geographical boundaries will be replaced with a power to impose much more tightly defined exclusion from particular places only. There will be no power to exclude someone, for instance, from the totality of, say, a London borough. Individuals will have greater freedom of communication, which will include access to a mobile phone and to a home computer with internet access, subject to certain conditions such as providing passwords. They will have greater freedom to associate. For example, there will be no blanket restrictions on visitors or meetings. They will be prohibited only from associating with people who may facilitate terrorism-related activity. And of course they will be free to work and to study, subject again to any restrictions necessary to protect the public.

These changes will allow individuals to continue to lead a normal life as far as possible, subject only to the restrictions necessary to prevent or disrupt involvement in terrorism-related activity. We are clear that the more limited restrictions that may be imposed may indeed facilitate further investigation as well as prevent terrorism-related activities. The new regime will be accompanied by an increase in funding for the police and the Security Service to enhance their investigative capabilities. That is an absolutely key part of the new measures. We intend to bring forward legislation to this effect shortly and, as I have said, it must be properly prepared so that it may be properly scrutinised by this House. We welcome the support given by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, to these measures and, indeed, the comments that have been made by the Joint Committee on Human Rights in its recent reports. The committee has expressed some welcome, even if perhaps only cautious, to the new system. The Government will of course reply formally to the detailed recommendations that have been made in those reports.

In the mean time, the Government are clear that it would be irresponsible to allow the current regime to lapse in the absence of alternative measures and while the investigative capabilities of the law enforcement and security agencies remain to be developed. As I say, that is a key part of the new regime. It is therefore important to underline that, for the time being, control orders should remain legally viable. While they may be imperfect, they have had some success in protecting the public and they are fully compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights.

It is sometimes asserted that controlled individuals do not know why they are subject to a control order. I remind the House that, as a result of the Law Lords judgment of June 2009 in AF and others, this is no longer the case. That judgment specified that controlled individuals must be given sufficient information about the case against them to enable them to give effective instructions to the special advocate.

Pending the introduction of the replacement to control orders, we believe that it is right, proper, proportionate and essential that these powers continue to be available in order to protect the public. As I have said, we are currently preparing the legislation to introduce the replacement system, which we will bring forward in the coming weeks. I have no doubt that noble Lords will want to give the new measures thorough scrutiny and we must have time to do that. While that process is under way, it would not be responsible for us to leave a gap in public protection. Therefore, we believe that it is right to ask the House to renew the powers for this temporary period, the alternative being a situation in which those who pose a threat to our safety could go about their activities with far too great freedom.

This is the last occasion on which the House will be asked to renew these powers. Before transition to the new regime is complete, the risk to the public would be grave indeed were the control order powers not to be renewed. I therefore ask the House to approve the renewal of the powers for the transitional period. I commend the order to the House.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

My Lords, as all your Lordships know, control orders were introduced in March 2005 as an emergency measure. We in this House, after an all-night sitting which I shall never forget, insisted that the Government should have to come back after 12 months in order to justify the extraordinary powers which had been conferred on the then Home Secretary. They were indeed extraordinary powers, because they enabled him, on suspicion, to impose what amounted in effect to house arrest on an individual who had never been charged with any offence. Yet here we are, six years later, being asked to renew those very same powers yet again.

In a powerful briefing note which I am sure the Minister has read with care, Liberty describes the control order regime as being “completely discredited”. It would be difficult indeed to disagree with that view. However, Liberty is equally critical of what is now proposed in place of the control order regime, the so-called terrorism prevention and investigation measures —TPIM for short. We do not, of course, know what the Bill will contain, and it is the greatest pity that we do not have a draft of the Bill before us today. When we do get it, I hope that it will be subject to pre-legislative review.

The present indications are that the Bill will contain many of the objectionable features of the existing control order regime. Indeed, Liberty describes the new regime in its briefing note as simply control orders under a different name. Whether or not that is right is not a question for discussion today; that will be a matter for great debate when we see the Bill. No doubt the Government will then argue—as the Minister has indicated already—that there is a real difference between the Home Secretary being required to believe that a person is a terrorist and the Home Secretary being required to suspect that he is. Similarly, the Government will no doubt argue that the overnight residence requirement is much less restrictive than the curfew, which is to be abolished, and no doubt they will argue that the TPIM will allow access to the internet and much greater freedom to communicate and associate with others.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, for introducing the order. I echo my noble friend Lord Judd in thanking our security services and police for their co-ordinated work in keeping us safe. We know that plots have been foiled recently. It is clearly our duty to provide the police and security services with the tools and procedures that they need to do their job effectively. As we have heard today and in previous debates, that sometimes means walking a very difficult line in balancing individual freedom with collective safety—the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, put that very well—with the rights of the wider community sometimes outweighing the rights of the individual. Control orders have been the tool for that and I thought that the Minister said that they had had some success. In an ideal world we would not wish to use control orders. It would be greatly preferable if our criminal justice system could deal with terrorists who wished to cause us harm but the view was taken by the previous Government and previous Home Secretaries that control orders were a necessary evil.

The order before us provides for the continuation of the power to make a control order against an individual when the Secretary of State has reasonable grounds for suspecting that the individual is, or has been, involved in terrorism-related activity. I echo the noble Baroness’s tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for the work that he has done. We know that eight people are subject to control orders at the moment. My understanding—perhaps the noble Baroness will confirm this—is that some of these orders have been made since the coalition Government came to power. The implication of what the Minister has said is that the Government recognise that a number of people pose a real threat to our security who cannot be prosecuted or deported. Therefore, the Government have come face to face with reality in recognising the need for a mechanism to protect the public from the threat that such individuals pose. The Sixth Report of the Independent Reviewer states clearly:

“The control orders system, or an alternative system providing equivalent and proportionate public protection, remains necessary, but only for a small number of cases where robust information is available to the effect that the individual in question presents a considerable risk to national security, and conventional prosecution is not realistic”.

It looks like the Government have gone through a steep learning curve in the past few months, but one of the results is an absurd situation whereby the order on 28-day detention was allowed to lapse without the draft emergency legislation being in place. Legislation has now been published but, as yet, we do not know when Parliament will discuss it.

A number of noble Lords referred to the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights that examines whether Parliament should be given the opportunity to conduct pre-legislative scrutiny of the proposed emergency legislation. The noble Baroness will know that the Select Committee said that it does not accept the Government’s reasoning for not providing this opportunity and recommends that the legislation should be published and made available to Parliament for pre-legislative scrutiny. I invite the noble Baroness to comment on that specific recommendation. I also echo the point raised by my noble friend Lord Judd, who referred to the recommendation in the committee’s report that the Government should publish a summary of the views of a number of the agencies involved in counterterrorism in order to facilitate parliamentary scrutiny of the review. I accept that the report was published only a few days ago and I would not expect the Government already to be able to come to your Lordships’ House with a full response. That would be unreasonable. However, the noble Baroness should be able to say broadly whether she accepts those recommendations and can respond to them.

It is noticeable that the proposed new control order regime pays particular attention to surveillance. We are told that sufficient finance will be available to the police and security services for that resource-intensive proposal. Will new money be made available? The noble Baroness owes it to the House to inform us as to how continuation of the current control order regime will be dealt with, given the financial cuts that the police and the security services are facing. I pray in aid to the noble Baroness the report published today that details some of those cuts.

Will the noble Baroness inform the House about the impact on the capability of our counterterrorism work of the changes proposed in the Police Reform Bill that is now in the other place? That is highly relevant to this order and to what is likely to take place over the next few months. I have great reservations about the proposal to impose elected police commissioners on our police forces. I have no doubt whatever that it risks politicisation of our forces and inevitably corruption. That is a debate for another day, but I am concerned about the impact on national strategic policing issues, which are relevant to this debate.

There can be little doubt that police commissioners will be elected on manifestos that are bound to focus on local policing issues. I suspect that it will be a question of which candidate proposes more bobbies on the beat. That is fair enough, but what if these elected police commissioners neglect their national responsibilities? What if they do not make appropriate resources available for counterterrorism work? The noble Baroness speaks with great authority on this issue. Is she convinced that there will be sufficient intervention powers at a national level to ensure that elected police commissioners do not inhibit national security work in which the police have a major role to play? I assure her that we will come back to that issue.

These are not easy issues. As every noble Lord who spoke today said, we in this country have a long tradition of individual rights and freedoms. We are all very proud of that. As the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, said, we have responsibilities for the safety and security of the public in very challenging times. It is a very difficult balance to achieve. The Official Opposition support the extension of the order this evening. We look forward to the new legislation on how we can scrutinise what happens. I hope that we will be able to reach consensus that meets the requirements of individual freedoms while keeping the safety of our country to the fore.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I thank the House for the thoughtful tone of the debate that followed my opening remarks. It demonstrated, not surprisingly, that there is a range of views on these issues. There are strong principles involved and I do not resile in any way from the principled stand that I took in opposition. However, I always said—and it is still the case—that one has to measure what one does against the security needs of the country, and what one does must be consistent with those needs. It is a matter of regret that we came to the conclusion that we cannot simply revert to a situation in which we can rely on open and normal prosecution through the courts. It is much to be desired that that is where we will come to. However, after detailed examination—this was a very thorough process—we came to the reluctant conclusion that we could not dispense entirely with the measures that lie alongside the normal judicial system.

I am grateful to noble Lords for many of their remarks. Perhaps I might have wished that more recognition had been given to the differences that exist between the measures that we are proposing and those that exist at the moment. We had regard to what was said, in particular about the psychological effects of relocation; we took a view on the necessity of a very long curfew; and we did our best to create a situation in which normal life will be open to those who are under restrictions and they will be able to work. Many of them do not, but we would like those who have work to be able to do it. We are trying extremely hard not to distort the lives of those individuals who are under restrictions any more than is necessary.

There will be an opportunity for scrutiny of this legislation. That is one reason for wanting to have in place a temporary regime. I was asked about pre-legislative scrutiny. The Government have no problem with this. It is partly a question of the amount of time available to do various things. I am sure that the House will attach importance to us not continuing the existing control order regime longer than we need to. We must allow enough time for scrutiny on the Floor of the House, not only of the TPIMs but also, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, remarked, of the emergency provisions. I take his point and put it to noble Lords that we need to be practical about how we go about giving the scrutiny that this House and the other place will want to give to this legislation. I am not saying that the Government see an obstacle to it in principle; it is simply that we have doubts about the practicality.

I was asked whether there will be new money for the extra surveillance. The answer is yes, and I shall come back to that in a moment. I was also asked whether we will give information about, or publish, the evidence given by some of the services in the process of the review. I am not going to promise that. I think it will be perfectly understandable to Members of this House why it is necessary to keep the confidence of the security services, in particular, but also the police in this matter. We will do our best to—

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

The Select Committee’s report came out only a few days ago. Is that a considered response in the light of the report? I entirely understand the point that she is making but I wonder whether the Government need to give a little more time to that.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

As I said, I am not going to make that promise. I was about to add a sentence when the noble Lord rose. We will take this under advisement and see whether we can give some kind of summary, but if the noble Lord does not mind, I do not want to give a totally definitive answer to that point this evening.

I was asked a number of detailed points and I shall try, without detaining the House for too long, to go through some of them. Right at the beginning, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, asked a number of questions which I think bear on points made subsequently in debate. The implication of his remarks was: would we honour seriously what we have said about the importance of continuing to seek prosecutions? I have three things to say about that. One is that the CORG which he mentioned will conduct serious work. I think that it has always been a serious body but the Government are going to make absolutely certain that the conduct of the CORG—the review body that keeps these cases under continuous and pretty close scrutiny—is serious. We have, I hope, created a situation in which there will be greater possibilities for prosecution. I stress to the House that I think it is only fair to say that the primary purpose of these measures is still protective. Nevertheless, within the scope that is offered, we will certainly be looking at the possibility of continuing and bringing prosecutions. Indeed, the operation of the TPIMs themselves may allow that to happen.

I was also asked why, if we believe that the control orders are imperfect—as, indeed, I said myself—we do not abolish them straightaway. I was asked whether it would not be right to do just that. I remind the House of the condition which is very important to our ability to move to a looser regime, and that is the surveillance that needs to be put in place in order to provide the public with the necessary security. That surveillance does not exist at the moment. Individuals have to be recruited; people have to be trained; and we have to have extra capacity and capability in that area, which we do not have at the moment. I do not think it is reasonable to say that you should be able to abolish the existing regime for the individuals who are currently under control orders in the absence of the necessary conditions for a new regime. Having said that, clearly the current control orders come up for regular review. We shall be reviewing them and of course we will be looking at individuals’ cases in the light of their situations. As I have said, there is clearly a transition to be undertaken. I do not think that I can go further than that at the moment. I understand perfectly well the point that has been made but I hope that noble Lords will also understand the constraints that we are under in moving quickly from one regime to another.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

My Lords, perhaps I can deal with the issue of moving people to places like Leicester or up to Norfolk and so on. We have decided that that is abhorrent and that it will not be sought by the Home Secretary. Therefore, can we not now bring back from exile the people who have been put on those orders?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

When the circumstances are in place and we have the necessary surveillance and protection for the public, we will be able to do so. First we must put in place the conditions that will enable us to operate the new regime.

The noble Lord, Lord Judd, is absolutely right to say, as I should have said, that the Government are extremely pleased that the Joint Committee on Human Rights has welcomed the change. He will also have observed that I did not miss the fact that there were some qualifications in the views expressed by the committee. We shall certainly take those seriously. In particular, he mentioned the unhappiness about the conditions under which special advocates have to operate. In the report there are one or two instances of the special advocates’ conditions of work being eased. It is a big issue and it goes wider than control orders. That will be taken up and examined, and part of the Green Paper that the Government are to bring forward will be devoted to the use of special advocates and the conditions under which they should be able to work for their clients.

I would like to reiterate my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald. He did us the honour of saying that he felt that the process had been an honest and thorough one. I am extremely grateful for that, as it is valuable to have that endorsement. I have to be honest and say that there is some light between us on the balance to be struck between protection and prosecution. That is an issue that we shall want to explore further in debate. We entirely agree with him about the supremacy of due process and I do not deny at all that the control order regime inhibits prosecution. We are trying to strike a balance that will enable us to have greater emphasis on the prosecution side of things. However, I cannot conceal from the House that the protective element in the TPIMs is a primary objective.

I believe that I have covered most points. One noble Lord mentioned the role of the reviewer. We now have a new statutory reviewer and, having met him, I have total confidence that he will do an extremely thorough and careful job. I think that he will be a safeguard against the danger to which the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, pointed—the difference that turns out to be not a difference but a continuation of the existing situation. I do not believe that that is the Government’s intention or the effect of implementation, but there will be that safeguard. He will also report on individual cases. It is right that we should leave that role to him; I do not want to do that role myself.

I hope that I have covered the main points raised in the debate. Perhaps not surprisingly, the noble Lord opposite tried to get me on to the effect of the police reform Bill. I remind him that the budget for counterterrorism is protected. There will be more information about the whole role of the National Crime Agency. I assure him that the national functions of the police will be just as protected as our desire to ensure that the accountability to local authorities on the part of the police and crime commissioners is also a feature of modern policing.

Given the prospect of scrutinising the new regime with the thoroughness that I know this House will wish to apply, and with the clarification that I have been able to give, I hope the House will agree that the order can be renewed, and I commend it to the House.

Motion agreed.

Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend Lady Royall of Blaisdon. I am most surprised that the Government proposed the abolition of the Security Industry Authority in the first place and that they have not moved on this matter. The Security Industry Authority is a great success story. It has professionalised the private security industry, driven out criminality and ensured that people are safe when attending a variety of events in pubs, clubs and elsewhere. I am aware that they have their own licensing body. I was at a football match on Saturday and it was reassuring, walking around the ground, to see security professionals with accreditation on their arms. How different that was only a few years ago.

I read the Government’s brief. It provides no reassurance on the position going forward. In the document, the Government say that Ministers decided that there is no evidence that the Security Industry Authority carried out a function that needed to be undertaken by a public body. Will the Minister expand on that in her response? Also, whatever is decided in the future, it must surely be inferior to what we have at present, if for no other reason than the fact, as my noble friend Lord Foulkes said, that different systems operate different authorities round the country. It is ridiculous.

I also ask, as my noble friend Lady Royall did, how the Government will ensure that criminality is kept out of the industry. I am pleased that the Government say in the briefing note that there will be little change this side of the Olympics in 2012—though, for me, that highlights the weakness of the proposals in the first place. I would like the Minister to comment on that in her response as well.

I agree with the comments of my noble friend Lord Whitty about the respectable and less respectable arms of the industry. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Henig for all the work that she has done. In conclusion, I hope that the Minister has something to say and is at least prepared to take away this proposal and come back with something on Report.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Neville-Jones)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords who have spoken in this debate and made some important points. Many of them I accept. In putting forward the Government’s proposed measure, I hope to convince the Committee that many of the anxieties they have expressed will prove unfounded.

The Government intend to resist this amendment, which would remove the Security Industry Authority from the list of public bodies that Ministers will be able to abolish via secondary legislation. We will do so because we consider it unnecessary. I want to explain what the Government intend to do because I believe that many of the things that have been said on the Floor this evening perhaps represent a situation that no longer pertains.

Before I do that, I join other noble Lords in expressing my appreciation for the work done by the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, as chairman of the SIA. There is no doubt that under her guidance the authority has raised the standards of the industry, which is one of the things that give us confidence that we can move on to a different regime. I will come back to that in a moment. Many of the things that she said are points on which there is a very large measure of agreement between her, the Government and, I hope, other Members of your Lordships' House.

In looking at the SIA, the Government have applied a number of tests to retention in the public bodies review. We concluded that there was not compelling evidence that, given the standards that are now being reached, the SIA’s functions need to continue to be performed by a public body. The SIA was established by the Private Security Industry Act 2001, as has been said, and it has succeeded, as was the intention, in reducing criminality in the security industry. It also set out to improve standards. The approval system has undoubtedly resulted in improvements in those standards and uses the compulsory licensing of individuals to achieve the reduction in criminality. It carries out criminality and identity checks in addition to confirming the training that has to be completed before issuing a licence.

The Government do not intend that any alternative regime should result in a lowering of these standards. Licensing began in 2004, and there are currently more than 350,000 licensed individuals. The SIA has done something else important, which is to raise standards through the voluntary approved contractor scheme that allows companies to demonstrate that they meet a wide range of standards and are therefore worthy of being accredited as approved providers of security industry services. That is also something that will continue. More than 650 companies employing about two-thirds of the industry now have the ACS standard. That is a record of achievement and I pay tribute to it.

On that basis, however, we believe that it is now right to move over time to a new regulatory regime. I stress that it will be a regulatory regime. The private security industry has matured under the aegis of the SIA since SIA regulation began, and there is evidence of increased standards in the industry. We believe that employers should now be given more responsibility for making safe and legal recruitment decisions in the same way as employers in other professions. In other words, they should not have normal responsibilities removed from them.

As was mentioned in the debate, the security industry has formed a so-called security alliance of trade bodies which by their own reckoning represent more than 80 per cent of the regulated security industry. This group recently wrote to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary responsible for equalities and criminal information, Miss Lynne Featherstone, and outlined its willingness to work with the Government. It has already been working with the SIA to shape the future regulation of its industry, as the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, mentioned. Indeed, we intend to build on the work that has already been done. There is no doubt that challenges still lie ahead for the industry, but I have a slightly different picture of the attitude of the industry and some of those who are affected by the changes that lie ahead. It is more positive than has been noted in discussions so far. There is no doubt that they are willing. They have shown considerable alacrity in stepping up to take responsibility. That should encourage noble Lords.

[Baroness Meacher]

The Minister has repeatedly referred to the industry as though it was some uniform set of organisations. Does she accept that there is a tremendous divide between the reputable end of the industry and these highly dubious individuals and pairs of people who go about taking work in the security industry? You cannot refer to them in the same breath—and certainly not in the same phrase. Does she accept that?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I accept that this industry—I do not know what other term I can use: perhaps “this occupation”—has a wide spectrum of activities and individuals in it. I will come to that in a moment. I want to encourage your Lordships to have more confidence that those in this industry can be relied on and are willing to take further responsibility and be more accountable for their own actions in future. I understand that there is some concern that if the SIA is abolished there will be no effective regulation of the private security industry. I want to offer reassurance on that point. We are not going to do anything immediate. We have been convinced by those who have argued that that would be unwise and that it would not be sensible to do that. The regulation of the private security industry will continue in its present form. The SIA will not be abolished until the new regulatory regime has been fully established and is properly functioning.

Since the outcome of the public bodies review was announced by the Cabinet Office on 14 October, Home Office Ministers and officials have been in close contact with the SIA to discuss how to take this forward. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Equalities and Criminal Information, who is the lead Home Office Minister for the SIA, has met the SIA representatives. The Home Secretary herself has been in correspondence with the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, about the future.

Ministers have asked the SIA to work with the private security industry and key stakeholders to put together a detailed plan to achieve a phased transition to a new regulatory regime. We do not intend to do this in anything but careful detail. To inform the plan, the SIA started targeted consultations with stakeholders, including industry and law enforcement partners. The police were mentioned, and they are involved in the consultation process. A detail of the phased introduction of the new regulatory regime that will replace regulation by the SIA will be the product. The SIA started this work by hosting an initial meeting with a number of industry stakeholders on 28 October. I understand that this work is progressing well.

In the Second Reading debate on this Bill on 9 November, the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, stated that the SIA had already agreed with the industry,

“a blueprint for the next few years to move to greater industry involvement in the regulatory regime”.—[Official Report, 9/11/10; col. 133]

She also quoted from a letter that she had had from the Home Secretary in which she very kindly said that she was happy to accede to the Home Secretary’s wish to ensure that,

“any transition to a new regulatory regime is phased in smoothly and takes into account the needs of the industry as well as the priorities of the Government including the devolved Administrations”.

To confirm the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, the Home Secretary has agreed that there should be no significant change prior to the Olympic Games in 2012. That is in line with a number of measures in other areas in which we are staying any kind of change until after the Olympic Games.

My point in all this is that the SIA itself is involved in the work to move towards something that is described as self-regulation by the private security industry but which is a pretty tough form of self-regulation. I will come back to some of the details in a moment. The SIA plan was presented to Home Office Ministers earlier this month for consideration, and on 16 February there was another meeting with Lynne Featherstone to discuss the plan further. We have now considered and agreed that this will form the basis for moving forward on phased transition. I hope I am reassuring the Committee that this process is being done in careful consultation with the SIA and the industry on the basis of trying to ensure, therefore, that we come out with a regime that offers the same degree of assurance of high standards that has already been established.

As a result of the consultation, we are now in a position to give a few more details of the shape of the new regulatory regime, although the Committee will understand that as we are still in discussion—the whole point of the discussions is to get an agreed format between the parties—not all the details have been decided. So far, the agreed proposals will ensure that responsibility for the private security industry is transferred to a new body for self-regulation as soon as that is sensible after 2012—not before it is sensible and not before the Olympics in 2012. No significant change will happen before that.

Primary legislation will then be needed to set up the new regulatory body that will succeed the SIA. We will ensure that provision is included in a future Home Office Bill. Full transition to the new regime should, we hope, be completed by the end of 2013. Again, this is not a rushed process.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Would that be a new regulatory body for England or for the United Kingdom? If only for England, what will the situation be in other parts of United Kingdom?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I will come to the noble Lord’s point about the relationship with the devolved Administrations. I have it in mind.

The new regime will also see a significant shift of responsibility from individual workers to businesses. That is one of the changes in structure. We believe that that will be efficient and that it will also reduce regulatory costs and burdens. Instead of every single employee having to be registered separately at a cost of something like £250 each, it will be a business paying for the registration. In getting that registration, businesses will be required to show that they meet a comprehensive set of conditions set by the new body.

The industry itself has a strong interest in ensuring that the standards it sets are maintained and that they are high. Clearly, that has to be one of the really important parts of the new regime. Businesses that fail to meet these comprehensive conditions will have their rights to trade in private security removed. There is no reason to suppose that somehow a transition to another regime will by definition, and automatically, result in a lowering of standards. On the contrary, the industry will have a strong self-interest in ensuring that the cowboys are not allowed in and are not permitted to sully the reputation of an industry that is responsible for its regulation. There is a strong incentive actually to take this regime and make it work well.

It is obviously too early to give full details on costs, but we know that instead of more than 350,000 individuals paying £245 each for licences, much of which is currently paid for by the companies that employ them, the new regime will involve fewer than 5,000 companies having to register, giving considerable saving to the industry.

One of the other things that we are doing, however, is to ensure that the impact on smaller businesses is minimised by reflecting business size in the registration fees in the new regime, so that we do not get a situation in which small companies are paying a flat fee which is the same size as very large ones. They will be gradated. There will also be a sensibly phased transition to the new regime, the details of which are still to be worked out. We do not expect all businesses to move to the regime at the same time. Some of the big boys are clearly going to be ready to move at an early stage. Some of the smaller companies will not necessarily be so ready, and they will be given time to achieve the necessary transition. The big ones that have already met the high standards of the approved contractor scheme will be able and willing to move immediately, but we will maintain mechanisms to ensure that smaller companies, which may not be in the position immediately to transition to the new regime, can continue to trade.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

Does the Minister envisage, in the new regime, that the individuals themselves will undergo CRB checks?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

Clearly, CRB checks will be relevant. I cannot immediately answer whether they have to be done by the individuals themselves or by their businesses to ensure that they are employing fit and proper people. I would have to write to the noble Lord. The registering of these individuals is another point that worried some noble Lords, who thought that this new method of regulation would somehow allow the bottom end of the industry to have free rein, if I can put it that way. This will not be permitted, because a registry of individuals will also be maintained by the new body to support the needs of the customer and the industry. That will do two things. First, it will ensure that named individuals are known to the regulatory body. Secondly, it will enable those individuals who are of fit and proper standing to move from one company to another with greater ease than would otherwise be the case. Any proposed changes will be subject to parliamentary approval. I thank the SIA for the help that they are giving in moving the industry along to the new regime. We have also asked the SIA if they will take forward the work necessary to ensure the full delivery. This Bill confers an ability to abolish the SIA, but this will be done only at an appropriate time in the transition to the regulatory regime.

Some noble Lords, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, raised the issue of the response of the devolved Administrations. Since the correspondence to which he referred, and which I have seen, there have been further contacts with the devolved Administrations, and we are now in consultation with both the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive. Although it is the case that, on a voluntary basis, both the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive decided that they would accept the regulation of the SIA, the regulation of the private security industry is a policy decision for the devolved Administrations. It is a devolved matter, which we fully respect, and they will have the opportunity, if they choose to exercise it, to have a different regime. However, I agree with the noble Lord, that, given the nature of the industry, which operates across the country, it would be highly desirable if we could get agreement on a single regime.

[Lord Empey]

I thank the Minister for giving way. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, raised this earlier. I declare an interest as a member of the justice committee of the Northern Ireland Executive. The reason why we have a particular issue must be fairly obvious to most Members. We have a lot of people who, sadly, have come from a background where they were, shall I put it, organised, and were able to bring intimidation and pressure and other things to bear. Consequently, we are not talking about precisely the same situation that would exist here, albeit that there are always criminal elements there. The noble Baroness, Lady Henig, asked whether the results of the election in May would make any difference. I think that they will not, because the circumstances that we have had to deal with have a long history and will take some further time yet to work their way out of the system. I do not anticipate any immediate change in the regime following the elections in May.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I understand entirely the point that the noble Lord makes. I would say two things about that. Clearly, it is desirable if the regulatory regime that operates throughout the United Kingdom makes it easy for companies to operate across all three Administrations. It does not follow from that that these regimes have to be identical. Certainly, the Home Office takes the view that if, for regional and local needs, variation is needed, we would want to accommodate that. The object is to get an effective regulatory regime that does not put obstacles in the way of companies operating across the country but permits local variation, if it is necessary.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I know that there are other topics that we need to discuss and I apologise for intervening, but it looks as if we are moving inevitably towards a separate regime, with a Scottish and a Northern Ireland Security Industry Authority operating as the Security Industry Authority in the UK does at present and a move to a completely different regulatory regime in England. Is that not absolutely daft? It will create huge problems for the security industry. Why are we doing it? Would it not be better to accept what the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, the Security Industry Authority, all the people in the security industry and the Scottish and Northern Irish Parliaments have said, and stick to the present arrangement? Why are the Government so determined to change, when no money is going to be saved and no advantage will be given? Also, I hope that at some point the Minister will answer the question asked by my noble friend Lord Kennedy. If it is so important to keep the authority going for the Olympics, does not that undermine the whole argument for changing at all?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

To take the noble Lord’s last point, I do not think that it follows that, because one decides not to make a change before a big event, there is no case for change at all. It does not follow at all. It is a sensible thing not to institute change immediately before a big event. However, it does not follow that no change is possible or desirable.

On the noble Lord’s other point, I think that he is jumping to conclusions. It is not our impression that the attitude of the Scottish Government is as negative as he fears it may be. We are in consultation and I do not think that what I said indicated that we were suddenly leaping to entirely different regimes. We are going to have consultation; we believe that it will be possible to have a national regime. We may need, and it may be fitting, to have a certain amount of local variation. However, as I say, that is an area that is still being consulted about. We will work for a sensible outcome and we want one that fits the needs of all UK Administrations.

Some noble Lords raised the issue of wheel clamping. I should mention it briefly. As was rightly mentioned, the Government are taking measures to regulate this area, which include the abolition of the right to clamp and tow away on private land. This legislation will be put into effect through the Protection of Freedoms Bill. The ban will end the abuse by devious firms and their employees who prey on motorists with signage, excessive fees and unscrupulous towing. That regime is going to come to an end, which obviously means that the power does not need to be included in the new regulatory regime.

The noble Baroness asked whether we were also going to cover parking tickets. That is not an SIA issue. It is regulated by the Department for Transport and the DVLA, so it lies outside the scope of this piece of legislation.

The SIA had already proposed the move to a more self-regulatory model before the Government took this issue on. It is in the spirit of building on that that we want to proceed. If the amendment were accepted, it would create an administrative anomaly that would deliver, in our view, no benefits to the public, even after the SIA had successfully implemented its plans to transition to the new regulatory regime. We are endeavouring to work in close co-operation with the existing authority on a transition to a regime that we hope the authority itself will feel fulfils the job, so I hope that, on that basis, the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, before my noble friend decides what to do with this amendment, I should like to ask a question. I understood the noble Baroness to say that, at the final stage of this, we will need further primary legislation. If that is the case, I do not understand her last point. Why do we need to include the SIA in this Bill if we are going to deal with it later in primary legislation?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

Having removed the basis for the present regime, we obviously need to have a basis for the new regime.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I am utterly perplexed at the end of this very good debate. We have a regime which was introduced seven years ago at the behest of the police and the industry itself—the good elements of the industry—as well as Parliamentarians. The Minister herself has said that standards have been raised as a consequence of this good regime; it is working well throughout the United Kingdom. Usually, when there are demands for a regulatory body to be disbanded, it is because the industry itself wants it to be disbanded or because of an exorbitant cost. It seems to me that there is no cost in this; the industry is very happy to meet the bills and is content with the present situation. It looks very much as though the Government are tinkering around the edges—forgive me if it sounds rude—and they are tinkering with a system which is working well and that everybody is content with. I simply do not understand why we are dealing with this issue now.

I recognise, as the noble Baroness has said, that the industry is content to have a phased transition, but it seems to be a complex way of going about things. I do not feel at all reassured by what she has said this evening. The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, about the interaction between the security industry and the prison service—which, if I had thought about it, I would have been dismayed and concerned about—makes me even more concerned about the proposal before us today. The noble Baroness has talked about the need for transition and has said that consultation is already taking place. She has also said that primary legislation will be needed for a new body, so I am slightly perplexed as to what we are doing now. Notwithstanding that, I am content to withdraw my amendment now, but I will certainly bring back an amendment on Report.