EU: European Investigation Order

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 27th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest as a patron of Fair Trials International.

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

My Lords, the Secretary of State for the Home Department has today made a Statement in the other place to the effect that the UK has today formally indicated to the President of the European Council that the UK wishes to opt into the EIO.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that response, but I hope she will forgive me if I ask her to recognise that many people were very disturbed by this decision. Is she aware that at present, inter alia, there is no agreed basic standard across Europe for pre-trial evidence gathering and analysis, no implementation of basic minimum procedural defence safeguards and no coherent data protection regime? As a result there is a widespread view that there is likely to be an inequality of arms between defence and prosecution, and that will cover important areas such as proportionality, extraterritoriality and double jeopardy. Given this, would it not have been better for us not to opt in, bearing in mind that we cannot opt out once we have opted in, until we saw the final shape of the document and could be certain that its contents would provide satisfactory safeguards for our civil liberties? Otherwise, are we not signing, or have we not signed, a blank cheque?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I have to disagree with my noble friend. We believe that opting into the EIO is in the interests of justice. It does not transfer any jurisdiction, which is what many might have feared, and we actually believe that the system of mutual legal assistance, which is already operating, deserves to be improved by one of the main innovations that will take place as a result of the EIO—setting deadlines for the receipt of evidence that is sent from one country to another. That is one of the current defects of mutual legal assistance. In other respects, the EIO does not change the present regime.

[Lord Brett]

My Lords, I welcome today’s decision by the Government, which perhaps gives little comfort to the noble Lord who asked the Question. Should it not be the case—will the Minister agree?—that there should be greater consideration of the rights of the suspect, and should this not include judicial scrutiny at both the issuing and executing stages?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I am afraid that I did not hear the noble Lord’s question. Can he repeat it, please?

[Lord Brett]

Fortunately it was brief. Does the Minister agree that there should be greater consideration of the rights of the suspect and that it should include judicial scrutiny at both the issuing and executing stages?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, there are certainly some reservations about the operation of mutual legal assistance, which is a separate issue from the actual operation of, or changes to, the regime that the EIO will bring. Some of the matters that we are reviewing include the reservations expressed about the operation of mutual legal assistance.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that this is a great extension of the European Union’s power and influence over policing in this country and, indeed, over the judiciary? Can I have her assurance that this matter will be discussed in full by both Houses of Parliament?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

An understood procedure for considering issues of this kind was laid down by the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton. The Government are following that procedure. The order resulting from that will follow the normal procedure in the European Union.

[Lord Tebbit]

My Lords, does my noble friend think that opting into an arrangement whereby foreign police and other authorities can instruct British police to gather evidence on their behalf sits very well with the proposal for elected police commissioners, in the interests of the big society?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I have to say to my noble friend that there is no provision whereby and no way in which, under the EIO, foreign police authorities can exercise jurisdiction in this country. It is not a provision of the EIO, is not a feature of the MLA, and will not happen.

[Lord Tebbit]

My Lords, my noble friend may have misunderstood me. I did not suggest that foreign police officers would be able to exercise jurisdiction. I suggested that, as I understood it, this new departure would allow foreign police authorities to instruct British police authorities to gather evidence on their behalf. Is that so or not?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I apologise to my noble friend if I misunderstood his question. Foreign police may request the assistance of British police. They may not instruct.

[Lord Tomlinson]

My Lords, is that not a transfer of sovereignty which, under coalition policy, ought to be put to a referendum?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The noble Lord is entirely mistaken. This is mutual legal assistance between national legal regimes.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that this is one of a number of steps that will make it more difficult for people to forum-shop for the legal jurisdictions that best suit them?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

It is certainly the case that mutual legal assistance regularises the likelihood of trials taking place in the proper place.

Policing

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Monday 26th July 2010 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I would like to repeat a Statement made earlier today in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department.

“Mr Speaker, with permission, I would like to make a Statement about a consultation paper I am publishing today. Called Policing in the 21st Century: Reconnecting Police and the People, it sets out the most radical reforms to policing in at least 50 years. For this Government, police reform is a priority, not just because we inherited the worst public finances of any major economy, but because for far too long the police have become disconnected from the communities they serve. They have been bogged down by bureaucracy, and they have answered to distant politicians instead of the people. Crime remains too high, too many families and communities suffer from anti-social behaviour, and barely half the public are confident that important local issues are dealt with. Meanwhile, the challenges we face have changed. Terrorism and the growth in serious organised crime and cybercrime all require new approaches that cross not just police force boundaries but international borders.

First, we will transfer power back to the people. We will introduce directly elected police and crime commissioners by 2012. The commissioners will set the police budget, determine police force priorities, and have the power to hire, and when necessary fire, their chief constable. To help the public hold their local police force to account, we will publish local crime data and mandate beat meetings so that people can challenge the performance of their neighbourhood policing teams.

Secondly, we will return professional responsibility to police officers. Front-line staff will no longer be form writers but crime fighters, freed up from bureaucracy and central guidance and trusted to get on with their jobs. We have scrapped the policing pledge. We have got rid of the confidence target. We will restore police discretion over charging decisions for particular offences. We will limit the reporting requirements for stop and search, and we will scrap the stop form in its entirety.

Thirdly, we will shift the focus of government. As the Home Affairs Select Committee noted during the last Parliament, the last Government tried to micromanage local policing but failed to support forces effectively on national issues. We will build on the work of the Serious Organised Crime Agency to create a more powerful National Crime Agency, which will tackle organised crime and protect our borders. We will phase out the National Policing Improvement Agency and scrap Labour’s plans for a statutory police senior appointments panel. We will discuss with the Association of Chief Police Officers the way forward in its role as a professional leadership body.

Fourthly, we will make the police more efficient at force, regional and national levels so that front-line local policing can be sustained. To this end, we are already consulting separately on police procurement regulations to get better value for taxpayers’ money.

Fifthly, we will unleash the power of community pride and civic responsibility so that people can come together to cut crime. We will look for a cost-effective way to establish 101 as a single police non-emergency number so that it is easier to report crime and anti-social behaviour, and we will do more to encourage active citizens to become special constables, community crime fighters and members of neighbourhood watch groups.

There is nothing inevitable about crime. That is why we are determined to press ahead with these reforms. They demonstrate our determination to undo the damage of the Labour years, to put the people back in charge, and to rid our communities of crime, anti-social behaviour and disorder. I commend this Statement to the House.”

That concludes the Statement.

[Lord Brett]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement made by the Home Secretary in another place and for her letter notifying me of the review and inviting views.

Passing over the pejorative paragraph, repeated by the Government ad nauseam, about public finances, I am struck by the rhetorical style of the Statement, with phrases such as,

“power back to the people”.

I know that the Minister bears no resemblance to Wolfie Smith, but the Home Secretary’s call sounds to me more like that of the Tooting Popular Front than of responsible government. I refer particularly to the proposal to legislate to remove police authorities in favour of elected police commissioners with wide powers. This is done in the name of accountability. It is backed up by the police being required to publish local crime figures and data, and the mandating of meetings so that people can meet, and challenge the performance of, their neighbourhood policing teams. Is that revolutionary action? Well, not quite.

The Minister tells us that the Government have scrapped the policing pledge. I am sure that that was said in the other place with a flourish. Let us examine what has been scrapped. Let us look at policing pledge number 9, which states:

“We will arrange regular public meetings to agree your priorities at least once a month, giving you a chance to meet your local team with other members of your community. These will include opportunities such as surgeries, street briefings and mobile police station visits which will be arranged to meet local needs and requirements. We will provide monthly updates on progress and on local crime and policing issues. This will include the provision of crime maps, information on specific crimes and what happened to those brought to justice, details of what action we and our partners are taking to make your neighbourhood safer and information on how your force is performing”.

The pledge now contains an update on progress and meetings with local representatives. Therefore, what the Statement promises is already in place in the policing pledge, which the Home Secretary has chosen to scrap.

I turn to elected police commissioners, which the Statement says is about accountability to the public. Let us see how it impacts on the public. What is the current level of accountability? I commend to all Members of your Lordships' House an excellent debate last Thursday on policing and crime rates proposed by my noble friend Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate. He made clear all the areas of accountability that the police already have. Consultation on local policing, as set out in the policing pledge, is now apparently to be reinstated.

The issue is therefore one of scrapping the police authorities, which are currently made up of elected council members from all the major parties, independent councillors and independent appointed members. Their role is to be invested in a police commissioner, who, unless he or she has a wide-reaching consultative body of some kind, will inevitably narrow the consideration of public accountability that now exists in law enforcement and local government.

A number of people have voiced to me their fears of political interference and the potential for cronyism and corruption among elected police commissioners. Why should that be? In an elected police authority, which comprises members of different political parties, people will express different views about policing. They will be tackling the same issues. There is no evidence that that has led to anything other than consensus policing, which has assisted chief constables in meeting their operational requirements while enforcing the accountability that we want. No one in the police service, in police authorities or in local authorities has any great confidence in this proposal.

If the overwhelming response to the consultation on elected police commissioners is negative, as it was when a similar question was asked in a survey in 2004, will the Minister abandon the proposal? The Local Government Association says that elected police commissioners will cost £50 million. What is the Minister’s estimate of the cost? Will not the abolition of the police authorities remove a reservoir of knowledge and experience that no single individual can replace?

If I were to stand for police commissioner for Cumbria, in whatever competition there was—and I buy completely the idea that there should be no interference in the policing part of the role of the chief constable—I would get elected by making promises. That is how people get elected. Those promises might include a rebalance between rural and urban policing in Cumbria. The chief constable is very clear that with the reduced resources he is likely to have, the way to do it is the way he is doing it, so I have a problem at re-election of presenting how I delivered my promises. That at least has major potential for political interference. If I do not interfere, how do I deliver the promises on which I have been elected against whatever party or non-party opposition that has stood in the same competition?

On the SOCA proposal, the coalition agreement talks of refocusing SOCA, not eliminating it. Is this a coalition U-turn? A press briefing over the weekend talked of creating a British FBI. Is this the Government’s intention? This has been denied in the past and there have been very clear views from senior police that that is not what is required. A good friend of mine with the metropolitan police in Washington DC said to me in the late 1980s that FBI stood for “famous but incompetent”. When I questioned that, he said that he was referring not to the ability of FBI agents but to everything from what you might call turf wars to the unwillingness of certain parts of local law enforcement and the agency to accept the authority of the other. There are major problems attached to this, and I would be very interested to hear more on that subject.

We also hear that there is to be an enhanced border police force. Is this to replace the UKBA? Is this going to impact on numbers? It is very odd because in the debate last Thursday, and indeed in every previous attempt by this side in both this House and the other place, we have tried to persuade Ministers to admit simply that with the kind of cuts that they are contemplating, there will be fewer police on the beat and fewer resources available to maintain the present successful battle against crime. When I say “successful”, I agree with the noble Baroness that it can always be improved, but it is not a damaged record. It is the best record for 30 years, the level of confidence among the public is the best in 30 years, and there is the least lack of confidence in the ability to deal with social issues and anti-social behaviour. It is therefore a rhetorical, Wolfie Smith-type Statement, and it would be better if we dealt with it in a much more serious manner.

We are making major moves ahead of the review that we are told will take place in October, so I ask yet again: is that going to reduce the number of front-line police officers or not?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, 68 per cent of the public in recent surveys support the idea of having elected commissioners, and I hear what the noble Lord says about the way in which the police authorities have performed. I do not think that the Government are suggesting that the police authorities have done a sustainedly bad job, but they are invisible to the local population. One of the main objects of this exercise is to reconnect the police force of the locality with the people of the locality, and we believe that the way to do that is to have an official who has to account to the people. We are trying to get away from the police accounting bureaucratically upwards instead of being the servants of their local populations. With all the measures that we are trying to put in place, including the beat meetings and the crime and policing panels, it is not true to say that there will be no checks and balances in the system. The police commissioner will himself be answerable to these panels. They have the right to challenge his decisions. They cannot override them, but they can certainly conduct dialogue in the name of the local people, so you will have local discussion. There is probably a philosophical difference between my party and the other side of the House on the need to reconnect authority over the police to the local community.

[Lord Brett]

The noble Baroness makes a great play of the lack of connection. We have had elected and appointed members on police authorities for a number of years. Does she have information on a failure of people coming forward to be independent members of police authorities? I happen to know that in Cumbria there were 100 applicants last time for what I think were two or three posts. Is there evidence to sustain the argument that there is a disconnect, other than in surveys?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

Only 8 per cent of wards have a councillor on their local police authority. It seems to me that there is a much more slender connection between local accountability and the people than is suggested by that kind of assertion. Police commissioners are much more directly responsible and accountable to the locals than a police authority, which has relatively few councillors among its number, with an election behind them.

The noble Lord made a number of other points. The general proposition that we are putting forward here is that accountability is not to and for government but towards local communities. As the Home Affairs Committee said in its report during the last Parliament, the previous Government succeeded in micromanaging too much local policing while neglecting some of the national issues.

On the national side, the noble Lord asked a number of questions about the nature of the National Crime Agency. The agency will be a much more powerful body than we have at the moment. It will be at the centre and will take issues of national importance. It will perform in two areas. One is serious organised crime. It will build on what SOCA has done and achieved and will retain SOCA’s facilities, including its intelligence-gathering capability.

At the same time, the agency will also have control over the border police force and will direct a chief constable directed at that. The border police force will sit alongside the UKBA, which will not be incorporated into it. We have decided that for a number of reasons, including the need for economy. Also, with the Olympics in sight, it is not sensible to have vast structural change at this juncture. It therefore seems more sensible to us to have, overarching the agency, a strategy to which the agency will work. The agency will then be responsible for the part of the strategy over which it has control: serious organised crime and border policing. The UKBA will, however, be tied into that overarching strategy as well. We will therefore have a single strategy for border control, part of which will lie with the National Crime Agency—that is to say, SOCA and the functions that it performs, plus the functions that will be created for the border police command. The UKBA will work alongside the border command within the framework of that overriding and overarching strategy. The object of that exercise is to create more coherent control of the borders without resorting to excessive expense in an era in which that is not going to be possible.

I am sure that the noble Lord asked me some other questions, which I would be happy to answer; I am looking at my notes.

The noble Lord asked if it was going to be a British FBI. No, it is not going to be a British FBI. We want to try to ensure that the National Crime Agency has broader powers, but it will not have a FBI-style role. All the powers it exercises will in the end also link back to the constabularies. Part of the role of the National Crime Agency will also be to link into the constabularies when it comes to, say, level 2 crime. So it will not be divorced from the role of the 43 police forces round the country, but it will give a strategic override to that function.

[Lord Brett]

My Lords, I have one question—

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, perhaps I may ask the Minister two questions. First, can she say something about the role of local authorities? They have crime and disorder responsibilities and will need to be linked into the new arrangements. Secondly, I ask for an assurance that giving the new National Crime Agency some border responsibilities does not portray a mindset that immigration and crime are necessarily and inevitably linked.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

We intend to consult on the role of local authorities and how they will link into the police and crime commissioners. I take the point about the new agency. The fact that the UKBA will retain its own separate role alongside the border police agency indicates that we recognise that there are border control functions that are unrelated to and do not concern themselves with crime.

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, I should first remind the House that I served for more than 30 years in police forces in this country—in one of the smallest and, indeed, in the two biggest forces. I also currently hold three non-executive chairmanships of companies that have some sort of interface with the police service, although I hasten to add not directly related to the issues that have been mentioned today.

I welcome this Statement. I should say immediately and it will not be any surprise to those listening that I respect and greatly admire the police service, both for its history and for what it does today. However, there is no doubt in my mind that there has been a need for a top-to-bottom, root-and-branch overhaul of the functions of the police service for at least the last two decades and probably longer. These proposals address only some of those issues, but it is I believe a good start and I look for more to come in the future.

First, one needs to recognise that the police have slipped quite badly in terms of public confidence, and a good deal of the blame for that must come from the issue of bureaucracy in general, in the broadest sense. About 10 days ago Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, in conjunction with the Audit Commission, published a damning report on the back-office function of the police. It has grown to enormous proportions. It has been indicated that that, coupled with the growth of specialist groups, must change. Therefore, the moves in the Statement today to support a retreat from micromanagement and to cut central targets have to be applauded.

So far as the central crime agency—

[Lord Dear]

As for the National Crime Agency, I support what is being said there. I have supported border policing, working in conjunction with UKBA, for some time.

The nub of the whole problem for onlookers is with elected commissioners, and I seek two reassurances from the Minister. In principle, I give qualified support to that proposal, which amounts to a revamp or modernisation of current police authority structures, which have stood the test of time for the past 50 years. Times have changed and this may be the time to look again at the role of police authorities, but the devil is in the detail. I ask the Minister to comment on the issue of hire and fire. Hiring will need very careful handling at a time when the whole question of police leadership is under the microscope and the need is even greater to ensure that there is selection of the right person for the right job and that careers are managed not only for the benefit of the individual but to the advantage of the community. On the issue of firing I seek a very firm reassurance from the Minister. If there is the power to fire, reserve powers must be given to the Home Secretary to endorse that, or the chief officer will be at the mercy of single-issue politics and extremist groups. Comment has been made about operational independence not being damaged, and I accept that, but I seek reassurance, particularly on the issue of hire and fire. Overall, I welcome the Statement and look forward to the debates that will follow.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

On the question of hire and fire, the noble Lord is right to say that those powers are contained in the proposed remit of the police and crime commissioner, who is himself potentially subject to recall. It is not the case that any police commissioner would be able to exercise his powers unreasonably or arbitrarily without himself thereby being called to account. The whole point of having him—I mean, these individuals; I hope that there will be some women, too—accountable to the local electorate is precisely so that unreasonable behaviour can be checked. I see no reason why an elected official in such a position should behave unreasonably any more than any other elected official.

I take note of what the noble Lord says about reserve powers, and will take that back to the Home Secretary.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

I declare an interest as a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, which I understand is to be abolished under these proposals. Could I ask about this brave new world of the police and crime commissioners? In parenthesis, calling somebody a crime commissioner implies that they commission crime, which seems a slightly strange thing for the Government to want to do. Given that the commissioners will apply to the forces that provide neighbourhood policing, which is essentially visible to local communities and for which there are already substantial arrangements for local dialogue with local communities, why are other areas of policing not to have the benefit—if benefit it be—of having their own police and crime commissioners? Why, for instance, is there no police and crime commissioner for the British Transport Police or the Civil Nuclear Constabulary or the Ministry of Defence Police—or, for that matter, the City of London Police? The Civil Nuclear Constabulary and the Ministry of Defence police are extremely heavily armed and the work they do raises important issues of public accountability. The City of London has its own slightly different means of democratic control from anywhere else. Why is there not that clarity? Could the Minister also tell the House about the accountability arrangements for the new national agency, given, again, that this will have very important but not essentially visible responsibilities for policing? These are precisely the areas in which strong, robust and transparent accountability mechanisms are necessary.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The noble Lord raised the question of other functions not covered by the police and crime commissioners and he is quite right to do so. The proposals make a distinction between those issues where we believe that local accountability is of the essence, in the area of neighbourhood and constabulary activity. Where we think that the functions have a much more national character—and certainly the police commissioners themselves must contribute to efficient national policing by collaboration—such as in counterterrorism, or in the powers that are going to be grouped under the National Crime Agency, different arrangements are needed. We will certainly have to put in place, subject to further consultation, the nature of the accountability arrangements that will be required. There will certainly be accountability arrangements but they have not yet been spelled out. Our purpose today is to make it clear that lying at the core of this is the need for accountability of local and neighbourhood policing.

On the British Transport Police, there is indeed a series of other protective policing powers and activities which are not covered by today’s proposal. We are looking at the rationality of present structures in that area with a view to seeing whether we cannot make them more efficient. Again, we will have to deal, in that instance also, with the question of accountability.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, as someone who has served both as a councillor and an elected Member of Parliament for 37 years, I always felt that it was the chief constable who was accountable to local people and to his police region. If the local people were displeased about his or her performance, they were not long in making that known. Can the Minister check her facts on the make-up of police authorities? It has been my understanding that there is a large proportion of elected councillors on those boards.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The noble Lord says that chief constables are accountable. Yes, but it has to be said that police authorities as they stand at the moment had the money and the strategy and the problem that we have at the moment is that they are insufficiently accountable. I do not think it follows that because we are putting in place police and crime commissioners, the chief constable is therefore relieved of accountability. That is most certainly not the case. His accountability will be for the efficiency of his operations and he will retain his operational independence.

As for my facts on the elective elements within police authorities, it is certainly the case that each authority has 50 per cent of councillors, but it is still a small number nationally, and at ward level it is only 8 per cent.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

Perhaps the Minister can clarify the expression in the Statement that the new commissioner will “set” the budget. Do the Government really mean set the budget, or do they mean manage the budget within its existing parameters? For example, do they intend to retain the precepting arrangements whereby it is the local authority which levies it? If they do, how can this flexibility be exercised within the context of a council tax freeze, which would impact on police spending as well as local government spending?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My understanding is that the police commissioner will set the priorities for the budget and, indeed, I think that he does have a hand in the setting of the precept. I will have to write to the noble Baroness about other detail, because I would not want to mislead her.

[Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen]

Will the noble Baroness answer the question asked by my noble friend Lord Brett about the cost of elections for police commissioners?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

Clearly, elections cost money, but it is difficult to know before we have had one what they are likely to cost, although we will certainly make an estimate. The money will have to come out of the finance that is available to the Home Office for policing, but we believe that this is good value if the public are to have better control. Given the totality of the package that we are putting forward, with our determination to increase value for money, to drive down duplication and to improve procurement, for example, which at the moment is lamentably fragmented, duplicative and therefore costly, we believe that, in the end, this will not be a more costly way of running the police service than the current one.

[Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington]

My Lords, I declare an interest as the previous Prime Minister’s senior adviser on international security and the chairman of the committee set up by David Cameron to look at border policing. I have two points. First, this is a consultation paper, so other people’s views will be looked at and considered. I should like to see the evidence, if I may—no doubt the House would, too—showing how the police authorities have been a failure. The bottom line is that, having been a policeman for 46 years and inspector of constabulary for two years, during which time I was at the appointment of 12 chief constables, I have seen no evidence that police authorities are a failure—quite the opposite. When I was Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, I thought that the police authority was a very effective, although sometimes hurtful, reminder of what one’s duties were. I should like the consultation to take account of why it is thought that the police authorities in this country, linked in with local authorities, have been a failure.

Secondly, it will come as no surprise to the House to hear that I am totally in favour of where we are going with border policing and the amalgamation of some agencies that are seen to be separate in terms of where they are. The committee, which is made up of 14 people, has met for nine months to a year, during which time there has been an absolute need to firm up the borders of this country in every aspect. Yes, we are hard up for money and have to work in the financial situation in which we are, but does the Minister agree that we must work towards having a proper border policing agency as soon as we can and that that agency must be beefed up by a more effective Serious Organised Crime Agency?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The noble Lord makes two points, the first about police authorities and the second about the border policing arrangements. As I said at the outset, I do not think that the Government are claiming that police authorities have been a failure in the sense that they have not been able to exercise functions properly. The point that the Government are making is that the authorities are not visible and, in that sense, properly accountable to local people. Only 7 per cent of people know what the authorities do or have ever heard of them. Some authorities, although not all, perhaps do not rate as more than adequate. We are saying that we can do better. The whole drift of the Government’s policies is to return authority to local people and to make those who have considerable control over the condition of their daily lives more directly accountable to them. One of the ways of doing that is to give both power and authority to somebody whose job is, in the end, owed to the people who put him in that position. There is legitimate room for difference in this area and we will certainly want to consult on the functions of the police authorities and the contributions that they have made over time to see whether some of those aspects can be properly incorporated in the role of the police commissioners. However, we are determined to put police commissioners in place.

The other point that the noble Lord raised was about border policing. He asked whether what I had outlined was the last word. I do not think it is but it is certainly what we think it is sensible to do now. If we manage to get an effective strategy in place—one that unites the functions of the border policing command, which brings together several agencies which are separate at the moment—and, in turn, ensure that that strategy also incorporates the role of the UKBA, which will, however, retain its own functions, we will move a good way down the road of creating a single strategy for border policing. This is the first important thing to do. I am sure that, in the process of doing that, we will find that there are further improvements that we can make.

Turning to SOCA, or the functions performed by SOCA at the moment, I do not know what this part of the agency will eventually be called but those functions will also be closely tied into what we need to do at the border. It is very clear that we must be able to police serious organised crime at level 2. There must be good connections between the constabularies and that part of policing at the national level which is responsible for organised crime. However, we must also be able to operate at the border because of its international dimensions. We need a tight strategy which brings all these elements together.

[Lord Morris of Aberavon]

My Lords—

Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (Disclosure of Information by SOCA) Order 2010

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Monday 26th July 2010 Grand Committee

Moved By

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (Disclosure of Information by SOCA) Order 2010.

Relevant Document: Sixth Report, Session 2009-10, from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.

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

My Lords, the order will designate the functions of the UK’s anti-doping organisation as being of a public nature for the purposes of Section 33 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act. This will allow the Serious Organised Crime Agency to disclose information to UK Anti-Doping. The order was laid by the previous Government to help the UK prevent doping in sport. This Government are equally committed to tackling doping and are happy to take it forward. There is a strong public interest in preserving the integrity of sport, which is of particular significance in the run-up to our home Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012. UK Anti-Doping was set up to address this interest and to protect the right of athletes to compete in drug-free sport. UK Anti-Doping also ensures that the UK Government meet their commitments under UNESCO's anti-doping convention, which include tackling the trafficking and supply of doping substances.

The traditional way of stopping athletes doping has been through education and testing; but we have learnt that rogue scientists and cheating athletes will always try to elude the system by relying on testing not always exposing them. We must keep pace with international best practice and go after those who facilitate doping by supplying the substances that are banned in sport, which are much less detectable than they used to be. This calls for a more investigative and intelligence-based approach. Experience in other countries has shown that where there are partnerships between anti-doping organisations and law enforcement agencies, trafficking and supply routes have been disrupted and perpetrators have been caught. This approach is seen as essential by the World Anti-Doping Agency, which co-ordinates the global fight against doping in sport.

UK Anti-Doping can already obtain information from a range of sources, including the UK Border Agency and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. Allowing SOCA to have a gateway would greatly add to those sources and would be particularly important because SOCA receives information from UK police forces as well as from Interpol. That will allow UK Anti-Doping to obtain information about the traffickers and the suppliers of these substances and will avoid it having to set up separate gateways with each of the 52 police forces in the UK, taken overall.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the Minister, as she anticipated one or two of my questions, but I have a couple more—a little more than the noble Lord, Lord Brett. First, it was interesting that we are dealing with SOCA providing information to a non-departmental public body. I could have understood the position more easily were it the other way around, as SOCA is the organisation that really needs the information. However, I appreciate the concerns which underlie this measure.

I was interested in the Information Commissioner’s comments. The noble Baroness anticipated these to some extent, but his office emphasises that the question of whether disclosure of information to the anti-doping agency is fair and proportionate necessitates detailed consideration of what information is to be shared and why. I assume that this refers to the need for the assessment to be carried out on a case-by-case basis and that what is being said is that one cannot give global rubber-stamping to this work when dealing with confidentiality and human rights requirements.

The Explanatory Memorandum refers at paragraph 7.4 to,

“obtaining evidence to help pursue drugs cheats”.

I should like to understand whether that is part of this programme, if we are talking only about individuals. It does not immediately strike one as being serious and organised crime, although that may simply be the way that this paragraph is worded and that what we should understand by it is that an individual may be part of a serious and organised crime.

The Minister said that there would be no significant additional cost. Can she therefore confirm that the figures given in the papers attached to the impact statement on a requirement for eight extra staff at SOCA, with a budget of around £100,000, are correct? I appreciate that in government £100,000 is sometimes regarded as small beer, but the public might not always see it that way. I was a little surprised to see that eight more staff were needed. I should have thought that that sort of work might have been swept up in the work that was already being carried out, but I am probably too optimistic on that score.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, the noble Baroness raises a number of points. The reason that we have the arrangement of SOCA being willing to provide information to an NDPB is because the sporting community is extremely unwilling to see an extensive criminalisation of the control of doping in sporting activity and wants to try to pursue a policy where best practice, peer pressure and effective action by the sports’ regulatory bodies are the way by which it is controlled. That accounts for doing it this way. Clearly, if it was concluded that that was not effective, one would have to look again at the arrangements, but the doping that goes on at the moment is not so excessive that it is thought necessary to bring in SOCA in a big way.

On the number of people needed, unless I am mistaken, I think that the eight extra staff will not be employed by SOCA but will be acquired by UKAD, because it has to set up a unit to process the information that it gets from SOCA and to decide the action that needs to be taken. Those individuals need some security clearance, so there is a reason for needing a specialised staff. For SOCA, it is true that the information that it is able to supply is in many respects a by-product of other investigations, but it is extremely useful to the sporting regulatory agencies.

As for the question of drugs cheats, one reason why it will be increasingly necessary to go down that road is that the testing procedures have been shown to be only partially adequate, because practices have developed where either substances are used which are extraordinarily difficult to detect in tests, or they are being dosed in such small amounts that they do not show up in a test, such that one has to go to a more forensic approach to dealing with those cheats. That is why, in the end, one has to bring in an agency which might have information about suppliers. It is, in the end, the suppliers whom we need to try to choke off so that the substances never reach the performers. We are witnessing a change in the nature of the doping culture that, in turn, leads to new investigative techniques having to be employed.

[Lord Imbert]

My Lords, first, I apologise to the Minister for rising before she had had an opportunity to respond to the speech of the noble Baroness.

Your Lordships will be relieved to know that my contribution to our proceedings this afternoon will be very brief—in fact, less than three minutes. I hope that that does not diminish the impact of what I say on this most important subject. Illegal drugs have become the scourge of modern society throughout the world. Thousands of deaths are recorded annually, and national and international organised crime thrives on that disgraceful trade worldwide. In some areas of the globe, sport has been wholly corrupted by the poison of performance-improving drugs. No longer, when we see an outstanding sporting performance, can we cheer unreservedly without thinking the unthinkable: was he or she using a performance-enhancing drug? That cynicism among spectators is grossly unfair to those athletes and sportsmen and women who are honest and cast aside the temptation to cheat by the use of such substances.

I believe that, fortunately, the honest athletes and sportspeople are still in the majority, but we must be vigilant. Only by law-abiding individuals and organisations sharing intelligence about the trafficking, sale and use of illegal or performance-enhancing drugs can action be taken to prevent or reduce this evil and destructive business.

--- Later in debate ---

With the London Olympic Games only two years away, we should do everything we can to reduce the chances of the Games being ruined by the use of such drugs by those who are determined to win at all costs. By sharing intelligence we stand a much better chance of catching both the users and suppliers of such substances. I fully support the order.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The noble Lord makes a very important point when he says that the cheats and those who connive with them destroy trust between competitors and also between competitors and the audience. That is extremely destructive, particularly of the Olympic spirit. The Government agree that we must do what we can to stamp on this. It is very much to be hoped that this move by the UK will increase our ability to contribute to the international effort that has to be made against doping in sport. There are people who make a more than adequate living out of producing ever more sophisticated performance-enhancing drugs. We must chase them as hard as we can. I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord.

Motion agreed.

Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment No. 2) Order 2010

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Lords Chamber

Moved By

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

That the draft order laid before the House on 12 July be approved.

Relevant documents: 1st Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and 5th Report from the Merits Committee.

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

My Lords, the Order in Council was laid before Parliament on 12 July. If it is made, it will bring a group of cathinone derivatives—so-called legal highs, which include naphthylpyrovalerone, known as naphyrone and commonly branded as NRG-1—under the control of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 as class B drugs. There it will join mephedrone and other cathinone derivatives which were brought under the control of the 1971 Act as class B drugs from 16 April 2010, with cross-party agreement in the final days of the last Parliament.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs indicated in its cathinone report of 31 March that it would provide further advice on this additional group of cathinone derivatives as a priority. That is what we are dealing with today. They are familiar but sufficiently different from mephedrone and other cathinone derivatives that the ACMD needed to consider them separately. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary received the council’s report on 7 July and she was pleased to accept the council’s recommendation for control, on which this draft order is based. She did so on behalf of the Government.

The council is to be commended for using this extra time well to provide a further thorough, forward-looking piece of work. The proposed control of naphthyl analogues by a wide-ranging generic definition, as set out in the draft order, is consistent with the UK’s legislative approach to other synthetic drugs. Now that we have the council’s advice, we are asking for Parliament’s agreement to expedite control without delay and before this House rises for the Summer Recess. We need to learn the lessons from the UK’s experience on mephedrone, which became rapidly established before it was controlled in April. It is proposed that the order will come into force on the second day after the day on which it is made. That could be as early as 23 July and the legislation would therefore have an immediate impact, not least on the current music festival season, as supply and possession of these drugs would become unlawful with immediate effect.

Action to address the health risks arising from the use of existing so-called legal highs and the issue of further legal highs coming on to the market is a priority for the Government. We need to consider how we can reduce the supply and demand for new substances; our response must be wide-ranging, encompassing prevention, education, treatment and enforcement. That is at the core of our legislative response. There are those who look to subvert our laws and sell potentially harmful drugs advertising them as legal. This can lead people, especially young people, to think that these drugs are therefore safe. We need our drug laws to move faster to protect the public and to combat these unscrupulous manufacturers and suppliers.

As we set out in the coalition agreement, we will introduce a system of temporary bans on new psychoactive substances while health issues are considered by independent experts. The underlying purpose of the temporary banning power is to enable Parliament to be highly responsive to emerging new psychoactive substances and, at the same time, provide the advisory council with the time or space that it needs to formulate its full advice. Full details of the temporary banning power will be announced shortly. It is the intention to undertake legislation on this later this year.

While the temporary banning power will be a key and necessary tool in our legislative response to this changing landscape, our preferred approach to drug control will remain one which the advisory council and the Government have adopted for the past 40 years: a full assessment by the council before any controls are invoked by Parliament. The order before Parliament is an example of that process working. We need to add naphyrone, and related substances, promptly to the cathinones already controlled under our misuse of drugs legislation. This is because they are structurally similar to cathinone derivatives, such as mephedrone, which are already classified under the 1971 Act as class B drugs, and they pose similar harms to those who use them.

The advisory council commented that, consistent with the known or reported harms of the cathinones and traditional amphetamines, the predicted harmful effects of naphyrone include adverse effects on the heart and blood vessels, hyperthermia, dependence liability and psychiatric effects, including psychosis and anxiety. However, the more concerning aspect of the advisory council’s advice is that naphyrone has a high potency by comparison with other cathinones. This suggests that its use is likely to be associated with a higher risk of accidental overdose. I also emphasise that we are not aware of any legitimate use of these chemicals.

Enforcement action has been, and is being, applied to naphyrone. This included an immediate worldwide importation ban on naphyrone under the Import of Goods (Control) Order 1954 on receipt of the advisory council’s advice. The open general import licence was amended to exclude naphyrone from its scope. The UK Border Agency has been instructed to seize and destroy shipments of this, and related drugs, at the border; and we will also continue to work with other law enforcement agencies to strengthen their enforcement response to the identification and sale of illicit substances being mis-sold as legal highs.

The Serious Organised Crime Agency is actively developing approaches to identify websites offering mephedrone for sale, both at home and abroad, so that it can take action at an international level to close these down. This action will be extended in scope to include naphyrone.

Enforcement action of this sort is effective. We continue to monitor the impact of the ban on mephedrone but it has curtailed the availability of the drug, enabling enforcing authorities to take action to seize mephedrone at our borders and on our streets. Since the ban has been introduced, the UK Border Agency has made a number of detections and stopped more than 115 kilograms of chemicals that it suspects to be mephedrone from entering the UK. We also know that the legal-highs market self-regulates and withdraws banned drugs. The ban has also provided the strongest support to our public health message about the harms of mephedrone and like drugs.

Control of naphyrone also provides us with the opportunity to repeat our public message that although this drug may currently be advertised as legal—as a so-called legal high—it does not mean that it is safe or that it is necessarily legal. The advisory council’s report on naphyrone highlighted research from test purchases. Clearly, sellers are using the brand NRG-1 and masquerading it as naphyrone—and therefore legal—and marketing it as a mephedrone substitute. A branded product of this sort may, in fact, contain a number of illegal cathinones, legal stimulants or other active or inactive constituents. Any brand name that purports to be legal cannot be trusted. It does not mean that they are safe or legal. Users are putting their health at risk and could be committing a criminal offence.

We have taken a number of actions based on this information. It is now a key message for the FRANK service—which is available to users—on legal highs. Last month, the Minister for Crime Prevention—my right honourable friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup—wrote to organisers of music festivals to make them aware of this information, asking them to review the measures that they put in place to ensure that their festivals are as safe an environment as possible.

The department has also called on local trading standards teams through local authority chief executives, to work in partnership with the police to deal with the sale of any legal highs, taking full account of this latest evidence, and to make appropriate referrals to the police and otherwise apply their responsibility for enforcing offences under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. The Association of Chief Police Officers for England, Wales and Northern Ireland will also update its enforcement guidance on new psychoactive substances.

It is intended to make two further related statutory instruments, which will be subject to the negative resolution procedure. The Misuse of Drugs (Designation) (Amendment No. 2) Order 2010 will specify naphthylpyrovalerone analogues including naphyrone as drugs, which have no statutorily recognised medicinal or other legitimate use. The Misuse of Drugs (Amendment No. 2) Regulations 2010 will similarly amend the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 to include these drugs. These instruments were laid on 14 July to come into force at the same time as the Order in Council, if it comes into force as proposed.

The Government will publicise the approved law changes on naphyrone and related substances through a Home Office circular and the Talk to Frank and drugs.gov.uk website. Reference to the law changes and health risks relating to the drugs will be included in future government materials for young people. I commend the order to the House.

[Lord Brett]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the detailed explanation of why this order is both important and necessary. In proposing this order, the Government are continuing the policy pursued by the previous Labour Government. I commend the Minister for this and suggest that continuing the policies of the previous Government in a number of policy areas in the Home Office would also be commended as useful. Beyond that, I applaud the Pauline conversion of the minority party in the coalition to the policy set out in the Minister’s explanation. As I recall, it showed far less support when the same policy was put forward previously by the last Government.

My colleague, the Opposition spokesman in the other place, sought and gained the assurances from the Government that I would have placed before the Minister today. On that basis, it remains only for me to indicate support for this order and commend it to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s explanation of the order and add my support for the actions which the coalition Government are taking. It is difficult to stay abreast of the technological changes in the drug field and to restrict the spread, but I was interested to hear that an attempt will be made to intervene in websites which sell these drugs. I would be extremely grateful if the Minister would keep the House informed about what happens on that front.

It was before the Minister’s time, but some of us, many years ago, were complaining about the increasing strength of cannabis—skunk—which was being advertised widely on the internet and which many of us claimed was a cause of concern to public health. At the time our advisory council saw no evidence of increasing strength in cannabis. Subsequently it changed its mind and recognised that there was an increasing problem, but I do not think that anything has really been done about the websites which are still advertising skunk and similar cannabis items for sale. In doing something about these particular drugs, would the Government be prepared, if this order is successful, to see whether similar measures could be taken against the advertising and sale of skunk and high-potency cannabis on the internet?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the House for the support which has been given to the order. A number of extremely relevant points have been made. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, talked about the use of websites; this does concern the Government and it is a matter of public concern. It is also relevant in the terrorist context and it is a matter that we are looking at.

One of the problems with the internet, as the House will be aware, is that it is not under the unilateral control of this country; we have to get international co-operation in order to take effective action, which then involves freedom of speech legislation and so on. It is not a simple matter to take websites down—it is very important to get the co-operation of the ISPs. We are working on this on a broader front, not excluding drugs, to try to do something about websites that contain information which is clearly contrary to the public interest and which induce violence and harm in society.

My noble friend Lady Hamwee made several points with which I will try to deal. She said that she supported the order, for which I am extremely grateful, and asked a number of questions. We are taking actions very much with an eye to getting the message out to young people that these substances are harmful to them. I mentioned the FRANK line and the information available to young people on that messaging system. As I said, we have written to festival organisers to try to alert them to the fact that these substances, which are often advertised as being legal—what is more, they are not always what they are advertised as being; they may contain quite other substances—are really dangerous and will be illegal. I emphasise that we have discovered no legitimate use for this particular substance. It is designed simply to give people a high, with very great subsequent potential harm to their health.

I do not have information on whether trading standards officers have used their powers successfully. We are using the device of the temporary banning order to prevent a market for naphyrone developing in the first place so that we do not have to try to clear up a further substance which has already taken a grip on the market. This is meant to be protective and pre-emptive action to prevent greater harm occurring.

As has been spotted, effective enforcement must rightly concentrate on tackling dealers, to prevent the substance coming into the country and reaching young users. So far as we can tell, at the moment there is no great prevalence of this drug but we and our advisory council are clear that it is a very harmful substance which should not be allowed to gain a grip on the population.

I am grateful for the support the House has given the order. I am certain that it will help to ensure that the necessary controls are in place to protect the public, particularly the health of young people. We will continue to monitor trends and give the House information on how this approach is proceeding as it is a new and very necessary one in tackling synthetic drugs. We will assess the impact of the controls in the order and keep the House informed.

Motion agreed.

Terrorism Act 2006 (Disapplication of Section 25) Order 2010

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2010 Lords Chamber

Moved By

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

That the draft order laid before the House on 24 June be approved.

Relevant documents: 1st Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and 3rd Report from the Merits Committee.

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

My Lords, I am aware that the Merits Committee has drawn particular attention to this draft order in its latest report. I welcome the committee’s interest: it is entirely appropriate for such an important debate.

I shall speak first about the threat that we face and then about the Government’s approach to it. On the terrorist threat, I believe that no one here today disputes the fact that this country remains a target for terrorists. A good statement of the threat to this country is contained in the annual report on CONTEST, published by the previous Government in March of this year, and it remains valid today. This is available in the House Library. We have dealt with the threat from Irish republican terrorists for many years, and although great steps forward have been taken, that threat remains. There have been as many attacks in the first half of this year as there were in the whole of 2009.

We are only too aware of the threat from Islamist terrorists, five years after the horrifying attacks of July 2005. Numerous other plots, fortunately, have been disrupted. Between 11 September 2001 and 31 December 2009, 235 people were convicted of terrorism-related offences, and a further 22 defendants were awaiting trial at the end of last year. Islamist extremists, particularly those associated with al-Qaeda, aspire to carry out attacks causing mass casualties, to try to undermine our cohesion, our values and our way of life. In dealing with the threat, we have to remain true to those values and freedoms that this country stands for.

The question is often asked why terrorism investigations should be treated any differently from any other criminal investigations, or indeed why we need any special law. Terrorists are, after all, criminals. Serious criminal investigations can also be complex and wide in scale and we frequently use long-standing common law offences to convict terrorists, so why the special treatment? The answer lies in the need to protect public safety. The current wave of international terrorism is no respecter of human life; rather the contrary, in the perverse and evil world of al-Qaeda, mass casualties are a signal achievement of the suicide bomber.

Experience has shown that the earlier the need to intervene to disrupt a terrorist plot for public safety reasons, the greater the likelihood of having to conduct a significant portion of an investigation after arrest and the greater the potential difficulty of obtaining admissible evidence leading to charge and conviction. The House will also be aware that the volume of information requiring careful investigation; the increasingly sophisticated use by terrorists of modern communications; the complexity of international terrorist networks; and the need to secure international co-operation and await the results of forensic examination of substances used by terrorists as weapons all add to the complications of the task faced by the police in unravelling a plot to identify its perpetrators.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Brett]

The Opposition support the order so I shall not delay the House too long. However, our support comes with something of a health warning. The contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, highlights this.

In the past few days in respect of various other proposals to review, Members on all sides of your Lordships’ House have sought to persuade Ministers to speculate on the outcome of the examinations that have taken place and have been rightly rebuffed. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, refused to speculate on the outcome of the anti-terrorism review that we debated last week. Accordingly, I am not sure that it was wise of the Home Secretary to indicate a personal preference for 14 rather than 28 or any other number of days when this order was debated in another place. To be fair, she said that she did not think it right to pre-empt the review, which is the most important issue. The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, spelt out cogently the risk that still exists.

The risk has not diminished in the past year at all. There has been no diminution in the risk of terrorist activity. Indeed, in Northern Ireland there has been an increase. The threat level remains severe and the police and the DPP support the continuance of the 28-day provision. It is a year since its renewal—I accept that that is why we are renewing it, albeit for six months, as it is a temporary provision. Nobody in your Lordships’ House would be happier than us, on these Benches, if we found the risk so diminished that the requirement for any pre-charge detention could be removed completely.

We have learnt more in the past year, by means of Operation Overt, about the so-called liquid bomb plot involving the planned destruction of seven passenger aircraft flying to North America. In that case, pre-charge detention beyond 14 days was necessary for six people. There was Operation Pathway in Greater Manchester, which was raised in the debate in the other place a year ago, and we know that that plot was successfully thwarted. We understand much better that it was a serious and advanced plot. These cases explain why, to date, 28 days has been deemed necessary. Noble Lords on all Benches will be happy to see that reduced, I am sure.

I am not sure how this argument can be taken. It is cited that there are few cases, which means that the power is not required. We are also told that there is a natural propensity—Parkinson’s law—in security that the more time you give people, the more time they will take. I would be astonished if that were the case in security issues. I would be very surprised if the security services and the police were not aware that smart lawyers, many of whom represent clients in courts and are Members of your Lordships' House, are willing to demolish any case built on a prevention of charging when charges could be brought.

It is the right of all Governments to review and it is right to review this order annually. The question is whether in the past year sufficient has happened to persuade us that the threat is diminished. That is where the health warning comes in. I am not sure that I like the idea of a default position of 14 days before a review takes place and before all the key authorities involved have been briefed and made their contribution. Therefore, it is important that the review should be evidence-based. Ultimately, sound judgment is required, which is what we expect from our Home Secretary and our Government, to establish whether we have reached the point where we can withdraw the 28-day provision or impose alternative powers. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, with her knowledge, experience and integrity, will wish nothing less. I support the Motion.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their characteristically thoughtful contributions. The purpose of this short extension is to enable the Government to have enough time to do two things. The first is to look at the legislation concerning pre-charge detention and other counterterrorism legislation that we want to review in the round and in relation to each other. The second is to look at the existing operation of the 28-day regime. I was asked, for instance, whether post-charge questioning, which has not yet commenced, will come into operation. That is precisely one of the factors which we want to look at, together with a number of other provisions which seem to us to be relevant in deciding whether we can reduce the maximum time for pre-charge detention.

I mentioned “contingency” and the Civil Contingencies Act. I stick by my comment that, given the threat about which I will say something in a moment, we cannot say with absolute certainty that a time longer than 14 days might never be needed. Equally, we take the view that the current evidence tends to suggest that we ought not, if we can avoid it, continue with the current maximum length of pre-charge detention. However, we want to look at that and at whether it is possible to put in place some kind of contingency that will enable us, with safety, to reduce the normal maximum time.

A number of noble Lords asked why the UK had to have so long a time when other systems somehow managed to do with less. Like other Members of your Lordships' House, I greatly value the work done by organisations such as Justice and Liberty. However, when one is comparing systems, it is right to do a thorough job and, as the noble Lord, Lord West, said, it is not entirely fair to compare the UK system with, say, France’s. Indeed, even among common-law countries, the practice is not uniform. In Australia, for example, there is a 14-day limit that can be significantly extended by something called the stand-down time.

We should not forget that the threat remains. I very much hope that, by other flanking measures which the previous Government put in place and policies which we continue, we are managing to harden our targets and to become a more difficult target for terrorists. We also know more about the enemy than previously. All those are relevant factors in considering whether it is right and safe now to reduce the maximum time for our pre-charge detention.

The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, among others, asked whether there was any evidence for the operation of the 28 days and whether history showed that we needed it. He also asked whether it was right, and in accordance with the ECHR, that the suspect was not given sufficient information at an early stage about the charge. That is not the case. The grounds of arrest are put before a defendant when he goes before the magistrate, and he must go before the magistrate no later than 48 hours after arrest. There is no question that people's rights are being violated in that respect. Much as we would like not to have the legislation if we could—the object of the exercise is to see whether we can dispense with it safely—it is human rights-compliant. I hope that the House will accept that in prolonging the provision for a period while that detailed and careful examination takes place, we are not violating the rights of any current or future defendant, while protecting the public.

I have one last point to make. A noble Lord asked about the difference between the varieties of terrorism that we face. It is disturbing that we have an increase in terrorist activity in Northern Ireland. The nature of that terrorism is somewhat different from the Islamist terrorism that we face, which is one reason why we have the 28-day provision in place at the moment. We will look at introducing other measures in conjunction with a different regime on pre-charge detention, combined with our assessment of how we stand in relation to the threat. Our examination of the legislation will take all those factors—the operation of the legislation itself, our view of the threat to us and our ability to withstand the threat—into account. All those are relevant factors in deciding whether we can find some other way to deal with pre-charge detention in normal circumstances.

With that summary, I thank noble Lords for their contributions and invite the House to approve the order.

[Lord Richard]

My Lords, before the Minister sits down, may I ask one question? My noble friend on the Front Bench raised the issue that the review should be evidence-based. Of course, until we get the evidence, we do not know how much of it can be published. I totally accept that. Can the Minister go so far as to say that there will be a presumption in the review that the maximum amount of evidence that can be published will be published at the end of it?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, it is a fair promise to make to this House that we will publish as much of our considerations as we possibly can. On the evidence base, a number of noble Lords asked: were 28 days really necessary in those individual cases or were we dealing with a variety of Parkinson's law? I do not think that the police are guilty of applying Parkinson's law, but it is right for us nevertheless to consider whether we need such a limitation in future.

Motion agreed.

Biometric Passports

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have proposals to introduce biometric passports.

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

My Lords, British passports have contained biometric information in the form of facial recognition technology since 2006. There are no plans to introduce a second biometric, such as fingerprints, into passports.

[Lord Dubs]

First, given that many countries have said that they expect visitors to have full biometric data in their passports, will that not make it much more difficult for British people to travel in the future, especially to the United States? Secondly, will the Minister confirm that forged passports have been involved in almost every known case of terrorism? Surely biometric passports are much harder to forge than the ones that we have at the moment.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, the noble Lord has raised various points. There are no reasons at all to suppose that the absence of a second biometric in British passports will in any way hinder the ability of British citizens to travel to whichever country they wish to enter. The United States takes the fingerprints of people entering the country but does not insist on fingerprints in passports. The US does not itself have, or intend to put, fingerprints into its passports.

This Government entirely agree with the noble Lord that passport security is extremely important. Although the move to introduce a second biometric will not continue, one part of the programme that definitely will continue is the strengthening of security surrounding the existing facial biometric.

[Lord Marlesford]

My Lords, does the Minister recognise that effective passports are a crucial weapon in protecting this country from both terrorism and crime? Will the Government ensure that the e-Borders system, which was introduced by the previous Government but is taking far too long to put into effect, happens? At the moment, there are huge gaps in passport control. On 27 April at about 10 o’clock in the morning, I was leaving the UK from terminal 3 but no one made the slightest attempt to look at my passport. When I asked why, I was told that they did not have enough staff. That is not good enough.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I think the whole House will agree that secure passports are an extremely important part of combating terrorism. It is certainly the case that there are no exit controls at the moment but it is intended that they should come into operation as part of the e-Borders programme.

[Lord Brett]

My Lords, first, the noble Baroness reminded us that exit controls were removed. Can she remind us which party was in government when they were removed? Secondly, she said that we are going to strengthen the security of passports. Can she tell us how?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The existing facial biometric is a chip inside the passport, and that type of passport has been issued since 2006. It is possible, and we intend, to strengthen the security technology that surrounds that chip to decrease the ability of any forger in any way to clone it or counter its security.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, the Minister rightly acknowledges the importance of passports to our security. However, does she agree that it is most important to ensure that the existing system is well bedded in and working well before attempting to go on to a second stage? That is one reason why I, for one, support the Government’s intention not to move on to a second stage of biometric passports.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The Government entirely agree with my noble friend that passport security is extremely important, and we intend to ensure that security. However, our view is that the interests of the country are not well served by the Government starting to maintain a database of all passport holders, which amounts to 80 per cent of the population.

[The Earl of Erroll]

I welcome the fact that biometrics will not be kept on the national identity register—this is essential—but we ought to have biometrics in passports which match ICAO standards to make it easier to travel. We should not be frightened of that as long as they are not held centrally.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

We agree that it is extraordinarily important that passports should have adequate security, and we believe that British passports with the single facial recognition biometric will achieve those standards. There are actually a number of countries other than the United Kingdom that do not have plans to introduce a second biometric.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

Can the Minister say whether, over the next three years, the e-Border workforce will increase, stay the same or decrease? If it is to be decreased, what level of performance will be affected?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I am unable to answer that question—I came here to talk about biometric passports—but I will write to the noble Lord.

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, is the Minister satisfied with the security of the country particularly in relation to people with dual nationality when one passport is used for entry into the country and another for exit?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

That is indeed an issue, but we do not believe that maintaining the fingerprint database of the country will help the problem. However, we do have to combat passport fraud.

[Lord Corbett of Castle Vale]

Will the Minister be kind enough to answer the question from my noble friend on the Front Bench and remind us which Government removed the exit controls at borders?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The exit controls were removed quite some time ago, well before 9/11.

Counterterrorism and Security

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2010 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, with the leave of the House I will repeat a Statement made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department on the review of counterterrorism and security powers.

“With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a Statement on the review of counterterrorism and security powers. As I have said to the House before, the first duty of Government is to protect the public—but that duty must never be used as a reason to ride roughshod over civil liberties. And that is what the last Government did on too many occasions. This Government are different. We have already introduced legislation to get rid of ID cards once and for all. We have already declared our intention to bring forward a freedom Bill later this year. Just last week, I announced interim restrictions on the use of stop and search powers under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

Today, as promised in the coalition agreement, I am announcing an urgent review of counterterrorism and security powers. The review will consider six key powers. They are: control orders; Section 44 stop and search powers and the use of terrorism legislation in relation to photography; the use of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 by local authorities and access to communications data more generally; extending the use of deportations with assurances in a manner that is consistent with our legal and human rights obligations; measures to deal with organisations that promote hatred or violence; and the detention of terrorist suspects before charge.

These are the most controversial and sensitive powers. In particular, the issue of pre-charge detention has been the subject of considerable debate in this House and tomorrow we will consider whether to renew the current detention limit for a further six months. This will provide us with sufficient time to look carefully at pre-charge detention in the review and to explore how we can reduce the period of detention below 28 days. The review will also help to inform what additional safeguards are needed in the proposed asset freezing Bill which the Treasury will introduce shortly.

The Government's work on the use of intercept as evidence in court and the modernisation of our interception capabilities will be done separately and will not form part of this review. The review will be conducted by the Home Office with the full involvement of the police, the security and intelligence agencies and other government departments including those in Scotland and Northern Ireland. I want the review to be conducted as openly and transparently as possible. I have asked Liberty to contribute to this review and it has said that it will be delighted to do so. I am keen to involve other civil liberty and community organisations. As with other reviews, I would urge anyone with an interest to submit their views to the Home Office.

To ensure independent oversight of the review, I have asked the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, a former Director of Public Prosecutions, now a Member of the other place, to make sure that the work is properly conducted, that all the relevant options have been considered and that the recommendations of the review are not only fair but seen to be fair. This role is distinct from the excellent work that is already being undertaken by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew QC, in his statutory role as independent reviewer of terrorism legislation. The proposals made by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile will be fully considered as part of the review and I know that he welcomes the additional independent perspective that Lord Macdonald will provide on these issues. Any legislative amendments as a result of that review will of course be subject to review by the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation.

I have ordered that the review should be completed as quickly as possible, because it is important that the police and the security and intelligence agencies are able to do their vital work with certainty and confidence. So I will report back to Parliament on the outcome of the review after the Summer Recess.

Before I finish, I want to make one thing absolutely clear. In correcting the mistakes of the previous Government, we are doing just that. We are not criticising or castigating members of the police or the security and intelligence services. They do their work with bravery, patriotism and a strong sense of duty—and I know the whole House will want to join me in paying tribute to them.

The review will enable this Government to put right the failures of the last, and in so doing, restore the ancient civil liberties that should be synonymous with the name of our country. I commend this Statement to the House”.

My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I certainly join the noble Lord in his view that there is wide agreement in this House and between the aisles on the need for appropriate legislation to ensure our security. I do not think that anything divides us on that. He asked a number of fairly specific questions and I shall do my best to answer them. The first practical one was whether the review will be conducted in a way that does not lower our security. That is absolutely the case. With my title and obligations, it is one of my tasks to ensure that that does not happen.

I was asked when the terms of reference will be published. We are now conducting a certain amount of internal work which should certainly enable us to publish them in time for the start of the consultation. As we indicated, the timetable is fairly short, and we want the review to be carried out rapidly for two reasons. First, we believe that the changes can and should be made, and that they are not so complicated that a very long time is required for them; and, secondly, a degree of uncertainty in the legislation, particularly in relation to Section 44, needs to be clarified. Therefore, there are good reasons for not delaying the timetable that the Home Secretary has set out. As I said, we will publish the terms of reference and make sure that bodies with a strong interest are able to look at them and put forward their views. We will find some practical means, such as a website, to ensure that people are able to submit those views.

As I said, the review will cover the rather anomalous situation that has arisen in relation to Section 44 so that there is clarity for the police in going forward. I take the noble Lord’s point that many of the measures put in place earlier were in direct response to the security situation that had arisen. It is fair to say that the Terrorism Act 2000, which in good part was based on previous Conservative Party legislation in relation to Northern Ireland and was built partly on the report of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, was indeed consensus legislation. Since then, I think that there have been divergences between us, and it is those that we want to try to correct.

There was quite a lot of controversy over the length of pre-charge detention. That, frankly, has not been stilled by the legislation that we now have in place and it is clearly one of the main reasons for wanting this review to take place now. In one or two other areas, it is not so much a question of what is on the statute book—although I think that clarity on the statute book is government’s responsibility—as how it has been used. Therefore, if we have to alter legislation, we want to bring clarity to exactly what people are permitted to do. This is an example in the area, for instance, of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and the powers of local authorities—the level of authority that they will need to obtain in order to be able to operate their rights under the Act, and indeed, as I say, to prevent abuse of Section 44.

So it is partly a question of how much we change the framework of the legislation, and part of it is to try to control and prevent further abuse. Also on control orders, the courts have shown that they are unhappy about the breadth of some of the legislation. We want to try and ensure that if we decide in the end that those control orders have to remain as part of our panoply of powers, they are used in a manner which is proportionate and in accordance with our obligations under the Human Rights Act.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

My Lords, I welcome every word of this important Statement, especially the appointment of my noble friend Lord Macdonald to oversee the review. Am I right that independent oversight by such a person is a novel idea for a Home Office review? Whether I am right or not, I welcome the idea most warmly.

Among the six matters which are to be reviewed we will each have our own pecking order. The most harmful in my view have been control orders, 28 days’ detention without trial and Section 44, in that order.

Does the Minister recall the pledge given by the previous Government after an all-night sitting in March 2005 that they would bring back control orders for a comprehensive review within a year? I remind the noble Lord, Lord Brett, that although there was a degree of consensus in relation to the 2006 Act which he mentioned, there was certainly no consensus in relation to the 2005 Act. If there had been, there would have been no need for an all-night sitting.

Does the Minister share my relief that that pledge given back in 2005 is now being redeemed? Does she also recall another pledge that the whole mass of terrorist legislation which now disfigures our statute book would be consolidated? This is of course nothing like as urgent as the other matters which have been mentioned, but I hope the Minister can say that this idea has not been forgotten either.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I do not know the answer to the question of whether this is a novel idea. I certainly think it is a very good one, and obviously the object of having the involvement of the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, is to ensure, and also to be able to give assurance to the outside world, that the review has been thorough and looked at all the options, and that it has been impartial and provides the best balance between our security needs and our rights as citizens as we can provide.

I share the noble and learned Lord’s relief that we are able now to redeem the pledge on the review of control orders. This has been overdue and that is why we regard it as an urgent thing to get on with.

On the question of consolidation of terrorism legislation, that is one of the things we would like to do. Noble Lords will be aware of the volume of urgent things that need to be on the statute book so I cannot promise that it is going to be an early piece of legislation. What is more, if we are going to do it we should do it thoroughly and well. In that area, haste will be the enemy of good work. I would rather produce a decent piece of legislation in due course than hurry at it. Finally, I hope that over time we are going to be able to reduce this panoply of emergency legislation. In a sense, it is no part of a democracy to have to continue with this sort of legislation for a moment longer than we need.

We still face a persistent and serious threat—and I failed to answer the noble Lord’s question about terrorist plots. I hope that noble Lords will forgive me for being unable to answer it today. I will be in a better position to do so next week when we debate the legislation on pre-charge detention. Indeed, I will be happy to do so then.

[Lord Dear]

My Lords, I echo the words of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick. I agree with everything he said. I, too, welcome the review. I could speak at length about all six items enumerated in the Statement but perhaps I may pick up only one—item six, on the detention of terrorist subjects before charge. Will the Minister assure your Lordships' House that due weight will be given to the views and experience of the current DPP? I ask that question because when, like others, I was closely involved in the attempt to extend detention before charge from 28 days to 42 days, the then DPP and the two immediate successors said that they had not needed powers to go beyond 28 days. Notwithstanding the tremendously high standard of work carried out by the police and security services, it occurs to me that of all the bodies on this stage, the DPP is most particularly concerned with the adequacy of evidence and whether charges should be preferred.

Furthermore, the Minister commented on the use of intercept evidence, which will not form part of this review but will be looked at separately. Will she assure the House that that review will not be deflected? My views and those of other Members of the House have been outlined on a number of occasions, and a body of opinion says that it should be looked at as a matter of urgency and legislation changed to allow that form of evidence to be admitted.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, on the noble Lord’s first point, I can guarantee that we will be giving due weight to the views of the current DPP. I entirely agree with the centrality of those views. As I said, we will give weight to all views that are put to us.

As regards intercept evidence, I entirely take the point that it must not be left to moulder for ever. The Chilcot committee is still doing its work and we believe that it ought to be allowed to finish it. The noble Lord also knows that there are a number of issues that are not entirely straightforward. I am not in any way suggesting that we will not continue with this work, but it is because we do not believe that we can put it on a relatively fast track that we do not want to include it in this particular package. However, we will certainly be bringing forward our conclusions and, if necessary, further proposals.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

My Lords, will the Minister develop a couple of points? The fourth of the six powers to be reviewed is that of extending the use of deportations with assurances. Is it envisaged that the use is to be extended to different categories of people in this country, or is the power to be extended to different countries? I have had experience of dealing with that in the past few years, and I know that however keen we are to see people leaving our shores, those receiving them are not always thrilled to bits about the idea of having them back. Can the Minister tell us anything more on that point?

My second point is one of clarification not about the role of the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, but about his authority. Is this review to be a Home Office review under the name of the Home Secretary, or is it to be a review to which the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, will be giving his name? If it is the latter, can the Minister tell us what the position of the Home Office will be in regard to the costs of the review? The Statement clearly indicates that it is the first duty of government to protect the public, and we would all agree with that. Therefore, it must surely have first call on public finances. If the review comes up with suggestions which are a cost to the public purse, can the Minister assure us that it will be readily met by the Home Office?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

On the noble Baroness's first point about extending deportation with assurances, how right she is: that is very difficult. Her point about our desire to deport and others’ reluctance to receive is absolutely right. Extension should be understood primarily in the area of, nevertheless, trying to extend the policy to other countries. We have no present intention to extend the categories. In many respects, this is a highly practical and political problem; it is not, frankly, a legislative problem. We felt that, as this is a matter of such public concern, we need to try to make progress. The Foreign Office is actively engaged with Governments on the issue. I cannot promise how much we will have to report. I cannot say that I am confident that we will have made a great deal of early progress, but we take this issue seriously and we want to try to make it effective. It may require more action on a broader front to make the policy effective and, at the same time, consistent with our obligations.

On the noble Baroness’s second point about the auspices of the review, this is a Home Office review. This review is not being let out to someone else. The reason for asking the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, to be involved is to provide assurance that a Home Office review of its own legislation has injected into it a degree of standing back and impartiality, to ask whether it makes sense and to help those who, after all, have drafted previous legislation themselves to stand back from what they have done previously. It is to open a window and let in a bit of fresh air—that is the spirit of it—and to create a certain amount of challenge in the system, such that we can be satisfied that when we come up with something, it passes various tests.

[Baroness Manningham-Buller]

I welcome the announcement of the review by the Minister. I suppose that I should declare an interest, in that I was head of the Security Service from 2002 to 2007, when much of this legislation went through. I also welcome her kind remarks about my former colleagues. However, I would like to correct the impression that all legislation was in response to requests by the security and intelligence services—or, indeed, by the police. That is completely untrue. There were certainly things that we sought and asked for but, as I have said in this House before, control orders, for example, were not one of them. The previous Government rightly made their own decision on what to legislate for. They were not dictated to or responding to endless requests from us. They took their own view on what it was appropriate to legislate for. I make that correction.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The House would agree that the noble Baroness is quite right; the Government in office must take responsibility for the legislation that they put forward.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I welcome the Statement very much. I think I heard the Minister say that the Home Office will be consulting on the terms of reference, not just once the terms of reference have been set. That would be very welcome, because so many of those who are concerned with these issues may want to have an input at that early stage. With regard to the terms of reference, I ask about item 4, which may remain the fourth of six or become the fourth of more items. The term is,

“extending the use of deportations with assurances”,

which suggests that the Home Secretary already has a view that they should be extended. Everything else is couched in more neutral language, and I wonder whether the Minister would comment on that.

With regard to intercept as evidence, can the noble Baroness assure the House that the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, and those conducting the review will be able to talk to the team dealing with intercept as evidence, because even if it is not included in the review, there must be information that could usefully be shared?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I hope that I did not mislead the noble Baroness when I talked about the terms of reference. We will publish them, but we do not intend to consult on them per se. I hope also that I made it clear that we will have a very open consultation process that will include not only consulting in an organised way with various interested parties, but offering the opportunity through a website for a wider audience to offer its views. I hope that the terms of reference will not themselves be a constraint on the way in which the six topics are dealt with.

I will say one thing in defence of not consulting on the terms of reference. We want to move on this fairly fast, so there are limits, if I may say, to the number of stages to which we should apply the consultation process. I beg the indulgence of the House in suggesting that we should leave it as an extensive consultation process that will follow, having set the terms of reference.

On the question of the extension of deportation with assurances, I do not have a great deal to add to an earlier answer. We see being able to extend the process of DWA to other countries as useful and in the public interest. The reason is a practical one. We find that there is an increasing number of nationalities where the need to deport is actually an operational requirement. We want to put in place circumstances in which we can do that in a manner compatible with our obligations.

Finally, the noble Baroness asked about the relevance of intercept as evidence. She is quite right to say that various aspects are relevant to the subjects that we have under discussion, and those involved in the review will indeed have the necessary access.

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, the Joint Committee on Human Rights has done a great deal of work on this issue. Can the noble Baroness assure the House that its work will be taken into account in the review? Does she agree that terrorists operate when there is substantial alienation or, at least, ambivalence among people about how far they support the prevailing laws? In that context, is it not important for the review at least to take a look at how immigration, asylum and border controls are operated, to ensure that these are being done at all times in ways that win people’s heart and minds rather than actually leading to alienation? Finally, on deportations with assurances, I support some of the anxieties that have been expressed and ask simply whether the review can look closely at how much credence in the long term can be based on assurances, particularly with countries in which the use of torture is systematic in their administration of so-called justice?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

The noble Lord is right that the Joint Committee on Human Rights has done extraordinarily valuable work, and I give him an absolute assurance that it will be taken into account in this review. On the question of whether there is support in the country for this body of prevailing law, one reason we want to look at it is precisely because we know that there is indeed unease—but not, I think, unease which is particularly to be found in any single quarter; it is more general than that. Obviously there are related issues and the question in all such reviews is about where you stop. One area that we regard as related, but which we are going to take separately although in current time, is how we pursue one of the four strands of CONTEST, that of the Prevent strategy. Our aim is not to abolish it, but we hope to make it more effective or, if I may put it this way, a bit more fit for purpose because we regard it as a flanking policy which affects the acceptability of some of this legislation, particularly among ethnic and minority communities.

Finally, the noble Lord raised the issue of deportation with assurances. The Government know that this is a difficult area and that what is written on paper is not always necessarily the reality. We also know that if we do not attempt to start a dialogue with countries and get assurances about the conditions into which people are going to be sent back and that they will be safe, we reduce the possibility of introducing such a policy. We have to have the capability, over time, of removing from this country people who have been convicted of very serious offences, and it is into that category that these people fall. We want to pursue the policy, but we do so with our eyes wide open.

Linda Carty

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they have made to the United States authorities about reprieving Linda Carty.

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

My Lords, we are committed to using all appropriate influence to prevent the execution of any British national, and that is certainly our starting point in this case. In the case of Linda Carty, we are supporting her efforts to get clemency in Texas. We are in close consultation with Miss Carty’s lawyers and with the NGO Reprieve, and we are planning our representations carefully with them. This is a sensitive case, and I hope that the House will understand that it would not be sensible for me to go into further detail while these discussions are taking place. I will add one further thing. Since Linda Carty potentially faces the death penalty, I am sure that the House will wish to know that the Government reaffirm the position taken by our predecessors on the death penalty.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester]

My Lords, I thank the Minister very much for that reply, and particularly for the last sentence, which I am sure will be welcomed across the House. The opposition to the use of the death penalty in all countries and in all circumstances was something that the previous Government were much attached to, and it is very welcome that the new Government are taking that on board.

Linda Carty, a Briton from the island of St Kitts, has been on death row in Texas for nine years. Her trial has been described as a travesty; the provision of her defence counsel was a joke; and the founder of Reprieve described this as,

“a most desperate, outrageous miscarriage of justice”.

Will all possible efforts be made, including the possibility of the Prime Minister speaking to the Governor of Texas? Can I also have an assurance that Ministers will agree to meet members of Miss Carty’s family if they request such a meeting?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, this is a very difficult case and I do not want to comment from the government Benches on its conduct so far. It is very clear that Miss Carty is now in a very difficult situation. We are focusing our efforts not at the federal level but at the state level, because that is the right place. I do not exclude our doing anything necessary to help this lady in any way that is proper and effective.

[Baroness Stern]

My Lords, I visited the women’s prison in Gatesville in Texas in 2006. I spent some time on death row and met all the women there, including Linda Carty. I remember it as clearly as though it were yesterday, and there is no doubt in my mind that this is a very sad case and that that is a very sad place. Does the Minister agree that this is not just a question of opposing the death penalty, which, quite rightly, we do—I, too, was most grateful to hear her commitment to continuing that stance—but that it is also probably a huge miscarriage of justice? Although I do not wish to ask the noble Baroness to say anything that could jeopardise the negotiations, I ask her to assure the House that this issue will stay very near the top of the agenda for as long as Linda Carty is alive and that everything will be done at every stage to try to secure a reconsideration of her case.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I can give the House that assurance. I hope that noble Lords will also accept that, in Linda Carty’s interests, we need to be able to judge the appropriate methodology. Therefore, the fact that we do not necessarily hear a lot all the time does not mean that we are not trying to take the most effective action that we can.

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

Is the Minister aware that Mexico and Germany took the United States to the International Court of Justice and obtained a ruling that under international law it was illegal to execute a person who had not had the benefit of consular protection? Is the Minister aware that the lawyer who acted for Miss Carty did not obtain such protection? Will this Government take a step similar to that taken by Mexico and Germany in respect of their nationals?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, my noble friend is right to say that part of the problem in this case was that we were not notified by the Texas authorities, as should have been the case. That is one reason why our ability to help Miss Carty has come rather late in the day. As for the approach to the International Court of Justice, I am aware of that precedent. Our current advice is that it is not necessarily particularly helpful, but I certainly do not rule out pursuing that route if we have grounds to believe that it will help.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

Is the Minister also aware that President George W Bush tried to give effect to the Mexican and German cases, where the ICJ gave the rulings, but was unable to do so because of the recalcitrance of the state authorities? Does that not illustrate the great problem that this Government now have in deciding on the methodology?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I agree.

Freedoms and Civil Liberties

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Waddington]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what proposals they have to restore individual freedoms and civil liberties.

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

My Lords, the Government are taking urgent action to address the erosion of civil liberties and freedoms. We are committed to protecting our citizens from the big government approach that has created an intrusive, bureaucratic state. We have already introduced a Bill to scrap ID cards and the national identity register. We will also introduce a freedom Bill and repeal a number of unnecessary laws.

[Lord Waddington]

My Lords, I welcome my noble friend’s reply. Bearing in mind that even during the darkest days of the war, we allowed the right of conscientious objection against military service, should we not, when passing laws, try to provide for those who might find observance difficult on grounds of conscience? We must surely never again drive out of business organisations such as Catholic adoption societies, which were doing most valuable work in society, when their objections to placing children with gay couples could easily have been accommodated due to the very large number of other societies that support gay adoption.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I have great sympathy with the principle enunciated by my noble friend. This is a country that stands for freedom of conscience and the right of individuals to exercise it. We are certainly committed to upholding those principles and to allowing people such freedom to hold religious beliefs. However, we have to strike the right balance and ensure that we do not allow discrimination on any grounds. When it comes to offering public services, the law of the land must be obeyed. We do not have plans to change the current law, the effect of which, when it comes to Catholic adoption agencies, will take effect when the Equality Act is commenced. I see no contradiction, however, between that and the principles enunciated by my noble friend.

[Lord Brett]

My Lords, the noble Baroness declared war on big government. She also said in her previous answer that she saw no conflict with her answer to the preceding question. It rather conflicts with her statement of a war on big government. At the same time, in law and order, we are looking at 5,000 fewer prison officers and a 25 per cent cut in the police budget. Can the noble Baroness explain why that is not a lessening of the war on crime and why, in that area, the Government are doing far less their predecessor?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I think we are straying from the Question. I think everyone would accept that we have an extremely tight financial situation. It is not possible to continue with all departmental budgets at their previous levels, which were not funded, in any case, by the previous Government. It is for the police to decide where the operational effect will take place. We are, however, absolutely committed to effective policing.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

My Lords, reverting to my noble friend Lord Waddington’s Question, does the Minister agree that the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, under the convention, strike a perfectly fair balance in deciding, as the court did last week, that gay couples are entitled to the full protection of family life respect? The decision of our own Supreme Court in the United Kingdom yesterday was that gay asylum seekers also need protection on the grounds of their sexuality. Does the Minister agree, therefore, that if we want to protect civil rights and civil liberties, the best protection of the minimum standards lies in the European convention, the Human Rights Act and the devolution statutes?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, the noble Lord refers to yesterday’s ruling from the Supreme Court. I think that vindicates the position of the coalition Government. We do not intend to remove people from this country and send them home expecting them to hide their sexuality to avoid persecution. We will certainly be looking to protect people’s rights in that respect. I entirely accept that the European convention is part of the framework of human rights in this country, but it is also interpreted by British legislation.

[Lord Condon]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that when your Lordships next consider legislation in this area, it will be important to recalibrate the balance between, on the one hand, enabling the police and security services to work effectively and, on the other, not creating the impression of counterproductive legislation which encourages extremism and martyrdom?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I think the House would endorse the sentiments just expressed by the noble Lord.

[Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate]

My Lords, how will the Government explain to the victims of serious crime the gross injustice caused by the reduction in the number of convictions which will inevitably occur following the reducing of the DNA register?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, we do not accept that that will be the case. The Government intend to ensure that the all those who have committed crimes are on the DNA register, which was not the case under the previous Government.

[Lord West of Spithead]

The noble Baroness mentioned identity cards. At Buckingham Palace on Tuesday, I was delighted to have one because I did not have to take a passport, a council tax bill and my driving licence. One needs to be wary about this because we do need to prove our identity. My question relates to the totality of security and defence of the nation. The human rights aspect is part of that. Do we now have a date when the new national security strategy will be in place? Clearly, it is absolutely fundamental to the strategic defence and security review. One is slightly concerned about the timescales, bearing in mind that the review will have to come up with answers for the CSR by October. Do we have a date when that new strategy, which underpins everything, will be in place?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, we are straying far from the Question. However, that is being worked on at the moment in conjunction with the strategic defence and security review. We will certainly produce both papers in the autumn.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Is the Minister aware that vulnerable and elderly people in towns and cities throughout the United Kingdom feel much safer where there is an effective system of closed circuit television? Will she give an assurance that the coalition Government will maintain all the existing systems and, indeed, expand them?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, it is clear that CCTV, if properly used, is valued by the general public as a way of increasing their sense of security and providing evidence—provided it is working—should an incident take place. Equally, it is strictly in the interests of proportionality, and to retain public confidence, that it is properly regulated. It is the regulation of CCTV on which we shall focus.

Terrorism Act 2000

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2010 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will repeat a Statement made earlier today by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department. The Statement is as follows.

“Mr Speaker, I should like to make a Statement on stop and search powers under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. On Wednesday of last week, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that its judgment in the case of Gillan and Quinton is final. This judgment found that the stop and search powers granted under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 amount to the violation of the right to a private life.

The court found that the powers are drawn too broadly—at the time of their initial authorisation and when they are used. It also found that the powers contain insufficient safeguards to protect civil liberties. The Government cannot appeal this judgment—although we would not have done so had we been able. We have always made clear our concerns about these powers and they will be included as part of our review of counterterrorism legislation. I can therefore tell the House that I will not allow the continued use of Section 44 in contravention of the European Court's ruling and, more importantly, in contravention of the civil liberties of every one of us.

But neither will I leave the police without the powers they need to protect us. Since last Wednesday, I have sought urgent legal advice and consulted police forces. In order to comply with the judgment—but avoid pre-empting the review of counterterrorism legislation—I have decided to introduce interim guidance for the police. I am therefore changing the test for authorisation for the use of Section 44 powers from requiring a search to be ‘expedient’ for the prevention of terrorism, to the stricter test of it being ‘necessary’ for that purpose.

More importantly, I am introducing a new suspicion threshold. Officers will no longer be able to search individuals using Section 44 powers. Instead, they will have to rely on Section 43 powers, which require officers reasonably to suspect the person to be a terrorist. Officers will be able to use Section 44 only in relation to the searches of vehicles. I will confirm those authorisations only where they are considered to be necessary, and officers will be able to use them only when they have ‘reasonable suspicion’. These interim measures will bring Section 44 stop and search powers fully into line with the European Court's judgment. They will provide operational clarity for the police and they will last until we have completed our review of counterterrorism laws.

The first duty of government is to protect the public, but that duty must never be used as a reason to ride roughshod over our civil liberties. I believe that the interim proposals I have set out today give the police the support they need and protect those ancient rights”.

I commend the Statement to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his response. His first point was about what happened with the draft. As I understand it, this was one of those things that happen in government. The earlier draft, which the Home Secretary had not seen and had not approved, somehow escaped into the parliamentary Chamber, but it was not her view of what she needed to say. The Statement that I read is what the Home Secretary thinks is the correct position.

I entirely share the noble Lord’s sentiments about the tribute that we should pay to the police for the work that they do. That was particularly apt yesterday, which marked an occasion in our national life when we saw the effectiveness of the police, the resilience of the emergency services and, indeed, the bravery, courage and common sense of ordinary people. In essence, that is what will, in the end, get us through this period of international threat to us.

The noble Lord picked up the sentence in the Statement relating to our view that we would not have appealed the judgment had we been in office. He rightly said that the domestic court had previously rejected some of the arguments. However, it is fair to say that, in opposition, both parties of the coalition had been extremely critical not only of the excessive use to which the Metropolitan Police had put these powers but also—this is the second point, which the noble Lord did not mention—of the fact that the powers were drafted too widely. In our view, this law is defective. That does not mean to say that there is not legitimate need and that there may not be circumstances in which a power of this type will be needed. That is one of the issues that we will take up in the review.

The Home Secretary made it quite clear that this is interim guidance for an interim situation. The police cannot be left in legal limbo, which is why it is necessary for us to take these measures now. We have done so in consultation with the police. Their main concern was to ensure that they were operating legally, because not to be doing so would clearly leave them in considerable difficulty—indeed, in legal peril. They needed clarity and guidance, which is what they have been given. We will continue our discussions with them about the powers that may be necessary.

As for the views of others, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has told me that he agrees with the measures that have been taken. He takes the view that the position that has been arrived at is in substance desirable. We will look at whether that is the case and at whether there are contingencies in which it will be necessary to have some other reserve power, although we have not come to any judgment on that.

The noble Lord asked whether we will consult during the review process. Consultation will be built in to the review process. We do not intend that it should be only an internal governmental activity.

The final point was about the need to ensure that the security services and the police have the resources to keep us safe. Of course that is right. I hope that there is nothing between the two sides of the House on the question of taking national security seriously. However, we have to recognise that there is a difficult financial and public expenditure situation, from which the police cannot be entirely immune. None the less, I have confidence that the police take their priorities seriously and we in the Government will certainly act with due care in relation to public expenditure choices that directly affect national security.

[Lord Brett]

My Lords, it seems to me that much is placed on this being interim and on the review. Will the noble Baroness indicate the timescale? For how long will these interim measures be in force? When can we expect the consultation to be complete? When can we expect our security forces to have a clear understanding from Ministers of what is required for the future?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I do not think that the police have any doubt about their position. That position will continue for as long as we are not, in parliamentary terms, able or willing to put in place any other legislative provision. As I say, that will be a matter of consideration in government and consultation. There are a number of related issues in the whole area of counterterrorism and it does not make a great deal of sense to take decisions on one in isolation from considering the impact on others. A wider group of powers need to be considered together. Our aim is to ensure that as much of this package as possible is in the freedom Bill. Therefore, we are talking about a timescale in which the legislation will certainly begin its passage this year.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

My Lords, I welcome the Statement in so far as it goes, but I deplore the fact that there is yet another interim measure from the Government to meet our obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights. This has happened too often before and it is time that we met these problems in advance, instead of by having interim measures such as this put before us. The Statement says:

“We have always been clear in our concerns about these powers”.

This is a government Statement, so that presumably refers to the Conservative Opposition as was. Is that the right view? That leads me to ask whether the decision in Gillan and Quinton came as a surprise to what is now the Government or whether they are simply being wise after the event and after they have been forced to take this view. If the Conservative Opposition were always so concerned about these powers, why did they not do more to limit them when they had the chance, instead of being “critical”—I think that that was the word that the noble Baroness used—on the sidelines?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I would not say that this situation is tidy; it is not tidy. I entirely accept that it is unfortunate that we get into a situation in which we have to give some interim guidance. The Government take no satisfaction in the present situation. I say to the noble and learned Lord that there are limits to what you can do in opposition. We made our position fairly clear on the desirability of the way in which these powers were drawn and their use at the time. We have always made clear our intention to look at this legislation with a view to amending it in the context of the review that we are undertaking of counterterrorism powers. What happened is that the judgment intercepted the work that we were in any case undertaking.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, the noble Lord is right in his interpretation. What we have, in effect, are non-statutory guidelines, and the law remains in place. It is not to be ruled out that, should a contingency of an extreme kind arise—and I emphasise “extreme kind”—the Home Secretary would regard it as both right and within her powers to alter the guidelines. It is very important—I come back to this—that we do not put the police in the position of acting illegally.

The noble Lord asked one or two questions about the operation of Section 44 and whether we would regard the use of those powers as appropriate in the case of, for example, hardened targets. That is precisely the kind of issue that we are going to look at—the extent to which, for instance, there may be a very small number of very key sites or very sensitive events, such as the Olympics, where powers of this kind may be appropriate.

The House will forgive me for not wanting to go further than that, because these are the issues that arise out of the situation that we now have. They need careful consideration. We need to consult the police and we need wider consultation. In our discussions with the police, I have had no inkling or suggestion from them that they would regard themselves as impeded in their ability to protect the Houses of Parliament or one or two of the other sensitive sites mentioned. As I say, however, we want to review the powers available for all future contingencies.

[Lord Goodhart]

My Lords, I very much welcome the Statement that my noble friend Lady Neville-Jones has repeated. I also very much welcome the acceptance of the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights. The Liberal Democrats have been critical of Section 44 for a long time—pretty nearly since its original creation. Section 44 has been abused in the past, notably, as some of us may remember, by the arrest of the old gentleman who heckled the platform at a Labour Party conference. It has also been totally ineffective in preventing terrorist activities. No exercise of the powers under Section 44 in any case where there were no obvious grounds for suspicion has disclosed any evidence of terrorist activity. So I think that we will lose nothing by narrowing the effect of Section 44.

The proposals in the Statement are not a long-term solution; as the noble Baroness said, they are an interim solution. The Statement contains no specific changes to the Terrorism Act 2000. It simply contains intended changes in the application of the law. That means that those changes, not being part of any legislation, could be revoked without any reference back to Parliament. Does the Minister agree that it is therefore necessary to proceed with the amendments to the 2000 Act as soon as possible? How far has the review of the counterterrorism laws referred to in the Statement already gone? When is that review likely to be finished, so that it will be possible to take the essential step of altering the provisions of the 2000 Act?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, the counterterrorism review is currently under way. It has not got so far that we have cast in stone our future intentions on Section 44 —indeed, in the light of what has happened, we will accelerate our consideration of it. We hope to bring forward revised legislation on this point in the context of the freedom Bill, and that means the autumn. We do not intend to let interim guidance lie as part of public policy an instant longer than is essential and necessary. I am sure that the House agrees that it is an untidy situation and we need to clear it up as soon as possible.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, while we always welcome the alertness of the judiciary in interpreting the law and its vigilance in championing civil liberties, is it not also the case that judges are apt to interpret the law without particular regard for the practical consequences of their judgment? Yesterday’s judgment in the Supreme Court will surely make it more likely that there will be a significant increase in the incidence of gay asylum-seekers seeking to come to this country and, while we abhor the persecution of gay people in the countries from which they seek to escape, there will be significant practical and political consequences of that judgement. We now have the judgment on Section 44. I note that the Government are not complaining about it, but it does not make it any easier for them to fulfil their paramount responsibility to protect the lives and safety of our people. Is it not the case that the responsibility of Ministers is more difficult and wide-ranging than the responsibility of judges, notably to balance freedom with security? Should we not be wary of a written constitution that would greatly increase the law-making powers of the judiciary? Does the Government continue to believe that Parliament is properly the sovereign law-making body in this country?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I have no doubt that it is the duty of Ministers to balance security with our freedoms. It is also the duty of the Government, Ministers and government agencies to act proportionately. In this judicial defeat, if I can put it that way, we are in the area of proportionality, and we have to adjust. As for the supremacy of Parliament, yes, of course it is supreme.

[Lord Sheikh]

My Lords, I note that the Government will introduce interim guidelines and that a review of counterterrorism legislation will be undertaken. I have spoken in your Lordships' House about the use of Section 44 powers and the fact that a very high number of people from ethnic minority communities have been stopped and searched. Can the Minister assure me that under the interim powers, people from ethnic minority backgrounds will not be targeted? Can this point be looked into when the review of counterterrorism legislation is undertaken? Can the Minister also clarify why it is necessary for Section 44 powers to continue to be applied to searches of vehicles?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

Let me take my noble friend’s second point first. Section 43 does not contain any powers to stop vehicles. I think that the House will understand that it would not be very sensible not to have any powers at all to stop vehicles. In many respects, the greater danger may lie in someone, or persons, trying to do something in a vehicle. So it is necessary to be able to stop vehicles. Therefore, Section 44, as a matter of law, has to remain available for vehicles. In practice, however, it will be interpreted by using reasonable suspicion, as if it were a Section 43 power. I very much take the noble Lord’s point about the need for there not to be discrimination and disproportionality in the stopping of different groups in society. I think that that is a concern to the whole House, and it is being watched very carefully.

[Lord Judd]

Does the Minister agree that, quite apart from human rights and individual rights, this judgment is very much in the interests of good policing? Policing can be effective only with the maximum support and co-operation of the community. There is a real danger, in this very sensitive area, that policy can become counterproductive at the very time when we need that maximum co-operation.

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, I am sure that the whole House endorses that. I think that 7/7 was an example of the extraordinary importance of the community coming together. A noble Lord said earlier that there had been a considerable reduction in the use of Section 44 powers initiated and undertaken by the police. I think that that is in recognition of exactly the point that the noble Lord made; that is, it is important to be seen to be using the powers fairly and proportionately, and it creates resentment if those two characteristics are not present.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

My Lords, I was not going to say anything, until I heard the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, speak. Like my noble friend Lord Goodhart, I speak, I suppose, for the Liberal Democrat side of the coalition. Is the Minister aware that those of us in that part of the coalition greatly value the way in which the new Home Secretary and the Minister in this House respond to difficult judgments such as that of the European Court of Human Rights? The contrast, I am sorry to say, with former Home Secretaries and others from the opposition party when they were in power is very real. Again and again, I heard Labour Home Secretaries denounce either the courts of this country or the European Court of Human Rights when they lost cases. I am sure that the Minister is aware of that. What is so remarkable about the new Administration is that, although these cases involve difficult balances between national security and personal freedom, the new Home Secretary has not cavilled or quarrelled with the judgments but has accepted them as part of the rule of law. Does the Minister agree with me that it is the function of the judiciary, in partnership with the Executive and Parliament, to interpret and apply the law, and that the suggestion that our Supreme Court or the European Court of Human Rights are somehow less in touch with reality than Ministers is a heresy which I had hoped would no longer be expressed by the party opposite?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

I shall pass on to my right honourable friend the Home Secretary the compliments of the noble Lord. I think that we would all agree that this constitution functions well when its three parts, the Executive, the courts and Parliament, see eye to eye.