Offensive Weapons Bill

Baroness Williams of Trafford Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 28th January 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, the Opposition are generally in favour of this Bill, but I find the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, somewhat persuasive. I particularly like the way the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, put things in the general perspective of law. Even little deviations from sound general principles are a bad thing, so I hope the Minister will not reject this out of hand but will ponder this set of amendments. The only area I am slightly unsure about—the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, or the Minister may want to address this—is the argument that the defence has to be proved beyond reasonable doubt. My understanding was that there was a general piece of law that said that defences have to be proved only on balance of probability. It is important to know which of those tests the defence has to meet.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their points and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for tabling these amendments. As he explained, they address the construction of the new offences relating to the sale of corrosive products to under-18s, the prohibition on sending corrosive products to residential premises when bought online and the possession of a corrosive substance in a public place. The noble Lord’s basic premise is that it is unjust that a person who took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid committing the sale or delivery should be guilty of the offence, rather than having to rely on the permitted defence to establish his or her innocence. The same principled objection applies to the possession offence and the person who has a reasonable excuse for having a corrosive substance with them in a public place.

As the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said, this has echoes of the recent debates we had on the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill. However, as my noble friend Lord Howe indicated in that context, we are not persuaded that whichever way these offences are constructed will make much material difference to a suspect or how the police go about an investigation.

In relation to the sale offence and the offence of sending corrosive products to a residential premises, I think it is quite right that it should be for the seller to prove that they took reasonable precautions to avoid the commission of these offences. The seller will clearly know what checks they carried out to stop a sale to a person under the age of 18. In the shop context, they will know whether they asked the buyer in appropriate cases to verify their age, which will normally consist of asking them to produce a passport, a driving licence or an age proof card. In the online case, it is important that the seller has put in place some arrangement for checking the buyer’s age. Clearly where a seller has shown that they have verified age, no prosecution will take place.

In answer to the question asked by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, about the normal principles of criminal law, the Bill reflects knife crime legalisation going back at least to the Criminal Justice Act 1988. His point about consistency is important, but I can point to other examples in other areas of law.

Going back to sellers, it is important that they take responsibility in this area and it is right that they have to prove what checks they have made rather than placing the burden on the prosecution. That is what happens in relation to other age-related sales, such as knives, alcohol and tobacco, and the approach is well understood by retailers, trading standards and the police.

Similarly, with the offence on arranging delivery to a residential premises or locker when a corrosive product is bought online, it should be for the seller to ensure that they are not sending the product to a residential address and to make sure they have the appropriate checks in place to stop this happening. The seller should be able to do this easily, and I can see no benefit in placing the burden on the prosecution to prove that the seller made the appropriate checks.

In the possession offence, as I have said before—for example, on the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill—the police on the ground will use intelligence to decide whether someone may be in possession of a corrosive substance without good reason. They will not stop people coming out of B&Q with their cleaning products and question them, just as they do not stop people coming out of B&Q with garden shears and scissors. The police will use this power only where they have reasonable grounds for suspecting the person has a corrosive substance on them in a public place without good reason—for example, where a group of young people may be carrying a corrosive that has been decanted into another container. Establishing good reason on the street should be relatively easy. If a person can show they have just bought the cleaner and are taking it home to unblock their drains or that they are a plumber and need the substance as part of their work, good reason will have been established and no further action would be taken. It is only where a person cannot provide a good reason—for example, for why they have decanted the substance into another container that will make it more easily squirtable, or where they cannot say where they bought the substance or what they intend to use it for—that further action may be taken, and in this case it is quite right that the person should have to set out any good reason why they had the substance in a public place.

That aside, and returning to the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, it is important that we have consistency across similar offences. I have just explained the sale and possession of knives. We think that corrosives have the potential to be used as a weapon just as much as knives and that wherever possible the legislation dealing with the two should be consistent. Both corrosives and knives are widely available and have legitimate uses—they are not in and of themselves weapons—and to have a different approach for corrosives would suggest that they are somehow less of a threat as a weapon.

Retailers are familiar with the existing law relating to the sale of other age-related products and know what measures they need to put in place to ensure they comply with the law. It could be confusing to retailers if we now constructed these offences differently. The police are also familiar with the approach relating to possession and we are not aware that the good reason defence has caused any issues regarding possession of a bladed article in a public place.

On the question from the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, on the standard of proof, I can confirm that if a defence is raised, the defendant has only to prove that the defence is made out on the balance of probabilities. There was a question on Scotland: obviously it has a separate legal jurisdiction with its own sentencing framework. The Bill’s provisions work with the grain of the existing sentencing provisions. For example, the maximum penalty on summary conviction is 12 months in Scotland, but only six months in England and Wales. The same is true for the burden of proof, where the Bill reflects existing Scots law.

I appreciate noble Lords’ concerns but, as I said, the approach we have taken is to follow a well-precedented form for offences relating to other age-restricted goods. If we reconstructed the sales and delivery offences for corrosive products we would be creating a different legislative regime from other age-restricted products, such as for knives. I am therefore not persuaded that we need to change the construction of the new offences. With those words, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, will be content to withdraw his amendment.

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

This might have been dealt with before and I apologise if it has, but is a farmhouse a residential address? Farmers would certainly receive all sorts of corrosive products.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

It could of course technically be both.

[The Earl of Erroll]

So which is it for the purposes of the Bill?

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[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of the amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is right that we are in the hands of sellers and delivery drivers, who have quite a lot of responsibility. If they get this wrong, they could be convicted, go to prison and have a criminal record. I am not against the Bill—in general I support it—but it is reasonable for it to set out what people need to do to protect themselves. One way of going forward may be a police guidance scheme. Another would be requiring the delivery driver to take photographic evidence. This would be a very good thing to do, because it is important to protect the people who are doing this work. People do make unintentional mistakes. They need to know that the person at the door is the right age and can hand over documents as evidence, or that they have abided by a police-approved scheme to which their company has signed up. These amendments go a long way to ensure protection for the seller, as well as making sure that the items are handed to the right people who are entitled to buy them.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I am grateful to my noble friend for explaining these amendments, which deal with the evidence required to satisfy the defence if a seller is charged with selling or delivering a corrosive product to someone who is under the age of 18. As regards Amendment 3 to Clause 1, I understand my noble friend’s intention but I am doubtful that it is necessary or appropriate to require the police to certify a seller’s processes as adequate. There are already well-established and widely recognised age-restricted policies in place for retailers and sellers through Challenge 21 and Challenge 25. These policies are used day in and day out by retailers to deal with situations where an individual may appear to be under 18, particularly in relation to the sale of alcohol or tobacco. I have concerns about the value of asking the police to certify a seller’s processes and about the burden this would place on police forces. I am also concerned about whether this approach would undermine these established policies. Arguably this amendment would necessitate the police certifying the specific age-restriction policies of every individual seller of a corrosive product, whether a high-street store or an online marketplace. This not a valuable use of police time when we want them to be focused on preventing and tackling violence in our communities.

In any event, I am not persuaded that the police would be the appropriate agency to discharge this function. We must not forget the important role that trading standards plays and its expertise in this area. That said, I would have the same concerns about the resource implications for local authorities if they, rather than the police, were to be made responsible for certifying the systems put in place by all retailers of corrosive substances caught by the Bill.

The defence we have put in place for the Clause 1 offence is similar to that for the sale of knives to under-18s, and it seems right to have a seller prove that they took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid committing the offence of selling to an under-18. Similar considerations apply to Amendment 13, which would again require the police to certify as adequate a seller’s system in preventing, in this case, the remote sale of a corrosive product to someone under 18. We have not specified an age-verification system in the legislation as there are various types of systems available and, as the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, pointed out, the technology behind such systems is continuing to develop at a fast pace. As a result, we did not want to prescribe a specific method or set a minimum standard for what these systems need to do, first, because we need to ensure that we future-proof the legislation, and secondly, because it is for sellers to determine the most appropriate system for their businesses to be able to demonstrate that they took all reasonable precautions and exercised due diligence to prevent the sale of a corrosive product to an under-18.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I see the point the Minister is making. She referred to various age-verification systems. I do not know whether we are going to have any guidance from the Government when this Bill becomes law. I want to ensure that these products are not sold to young people, but equally I want a system whereby I am confident that the person selling these items has had to reach quite a high bar to get this wrong so I am more confident that they have sold them deliberately. Will there be some sort of guidance saying that the Government would expect a seller to be in a scheme for age verification, so that if you are a courier company delivering products we would expect you to be in a scheme that does this and your driver would have professional training to know that, when he knocks on the door, he has to have done such and such? We need to make sure that we give the maximum amount of direction to people so we avoid these things getting into the wrong hands.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord makes a perfectly practical point. We are aiming to produce guidance. We talked about shopkeepers the other day and the abuse of shopkeepers who are trying to abide by the law. I think some of the conversation we had with USDAW will prove very fruitful in developing our thinking on that.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

Will you produce guidance along the lines of what I have suggested? Or are you not sure yet? Will you get to it later on?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

We will produce guidance and I will of course take the noble Lord’s points into account. I cannot say whether supermarkets are currently part of the Challenge 21 or Challenge 25 scheme; I do not know the answer to that. However, in the production of guidance, you consult the various interested stakeholders to make sure that the guidance is as clear as it possibly can be.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

With the greatest respect, you would expect some of the bigger companies to have systems in place. I am more concerned about smaller couriers and shops—one-man-band operations—which may not have anything in place. Being directed to sign up to a scheme would be good for everybody concerned.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

In fact, I was thinking precisely of the small shop owner, who may not have the resource. If they could sign up or reference some sort of guidance that would be ideal. I was thinking along the same lines as the noble Lord.

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[Baroness Hamwee]

I mentioned that, not long before coming into this debate, I—and no doubt other noble Lords—had a note from the British Retail Consortium. It also makes the point about how helpful it would be to have guidance—“possibly through guidance”, it says. Different situations may be different, but we are all concerned about not just protecting the seller but making sure that purchasers are able to purchase when it is reasonable to do so. I think it was my noble friend who mentioned John Lewis’s current policy on sending cutlery through the post.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Earl, Lord Erroll, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, essentially come back to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, made. Sellers want to make sure they are abiding by the law but, as the noble Baroness said, buyers want to make sure they are abiding by the law as well. On the systems that the noble Earl raised, I hope I did not suggest that he was trying to imply a specific system. I made the point that it would be wrong to specify a system in the legislation, given that systems are developing all the time.

To answer the point from the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, about age-restricted products, I have already mentioned knives, alcohol and tobacco, but lottery tickets are age-restricted as well, of course. Retailers are very used to operating in these systems, without a specific approved system in place.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

This is a different type of retailer—hardware shops. You usually buy your lottery ticket from a different sort of place. I think we need to deal with these like for like.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord is both right and wrong. A shop might sell a range of products that includes all these things—I am thinking of Tesco, for example—whereas a corner shop might be entirely different.

The amendments would place additional burdens on sellers and delivery firms or couriers beyond the conditions proposed in Clause 2 that would need to be met by any remote seller who is charged with an offence of selling a corrosive product to someone under 18 and wants to rely on the defence for remote sales. We have already prescribed a tight set of conditions on remote sellers if they want to rely on the defence in Clause 2. There is clearly a balance to be struck, but I am not sure that we want to go further and be more prescriptive by imposing a requirement for photographic evidence, albeit that some firms may well want to adopt such an approach.

As for obtaining and retaining photographic evidence that the corrosive product was only delivered into the hands of someone aged over 18, I would have concerns about the storage for an appropriate period of such photographs under the general data protection regulation. The person who received the package would of course need to give their consent to any photograph being taken. We also need to bear in mind that it might not necessarily be the seller making the delivery; it could be a third-party delivery firm or a courier. That would raise the question of how the photographic evidence was transferred to the seller for retention. There is also a concern that the seller would not be able to fulfil the conditions set out for condition C in Clause 2 if the delivery firm or courier delivering the package failed to take and send the photographic evidence to the seller. The seller would not be able to demonstrate that they had taken all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to ensure that, when finally delivered, the package was handed over to someone over 18. I accept that these difficulties are not insurmountable, but they demonstrate the drawback of imposing a level of regulation beyond what is arguably necessary.

I reassure noble Lords that we will work with retailers, the police and trading standards on implementation of the measures relating to the sale and delivery of corrosive products to ensure that those measures are adequate. As I said, we will want to produce guidance to ensure that retailers and sellers know what steps they can take to ensure that they comply with the law. I hope that, with those explanations, the noble Lord will be happy to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

Could I just come back to the issue of getting people to provide information? I understand the point that the noble Baroness makes about the GDPR, but we want the person who is knocking on the door to take all reasonable steps to know who the person answering the door is. Age can be quite deceptive. I had to go to the Co-op last night to get a package. I had my passport and my driving licence and I had to put in a PIN, just to pick up a jacket. These days, people often buy things that come in the post or have to be picked up from the post office or elsewhere, so giving identification is not a big issue now. If you are not doing anything wrong, why would you not provide that information anyway?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I think that the noble Lord was referring to the taking and retention of photographs, which is slightly different, and we need to acknowledge the distinction.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for saying that there will be guidance. Perhaps we might drop that into the Bill on Report, just to make sure. I think that guidance would be enough, but we should recognise that we have chosen to put into the Bill the words “all due diligence” and “all reasonable precautions”. That is a very high test. If we had meant the current systems to apply, we should have left out the word “all”. Nobody gets killed by being sold a lottery ticket—or at least not just one—but we are looking here at things that might quite quickly turn into serious criminal incidents. If in court someone says, “I looked at his passport”, but the police prove that the person in question has no passport, the poor delivery driver or shop worker is sunk. Noble Lords might remember a rather amusing TV ad from when we watched such things, “We’re with the Woolwich”, where somebody showed their Woolwich passbook to get out of East Germany. This passport or driving licence can presumably be of any nationality. How is a relatively untrained shop worker or delivery driver supposed to know that this is a Polish passport, not a Polish bankbook? We are asking people for whom there is no structured training to act as if they are trained. Under such circumstances we have to—

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[Lord Paddick]

Would it help the Committee to suggest that the Government have put in Clause 4 exactly the sort of things the delivery courier should be looking at to take reasonable precautions?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, that is where the guidance comes in. All roads are leading back to the guidance. I hope I can leave it there.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, it was those sorts of concerns that led to me think of taking photographs, because taking a photograph of a document is a reasonable precaution. If you have not done it, you have not taken all reasonable precautions. Yet if you take a photograph you get into all sorts of complications because it is not required, so you are into GDPR in all sorts of interesting ways. Guidance therefore becomes very important and we ought to drop the requirement for guidance into the Bill. I am very grateful to my noble friend for her help on this and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

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[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendments 4 and 5, and I will also speak to the other amendments in this group. I looked in vain for Amendment 19 on the Marshalled List and the order of groupings today but I noticed that it is not there. As 19 comes before 20 and 21, I would like to speak to that as well because it also mentions custodial sentences—

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

It was in group 1.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

I am sorry. I mentioned at Second Reading that I was astonished that the Bill should bring forward the Home Secretary’s apparent desire to increase the number of mandatory short sentences while the Ministry of Justice and its Secretary of State, followed by the Prisons Minister last Saturday in the Daily Telegraph, oppose the mandatory short sentences because they were so ineffective. I would have thought that that ought to have been sorted out between the two Cabinet Ministers before the Bill was brought to the House.

When I was Chief Inspector of Prisons, I learned of the Scandinavian system, which gave to the sentencer prospectuses of what could be done with and for a prisoner. The sentencer took that into account in awarding the length of sentence and ordered that certain courses or programmes were to be completed by the prisoner so as they could rehabilitate him or herself. If the prisoner completed the mandatory parts of the sentence laid down by the sentencer, the governor of the prison could take the prisoner back to the sentencer and, because the prisoner has jumped through all the hoops that were set, ask that they please be released. That was a factor in reducing overcrowding in Scandinavian prisons.

What worries me is that our overcrowded and understaffed prisons are finding difficulty enough in producing programmes for longer-term prisoners. But they can do nothing whatever for short-sentence prisoners and therefore there is no purpose in people going to those prisons, because they will get absolutely nothing. If you expect that the purpose of the sentence is to rehabilitate, that will not happen in our present prison system. Staff shortages, for example, mean that there are not enough staff to escort people to programmes that they are meant to be attend. So even if a programme was laid down, it is unlikely that it would be completed.

I admit that community sentences need to be improved. In preparation for this debate, last week I visited the Wandsworth probation programme and asked staff what they could do with and for people accused of violent offences. They said that, at the moment, they could do absolutely nothing because they did not have the wherewithal. However, there is no doubt that, if they were given the wherewithal, they could devise a meaningful sentence that would gather credibility in the community.

I also spoke to the Justice Secretary last Thursday and mentioned that there was apparent disagreement between him and the Home Secretary. Personally, I am on his side, because I saw the effect of short sentencing in prisons and saw people coming out having got nothing. That does little to increase the reputation of the justice system in the community, and it can ill afford to lose any more of its reputation in the country.

I notice that, in her foreword to the Serious Violence Strategy, the then Home Secretary said two things. The first is this:

“The … Strategy represents a very significant programme of work involving a range of Government Departments and partners, in the public, voluntary and private sectors”.


That may be, but we have not as yet seen any evidence of this partnership working. At Second Reading, we talked a lot about a public health approach. I do not think that that approach has had time to bed in. The second thing she said was that:

“The strategy supports a new balance between prevention and effective law enforcement”.


Prevention has not yet been tried, and to lay down mandatory short sentences is imposing law enforcement on prevention and damaging the hopes that prevention may bed in and achieve something.

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[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, as you heard, Amendments 4, 5, 20 and 21 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, seek to replace the punishment that a person is liable to get on conviction, as set out in the Bill, with a community sentence. Amendments 6 and 7 allow conditions to be added to prohibit offenders from selling corrosive substances.

I am very sympathetic to these amendments. We have heard about the debate that is going on in Government at the moment between the justice department and the Home Office on sentencing policy. Generally, as we have heard, short-term sentences are not the right thing to do; they can be expensive and counterproductive, and they are not long enough to deal with a person’s issues. They can actually do more harm than good: the person can lose their job, home and family and then of course they have to go back out into the community. These amendments concern the delivery driver and the owner of the corner shop—the person who sold the products—not the young person who may want to commit other offences.

I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. Magistrates have the ability to look at the case in detail and decide on the best punishment. It could be that, for a second or third offence, prison might be the right place to put this person, because they will not listen. Equally, I want to make sure that the magistrates deciding these cases have that ability because they will know whether the offence merits a community sentence. I want to hear that a suite of punishments is available to the court and not have it driven down that they must impose a mandatory sentence. On that basis, although I have some sympathy with the amendments as they are, I want a much broader suite that enables the court to look at the evidence before it and make a sentence that it believes is appropriate.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for tabling these amendments and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for speaking to them, as it provides us with the opportunity to debate the appropriateness of the penalties we are proposing for anyone found guilty of selling a corrosive product to someone aged under 18 or for arranging the delivery of a corrosive product to residential premises or a locker. I am not persuaded of the case for replacing custodial sentences of up to six months for the sale and delivery offences with community sentences. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, very articulately outlined why they might be necessary for some, but not all, offences. Let me explain my reasons for this.

We need to consider the significant harm corrosive products can cause if they are misused as a weapon to attack someone. My noble friend Lady Eaton pointed out one such circumstance in which this might happen: domestic abuse settings. The effects can be significant and life-changing for a victim, leaving them with permanent injuries, not to mention causing serious psychological harm. But it is important to be clear that in providing this maximum custodial penalty we are providing the courts with a range of penalties, from custody through to a fine or both. That gives the courts the option to impose a community sentence if that is most suitable, taking into account all the circumstances of the offence and, of course, of the offender.

There is also the requirement under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 that the court has to be satisfied that the offence is so serious that only a custodial sentence can be justified, so we can have every confidence that our courts will be sentencing offenders appropriately. Where a custodial sentence is justified they will impose it, but where a community order would be better for punishment and rehabilitation while protecting the public nothing in our provisions prevents it. There is also the broader legal framework to consider and the novel problems of a maximum penalty being a community order.

I must point out to noble Lords that, under Section 150A of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, a community sentence can be imposed only where the offence is punishable by a prison sentence. That is an important point to note. Even if it were possible to change the maximum penalties we are proposing, it would raise the problem that if someone wilfully breached their community order, then, as the law stands, it would not be possible to sentence them to custody. The courts would be able only to re-impose another community sentence. As a result, it is important that custodial sentences are available to the courts as one of the penalties available for anyone convicted of the sales offence. Such an approach is also consistent with the range of penalties available to the courts for anyone who has been convicted of selling a knife or bladed article to a person under the age of 18.

It was very clear from the debates in the House of Commons that we should treat the threat of violence from corrosives as seriously as that from knives. We have therefore tried to ensure that the offences relating to corrosives mirror those for knives wherever possible, as we discussed. I note that this approach was strongly supported by the Opposition during the detailed consideration of the Bill in Commons Committee. These amendments would undermine that approach, and would in effect be saying that selling a corrosive product to someone under the age of 18 was less serious than selling a bladed article to a person under the age 18.

I add that, as with other age-restricted products, in many cases it is the company selling the product or arranging for its delivery that would be prosecuted. Although the person at the checkout desk is sometimes prosecuted, it is more likely the case that it will be the company operating the store, because it will be responsible for ensuring that procedures and training are in place to avoid commission of the offence. This goes back to the guidance point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. Where it is a company that is being prosecuted, the sentence is likely to be a fine rather than a custodial or community sentence, but if an individual is prosecuted, the full range of penalties should be available.

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[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her helpful, informative and careful reply. I particularly welcome what she said about the need to think about placing women in prison, given the stubbornly high level of female imprisonment over many years now. I was thinking about the fact that one in 10 lone-parent families is headed by the man. Is there any advice to the courts on whether, when deciding on sentencing, they should take into account whether a man is looking after the children in the family? The Minister will not have it to hand, but I imagine that there is some guidance on that. Perhaps we can look at it at some point.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I am happy to look at that point. Of course, every case is different, so I cannot give a pronouncement here in Committee this afternoon. I have visited Styal prison, an all-female prison near to where I live. I would imagine that Styal is an example of best in class, as it tries to support the family as opposed to just dealing with the woman in custody. I recommend any noble Lords who get the chance to visit that prison, which is an example of a very supportive environment.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, we have ranged widely and it is tempting to respond to some of the points that have been made, continuing that wider debate, as opposed to focusing on Clauses 1 and 3, but I will try to resist that.

I think that we all agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, that this is about the quality of sentences. I would regard it as rather despairing to accept that there should be imprisonment because community sentences are inadequate—not fit for purpose, in the jargon. I referred to comments made in April last year, I think, by the Secretary of State for Justice, David Gauke, in response to evidence published by the MoJ showing that, for people with matched offending backgrounds, community orders were more effective than a short prison sentence at reducing offending.

I should make it clear that we are not in favour of selling corrosives that may be misused—I do not want that to come out of this debate. Clause 6 includes the offence of possession, and it is this clause that prompts me to ask whether the Minister can confirm that the offences under Clauses 1 and 3 are summary only offences. Clause 6 refers to conviction on indictment, which would allow imprisonment for up to four years. One always learns something, and I did not expect to learn about the 2003 Act. There are two ways of looking at that: either our amendments are fatally flawed or we have material to come back to at Report. That is neither a threat nor a promise, but perhaps the Minister can answer my question about summary only offences.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I can confirm that to the noble Baroness.

[Baroness Hamwee]

We have all shared a lot more of our views on this Bill than I thought likely to be the case when I tabled these two amendments. I beg leave to withdraw.

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[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, if I can give some comfort to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I did not understand it either.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I am sure that the noble Baroness is very much comforted. I hope I can clarify the meaning.

Amendment 12 seeks to test why it is necessary to include in Clause 2(6)(a) the words,

“by the same or a similar method of purchase to that used by the buyer”.

There are many different ways to make purchases online or in response to an advertisement by post or telephone. The simple purpose of the condition set out in Clause 2(6)(a) is to ensure that, at the time of making the sale, the seller had the required arrangements in place to verify the age of the buyer. This would assist in proving that an offence had been committed.

Amendment 16 seeks to clarify why Clause 2(10) uses the term “supply” instead of “delivery”, given the terms of the Clause 1 offence. The use of “supply” is correct in this context because it is about the actual handing over of the product to a person or their representative at the collection point, rather than its delivery to the address from where the buyer ordered the product. I hope that provides clarification, although the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, is looking even more puzzled than she initially was.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I am afraid I remain a bit puzzled. I do not find all of this Bill entirely easy. My prejudice was confirmed this morning when, ironically, I got a rather painful paper cut from the Offensive Weapons Bill. On the second point, “supply” has all sorts of other connotations, particularly with the drug trade. That perhaps diverted me, but “delivery to a person” is not the same as delivery to premises. I remain puzzled by that. I will have to read what the Minister said about Amendment 12, but I thought she more or less said what I said I thought it should mean without the rather difficult words. I will go back and read that.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I am confused as well, so I am in good company. Maybe an example would help the Committee. I am certainly confused about what the words mean.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Would it be helpful if I wrote to noble Lords giving examples?

[Baroness Hamwee]

I think that would be an excellent idea. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[The Earl of Erroll]

I apologise for my earlier intervention that should have come under this clause. I can see that it is dealt with in Clause 3(6) about farmhouses, and so my earlier intervention was irrelevant. However, the noble Lord has a very good point about why we are banning delivery to residential premises if there is someone there who can prove that they are over 18. The ban is actually not about whether the substance goes to residential premises. There are many reasons why you might want something delivered. For instance, if you are cooking and things like that—I know that is a later section. There are cleaning products and stuff like that. I cannot see the purpose of the ban if the delivery is being accepted by someone who is over 18. As I said in my earlier intervention, it is easy to do now with modern technology; we can now age-verify people extremely accurately.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, as we have discussed, Clause 3 makes it an offence, where a sale is carried out remotely, for a seller to deliver, or arrange for the delivery of, a corrosive product to residential premises or to a locker. Given the concerns over the use of corrosive substances in violent attacks and other criminal acts, to restrict access effectively we believe that it is necessary to stop delivery to private residential addresses. This does not mean that corrosive products cannot be purchased online in the future, merely that individuals will be expected to collect the product from a collection point where their age can be verified before the product is handed over to them. This provision is important as it will ensure that checks are made and that the purchaser will need to prove that they are 18 or over in order to be able to purchase and collect a corrosive product. If the purchaser cannot collect the corrosive product in person, they would have to be able to send a representative who is also over the age of 18.

We have also included an exemption within the provision to ensure that deliveries to businesses that are run from home—such as a farm—would not be affected by the prohibition on delivery to a residential address, for example, where corrosive products are ordered by small family-run businesses, such as metal working, soap making or even farms, in the case of the noble Earl, Lord Erroll. We have also provided defences that are available in cases where the individual has taken all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid committing the offence.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, questioned why both Clause 3 and Clause 4 are needed. Clause 3 relates to the dispatch of corrosive products bought online in the UK to a residential premises or locker in the UK. We cannot apply the same restrictions on sellers who are based overseas without taking extraterritorial jurisdiction for this offence. Such a step would be inappropriate for a sales offence such as this and, in any event, there would be practical difficulties mounting a prosecution given that an overseas seller would not be within the jurisdiction of the UK courts. Clause 3 is therefore supported by Clause 4, which makes it a criminal offence for a delivery company in the UK to deliver a corrosive product to a person under the age of 18 where that corrosive product has been bought from a seller overseas and where the delivery company knows what it is delivering. The purpose of Clause 4 is to try to stop overseas sellers selling corrosives to under-18s in the UK and having them delivered to a person under the age of 18. There is no overlap between Clauses 3 and 4; we think that both are needed. Clause 3 deals with UK online sales and Clause 4 deals with online sales from overseas sellers.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, again brought up the use of home as a business, which he has mentioned to me before. It will be a matter for the seller under Clause 3 to satisfy themselves that the delivery address is being used for a purpose other than residential purposes. If they cannot satisfy themselves, they should not deliver to that address. Again, it is something that we can deal with in the planned guidance. He also mentioned to me previously his concerns about Amazon’s terms of trade in relation to the sale of alcohol. We are clear from evidence of test purchases of knives that we cannot rely on such terms of business to ensure that the law on age-related restrictions is properly adhered to in the case of online sales.

[Lord Paddick]

My Lords, I have to confess to being even more confused than I was before. Is the Minister saying that you can purchase corrosive substances from a seller overseas and have them delivered to your residential premises, but you cannot get corrosive substances delivered to your residential address if you order them from a UK seller? That appears to be the effect of Clauses 3 and 4.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Yes, I am.

[Lord Lucas]

That seems a bit odd. If you can get the corrosive stuff only from overseas sellers, you will get the rest of your stuff from an overseas seller too because it is that much more convenient. If there is no positive effect—because people can still get the corrosive substances from an overseas seller—why ban getting them from a UK seller? It is really very easy. A lot of sellers that you think are in the UK are overseas.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

Can I be absolutely clear? Are we saying that you cannot buy it from a UK seller but you can buy it from an overseas seller?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

You can buy it from either, but the mechanisms for age verification are slightly different.

[Baroness Hamwee]

We have referred quite a lot to Amazon. I do not use it very much, but the few times I have, I have ordered from Amazon but got my items from the producer or seller, which was often in the UK. Is the seller overseas or in the UK in that situation?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

If the seller is in the UK, the seller is in the UK. If the seller is overseas there is a slightly different mechanism. As I said, that is because of our ability to enforce sales in the UK as opposed to online sales abroad. The two are very different, but we are banning the delivery of corrosive substances to under-18s when ordered from an overseas seller, just as we are banning that here.

[Baroness Hamwee]

But if I order from Amazon, am I buying from Amazon or from the manufacturer in the UK?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

That depends entirely on whether the seller is a UK seller or an overseas seller.

[The Earl of Erroll]

I think the contract is with Amazon, because you pay Amazon for the product. I therefore think Amazon is technically the seller. The website could well be hosted abroad and Amazon has its headquarters abroad. Therefore, your contract is with someone in a foreign country, but the delivery agent may be someone in the UK who happens to have the product and is remunerated by Amazon for it. I am not at all clear. Because this is so obscure, it seems that aligning the two clauses would be sensible—remove the residential bit from Clause 3 and insist on proper age verification of the person receiving the goods, whether the address is residential or business.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, if you buy from Amazon, you are buying from Amazon UK.

[The Earl of Erroll]

I will put in an order now.

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[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I think it is because there is an unwillingness to do that with UK sales. We have made provision for this arrangement to apply where the product is picked up, but we cannot impose extraterritorial jurisdiction on overseas sellers and therefore we are putting the onus on the courier to ensure that the product is labelled as a corrosive substance. That is why the two schemes are slightly different.

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[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

It seems that in this debate we have highlighted a massive hole in this legislation. Obviously when legislating on matters such as this, you are legislating not for the law-abiding people but for those—villains, crooks and suchlike—who want to do harm to others. It now seems that if you are a person who wants to use these products to attack somebody, you can go to a bad company abroad that will very happily sell them to you. You can make the transaction and the product will come in the post. You think, “Thanks very much”, and off you go to commit your crime with no problem at all. That is a very bad place for us to be in. It might be useful if the noble Baroness could write to those taking part in the Committee to explain where we are, because a big coach and horses could be driven through the Bill in this area. Unfortunately, we will find companies abroad that will sell to bad people in this country, making a mockery of the law that we are trying to pass here.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, obviously in a perfect world the overseas arrangements would mirror the home arrangements, but the rigour of the age-verification procedures applied to the arrangements for pick-up points cannot be relied on or effectively enforced for home deliveries. It would be great if we could do the same for both situations but we cannot, although I shall be very happy to talk about these issues further before Report.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

Given the lack of clarity, if a letter could be sent to us before any discussion takes place, that would be good.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I am very happy to do that.

Clause 3 agreed.

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[Lord Tunnicliffe]

May I join the noble Baroness and say that I too am confused?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, I fear that I am about to confuse people further—I hope not—because the noble Baroness is effectively asking why Clause 4 is drafted on the basis that the delivery arrangements for an online sale made to a vendor based overseas will have been made at the point of contract and not subsequently. It therefore might be helpful if I explain how we have drafted the clause in this way.

The purpose of Clause 4(1)(c) is to avoid criminalising a delivery company in instances where an overseas seller has simply placed a package containing a corrosive product in the international mail. By doing this, it then places an obligation on the delivery company, and potentially the Royal Mail, to deliver the item without having entered into a contract or necessarily knowing that the package contains a corrosive product. If we did not have the provision in place and in combination with the provisions of Clause 4(1)(d), which makes it clear that the company was aware that the delivery arrangements with the overseas seller covered the delivery of the corrosive product, then delivery companies such as the Royal Mail would be committing an offence.

We want to mitigate this, which is why we have constructed the offence in this way so that it requires the delivery company to have entered into specific arrangements to deliver corrosive products on behalf of an overseas seller.

The noble Baroness looks far less confused than she did in my previous explanation and I hope I have provided the explanation she seeks.

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, that is perfectly clear and I am grateful. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Paddick]

My Lord, if I may have a second go, until very recently I did not support particular protections for shop workers. Being from a policing background, I know we have taken the steps in the law to protect law enforcers, and recently there has been a Bill to protect all emergency workers in this way. But here we are talking about people who are intent on violence; they are looking to get their hands on knives or corrosive substances to commit violence. That is the sort of person that these shop workers are likely to confront, and that is why I am now convinced that this is the right thing to do.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said I would say that there is no problem. I am not going to say that, but I am very grateful to him for explaining his amendment. He attaches particular importance to affording greater protection for retail staff, and his noble kinsman, the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, raised this question last week. It was a very good opportunity to discuss the issue, which is of great concern. I understand the concerns of retailers and their staff about being threatened or attacked in the course of their duties, including as part of verifying a person’s age when selling a corrosive product. As my noble friend Lord Deben said, it may be those very people who want to buy these things who will be those who mete out the abuse on retail workers. Nobody should have to experience this sort of behaviour at their place of work, especially when providing a service to members of the public.

As I said at Second Reading, the Minister for Crime, Safeguarding and Vulnerability held a roundtable on 11 December with David Hanson MP, Richard Graham MP and representatives from the retail sector, including USDAW and the British Retail Consortium, to discuss what more we can do ensure greater protection for shop workers. Last week, I met USDAW to see what more we can do to ensure these greater protections. Following the discussion at the roundtable I am very happy to update the Committee. We will be taking forward the following actions: first, the call for evidence, which I spoke about last week and is intended to help us ensure that we fully understand this issue and look at all the options for addressing it; secondly, that we provide funding to the sector to run targeted communications activity to raise awareness of the existing legislation that is in place to protect shop workers; and thirdly, we are refreshing the work of the National Retail Crime Steering Group, co-chaired by the Minister for Crime, Safeguarding and Vulnerability and the British Retail Consortium. An extraordinary meeting of the group, focused exclusively on violence and abuse towards shop workers, will take place on 7 February. That discussion will help to shape the call for evidence.

In addition, the Sentencing Council is reviewing its guidelines on assault. A consultation on a revised guideline is anticipated to commence this summer. These measures are intended to complement existing work under way to tackle this issue. For example, the Home Office is providing funding of £1 million for the National Business Crime Centre over three years between 2016 and 2019. The centre was launched by the National Police Chiefs’ Council in October 2017 to improve communication between police forces on business crime, promote training and advice, and help to identify national and local trends.

In addition, through the national retail crime steering group, which includes representatives from across the retail sector, the police and others, we are taking forward a range of work to strengthen the collective response to these crimes, including: the creation of a “crib sheet” for retailers to use when reporting violent incidents to the police so that they get the information they need to support a timely and appropriate response; exploring options for improving consistency in the recording of business crime by the police, which will include a short pilot analysis of forces applying business crime flags; and the development of guidance on impact statements for businesses to increase their use. These statements give businesses the opportunity to set out the impact a crime has had and are taken into account by courts when determining sentences.

I know that there are concerns about the adequacy of the existing legislation for protecting those selling age-restricted products. The call for evidence is intended to help us understand better how the existing law is being applied and whether there is a case for reform, including in the context of the sale of age-restricted products. However, I want to provide some reassurance about the legislation we have in place, without dismissing noble Lords’ points. A wide range of offences may be used to address unacceptable behaviour towards shop staff—including those who sell age-restricted items—covering the full spectrum of unacceptable behaviour, from using abusive language to the most serious and violent crimes.

Some of the existing offences available include behaviour that causes another to fear the immediate infliction of unlawful violence, which is already an offence of common assault under Section 39 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. Where shop workers are threatened or experience abusive language, this may be captured by the offences under the Public Order Act 1986. There is also the Offences against the Person Act 1861, which means that assaults against shop workers could be considered as assault occasioning actual bodily harm under Section 47 of that Act. In addition, courts have a statutory duty to follow sentencing guidelines when considering any penalty to be imposed further to criminal conviction, unless it is not in the interests of justice to do so. In all cases, the fact that an offence has been committed against a person serving the public may be considered an aggravating factor for the purpose of passing sentence.

In answer to my noble friend Lord Deben and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, the specific offence in Amendment 3 could be counterproductive and encourage prosecutions for the new obstruction offence with a maximum penalty of a fine—I think that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, made that point as well—rather than a more serious offence, such as assault, which carries a higher penalty. That said, and going through the list of offences that this may capture, we understand retailers’ concerns about the risk of their staff being threatened or attacked—particularly, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, said, for smaller retailers, such as corner shops. The call for evidence is intended to improve our understanding of the issue and identify potential solutions. We will seek to issue the call for evidence as soon as is practically possible.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, asked whether shop workers were law enforcers. It is a moot point on which I think we will agree to differ. I was trying to make the point that they are not policemen but they have to uphold the law. With that, I hope that I have given the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, enough to help him to withdraw his amendment.

Amendment 24 (to Amendment 23) agreed.